Its the weekend!...and the week following....

Oh god, so behind, but here we go!

That Saturday,  Ingrid, Jalae and I met up to discuss the events of the previous weekened. Ahhh so many good times.

Then I had to go and meet the family (the aussie family) and hung out there for a little bit. We crafted and read stories and  had a whale of a time! Hahahha.

After that I had a bit more christmas shopping to do so went into town to Harrods and stuff, got bits and bobs, and finished my christmas shopping! Super early! Went home and got fish and chips....omnomnom. it was a brilliantly successful day and X Factor topped it all off!

Sunday, Edward, my cousin, popped round. He was in town for work. I was a very good British host and gave him a cup of tea and a tour before we went to the pub for a roast. It was gooooooooood. I gave him most of my christmas presents to take home too, so that was quite a decent postal saving for me!

That afternoon, Jalae popped round and we watched the ABs v Ireland game, and had a great time stuffing our faces with lollies and chips and coke znd yummyness. This all came out at the end when the game got so intense and I couldnt stop shaking!! oh god, what an epic game!!

Monday was the first day I had working at other places, and to start off I was working at Lords Cricket Ground - very exciting. It wasnt much, just a lunch, but I was thee from 11-5 and had to remember a lot about how to serve tables, I havent done that for quite a long time!! It was for some cricket club lunch thing, wasnt overly exciting. But they have a staff canteen there where we got served a hot lunch for £2 so that was quite good. After finishing up and going home via the library, I was exhausted! But..... I had to get up at 5am on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning and afernoon, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning and afternoon and Friday morning I was working for the promo company I work for, doing some promo for Asda, a supermarket. They are just starting a new click and collect service so people could pick up their groceries from the tube stations. So we were there for the rush hour crowds.....joy. it actcually was pretty fun and the people I was doing it with were awesome, it was neat to be able ti hang out with some people my own age. We had lots of laughs and a generally awesome time, apart from the bitter cold!!

In between on Tuesday, I went back to the Aussie family for a bit of hang out tjme and we booked my tickets to come to Australia! I got the last seat avialable on the flights, so lucky we booked them then!

On Wednesday, after the early morning shift, I literally went home to bed! After napping, and library-ing and getting a haircut (I couldnt have long, shaggy winter hair for Austalia!) I had my last ballet lesson. Ive really enjoyed doing the ballet, and have signed up to do it again, as well as a jazz class, next year. Should be fun!

Thursday in between, well, I pretty sure I just went home and slept again haha. I was exhausted!

Friday afterwards,  I went to Camden town to get some stuff, but cos I was so early, the markets werent opened yet, so I went back home to bed haha. I slept for a bit, but then I got up and did some packing. I had to pick Jake up from school with a friend for a playdate, so that was fun. It was a pretty cute playdate and we had a lot of fun mucking round. 

Once the parents were home, I went out to Brent Cross to go out to the craft shop so I could finish my scrapbook before I came home. I spend far too much money there, but its a good store with lots of fun stuff!

Better get off now and do some real stuff.....

Ha!

TWICKENHAM

So, man, what a weekend this turned out to be!

I left home in the morning around 10am, and walked down to Primark in Kilbirn quickly, cos I needed a black scarf, and a small black bag, and a coffee! I caught the train, got hassled by many English Supporters on the extremly squashed train, was offered beers and ciders on the journey there, and finally made it to Richmond, where I met Ingrid.

We had planned on going to get some food, but that never happened cos we found the cheap shuttle to Twickenham, so we decided to get on that and see what happened when we got to the stadium. We got there, and it was like a massive party, fanzone type area. With a big band, trailers of food and drinks, big promo activities, all kinda of fun stuff! We found ourselves a somewhat less shady looking burger trailer, got something to eat, marvelled at the crowds and the atmosphere before we went into the stadium.

The stands didn't open for another half hour or so, and there was quite a big crowd gathering on the concoursey bit, so we decided to go check that out. Turns out that was where the teams came through. They didn't get a seperate, private entrance like at Westpac, they have to walk a gauntlet of people to get to their changing rooms. So we made a few friends while we waitied for the teams to turn up. It wasn't much, but the band played, and we cheered (but most of the AB's had massive doof doof headphones on) and then we went to find out seats.

I don't quite get why England wore purple

RICHIE

SEE! DOOF DOOF

 We found our seats, which were in the lower tier, so it meant we could pretty much go and stand pitch side while the teams warmed up. Again, somehow we happened to be right down the All Blacks end, so we watched them warm up, saw Justin Marshall, and the Sky Guys do their cross, and were just generally in awe of the fact that we were at Twickenham!

The Sky Cross to Kiwiland

We went to our seats for the anthem and Haka. The Anthems were ok, nothing special, at least they had a decent person singing them and they did both languages. For the Haka though, it was DROWNED out! We couldn't hear anything. The stupid English were singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"....grrr. Also, we need a song to sing back at them. Po Karekareana just isn't quite right (Plus, no one really knows the words!).

This is what was on the field for the anthems.....

And we settled down to watch a game. It was a great game for the first half, of course cos we were down the AB's end. Kieran Read scored right in front of us, yay! We had an equal lot of Kiwis and Poms round us, so there was a lot of banter which was fun. I even saved the spider on the Pom's rugby shirt, much to the digust of many of the girls around!

I went to get drinks at half time, my god the line for the male toilets wasn't even a line, it was like a bloody mosh pit. I didn't walk past the female toilets, but I just hope it was a little more civilised.

Anyway, game pics -

After the game, we went halfway round the stadium, cos thats where they were giving Dan his 100th cap and all the exciting presentations. I thought it wasn't nice that the English team just went straight into their changing room and didn't wait around for the presentations. But we did, and a whole bunch of Kiwis, and thats what matters!

I was pleased with these numbers.

Again, I saw TJ and he was walking back into the sheds, gave him a call and he saw me, waved and went it. Very important for later on!

The bars at the stadium were open for 2 hours past the game finishing, so Ingrid and I went to get a drink and then we went back out to where the teams walked in eariler on.

We were just standing there, chatting away to each other and this guy (Tongan/Kiwi) started to talk to us. Obviously, we started talking back, cos us Kiwis are too cool not to. He was great. And this is where I shall finish this blog, and start the next one, for the real big story starts here........

Bit of an exciting week - LOTS OF RUGBY!!

So after my amazing weekend, I ended up being quite sick - which was not so much fun. Just coldy, but feeling real yuck and blocked up and gross.

So on Monday, I literally slept till 12.30 and then was super hungry - so made some super slimy pasta which felt amazing going down my scratchy throat. When I went to pick Jake up from school, we went on a bit of a box hunt after school. He had to go as something number related to school on the Friday coming up, and Emma and I had talked about it on Sunday night and decided we should try make him a dice costume. So for that, we needed a box.

Once we took it home and I managed to cut it down to size (again, no injuries people, can we all marvel at this?) we gave it a nice coat of white paint. It was a huge job. Only because Jake made it so difficult. As Emma put it, Jake went way to Jackson Pollock on us, and managed to get paint everywhere, even under his armpit (I don't get it). But once we had tidied up, and the box had dried a bit, it looked pretty good.

A pre dotted di(c)e

Tuesday, I was meant to go to the gym, but I had missed out on booking the early class, so decided to catch up with a mate for coffee who I hadn't seen in a while, and we had a lot to discuss! So by the time I got to the gym for my pilaties class, I was feeling full of yuck, so I went back home again, and had another nice afternoon sleep, which left me feeling a lot better! That afternoon, I cut out a whole lotta circles out of cardboard and painted them black. Jake wasn't so into that, but once I stuck them on the dice he loved the final product!

Wednesday, I still wasn't feeling great, but I'd booked in for a personal shopping thing at Forever 21 in Oxford St, and I really wanted to go, so I did. I had a great time shopping with this lady, she had picked out some outfits for me and then after trying them on I went all around the store showing her what kinda stuff I liked and she was great at helping me put it all together into an outfit and showing me what works. It was awesome!

It was a super nice sunny day, and Jen and I had agreed to meet up and go and eat some lunch in the park. So we went to M&S. As we were going in, I saw a rather large, tall, familiar looking man walk out of the store. It took me a few seconds to place who it was, but then when I looked around his mates, I realised it was Jeremy Thrush, and Ma'a Nonu, and a whole bunch of the All Blacks! I went a little giddy, and was just talking to Jen being all "OMG Its the All Blacks" and kinda moving forwards a little before I was just like, Oh wtf, and I went up to them and asked for a photo. They were kinda surprised to be recognised I think, cos they all looked a little stunned, but I eyed up Jeremy Thrush and just said "Oh come on, I'm from Wellington" and all the guys did that little "oh she actually knows who we are" kinda laugh thing. So I eventually conned them into taking a photo with me. Liam Messam didn't wanna be in it, so he took the photo while Jen just stood by awkwardly watching, cos she didn't know who they were! It was all very surreal, running into the All Blacks in the middle of London, but it was also super cool, and I got very excited! After the photo, Ma'a Nonu asked me where the nearest Nando's was, I had no idea and I tried to direct them in the general direction, but I got it completely wrong. But then I tweeted them about it and I think they found it eventually. When we went into the shop, the security guard pulled us up and was like "who were those guys?" and when we said the All Blacks, he had no idea who they were, lolz.

Jen and I had a great picnic in the park after that and then I had to mission it up to the Sports Fields to pick up Jake and then he had a play date, so I pretty much had the evening to myself.

Thursday I attempted my gym class in the morning, but it didn't go down to well, I was a sweaty heap of mucus at the end of it - yuck! I came home, and slept the arvo away haha.

Emma's Mums' were here for the Weekend, her mum Jen and her partner Soo. It was cool to have them here and finally meet them, and have them look after Jake! We hung out in the afternoon, and I spent the evening cleaning my room, while they were all down here chatting. I think thats something I miss a lot from home, is just hanging out and chatting with people at night, I need to start to get out more!!

Friday, I missed out on booking my gym class this day, which turned out to be a blessing!

But first up, Jake had to go to school in his costume. He was super proud to be wearing it, and it seemed to get a really good reaction when we turned up at school!

One of my friends over here was slightly gutted that she missed out on seeing the AB's in town the other day (I don't know why, she's not really into rugby) and so she wanted to go to try and see them today. So I manged to find out which hotel they were staying at (which wasn't too hard, because of all that press about the English Journo that snuck in, all the papers printed the hotel name) and we hung out there. We were the only females there for most of the time, although a few more showed up when the AB's emerged. They were in and out all morning for the first few hours we were there, but we just kinda watched. There were a couple of older guys there who were actively sourcing AB's signatures for their rugby balls, and we just watched. We did try tweeting Cory Jane a lot, but we got no replys....amazingly! So we started tweeting Dan Carter, and Jim Kayes, and anyone else we thought might actually reply...

But when the team bus turned up and they started coming out, we got all excited and started getting pictures!!

The first guys that came out, I didn't really know. One of them (the guy in the pic with just Lexi) we talked to him for a bit about how we could get a photo with all 3 of us in it cos he was so tall and Lexi was so short. But we ended up with this....

Then the next guy started coming out, and no one was going after him for photos or autographs, so I felt sorry for him and got a picture, so we ended up with this.....(Looking at it now, I'm wondering who took the photo....)

And then the mayhem started, because I spotted Cory Jane. We went over to him and started chatting with him about why he didn't tweet us back (apparently he fell asleep, typical) and we just had a good ol' chat. Hes so much fun! And then we asked him to follow us, and he said "you never know your luck"....ohh....ominous.....and then we got a picture. Cos he has a big ego and likes getting his photo taken. I love Cory. The guys who had been with us all morning said to us that they wanted to be sure we got to see Cory cos they knew we had been tweeting him all morning and wanted to see him, so that was sweet.

See, this is my STOKED face

Annnnd then I looked up to the hotel, and I saw TJ coming out. TJ's club back home is Norths, which is the club Dad takes photos for. I mentioned Dad, and TJ totally remembered me (At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not, but it turned out to be brilliant...more on that later). And of course, I got a photo. I had to get two, cos the first one was blurry, and Rusty wouldn't be impressed. I told TJ that it would go up on the Norths FB page and he laughed and said cool. I'd lost Lexi by this point, she got lost in the crowd!!

And then I turned around, and saw one of my other favourite Hurricanes - Beudan Barrett. He was carrying some Rice Crackers and I told him they would be better with Nutella on them. Him, along with me, lamented the fact there was none in the team room. sucks!

Then Richie came through, but he just barged through everyone :(, no one had a chance. By this stage there were about 20 people there, mostly wanting autographs. There were some guys there who were after the big guns, Richie, Dan, etc, cos if they could them to sign a pic of them, then they can onsell it for a massive profit, so that was a little unfair I thought.

And then there was Aaron Cruden. I don't really remember what happened with him, but he was there, so a picture was taken.

And then I managed to catch Julian Savea just before he got on the bus (hence the pole). I personally thanks him for staying with the 'Canes. He appreciated it, I could tell.

And then it was the moneeeeeey shot! Dan was signing a whole bunch of autographs but I managed to wheelde my way in to right beside him, and asked him for a photo. He said yeah, and then motioned for the camera while he was signing, quickly put his head up and smiled, and then got on the bus. I was GIDDY!!!

 I turned around from that, and it was Steve Hansen. He's really not much of a looker, but hes pretty neat, so I totally asked for a pic from him too!!

So yeah, all in all, it was a great adventure.

I found Lexi, we both geeked out for a bit, and then I saw some media guys. Turns out it was the sky TV guys (found that out the next day) and I asked them where Jim Kayes was. They said he was down at the market and they gave me a whole lot of details about what he was going to eat haha.

Lexi and I were hungry anyway, so we headed down to this Natural Food market to poke round and see what it was like. And it was expensive haha, so we left and found an M&S for some food. Om nom nom.

After that, I quickly had to pop home to get changed, cos I was working a Harlequins game that evening. Its like the British Super Rugby. But it was all the way down in Twickenham, so I had to mission it down there, and work.

I was behind the bar in a beer trailer thing, and it took me a while to get used to saying pounds instead of dollars, and all the drinks and their weird requests, but I got used to it, and was working with a lovely Aussie girl and we worked out a system so we were on FIRE! I also gave a lot of banter about the AB's. A couple of people picked me out as a fellow kiwi so we had a little bit of a natter, which was fun!

Didn't get home till after 11, so I was knackered!! But straight to sleep because it was to be a MASSIVE weekend......

Bath, Day 1

So, Saturday I spent cooking and packing and stuff. I made a Stir Fry and a salad to take in Tupperware and put in a cooler bag to take with me. So I was well prepped and good to go!

Sunday I had a reasonably early morning, and got up and managed to get all my stuff downstairs (and watch the last bit of X Factor, before heading off to the stunningly gorgeous (read: gross and scungy) Victoria Coach Station.

Hopped on my bus....and off we went!!

I don't really remember a lot, I think I slept a whole lot, and then when I woke up I saw a sign saying "Welcome to Bath". Huzzah, I made it!

I got off the bus, and cabbed it to the hostel at first, so I could (as mum would say) get my bearings. Bath is pretty small, so I managed to do that in one five minute cab ride to the hostel. The hostel was above the bar...it wasn't amazing....but more on that later haha.

So I meandered round the town a bit, but it started to BUCKET down big time, so in the middle of the torrential downpour, I walked up the hill (HILLS!! It made me feel like I was home. There is a serious lack of hills around here) to the Fashion Museum.

It was a really cool museum. They gave you a free audio guide, which, for the first exhibition, literally had like a 15 second commentary for each garment - which was perfect, there was more info on the walls if you needed it. The first exhibition was about how the museum had been open for 50 years and it showed the best 50 garments that they had collected over that time.

I also did a 20 minute tour there, and it was really good! It was great to have someone bring the garment to life and had some really interesting stories, especially about how some of them were worn.

Pictures speak louder than words, I took lots, but here is a small selection -

Add caption

This was one of my fav dresses in the exhibition. Versace.

This is the oldest complete garment in the whole of Great Britain.

Burberry is good for the soul.

This dress makes me question life.

This is an old school dress up.
Someone went as a champagne bottle.

 The Fashion Museum is also home to the Bath Assembly Rooms, which is where the poncy folk of Bath (including Jane Austin apparently) went to smoke, and play cards and be poncy and socialise.


So after my fashion-ista-ness for the arvo, the sun was out. Huzzah! So I headed back down to the city centre and went to the Abbey while it was open for an hour that afternoon (considering it was a Sunday). Gorrrrgeous! I like old church's/abbey's/cathedral's and this one was super preeeeetty.

I quite like this pic, It was my attempt at being Arty

The Candle I lit

Awww, Poignant shot

And then, cos it was sunny, I went walking. Bath is so old and pretty and photograph-able. So I took lots of pics. And heres a couple. (Also remember, that I am a Potts. And taking photos of pretty things run in the genes. Thats why Dad takes so many photos of me :D)

Bath Rugby Ground. WOOO RUGBY!

As well as a Potts, I am Nicola's daughter, and so I go prepared anywhere, with too much of anything, and most of it is food. So I took a photo of all the food I took with me. I made a Stir Fry the night before to eat on the bus for lunch, and a chicken salad for dinner, and I also roasted 4 potatoes so that I could just stick them in the frying pan and they were good to go! Yay me!

So I shall leave you with a picture of food.

Good night!