Pretty sure S.A.D is a real thing.

Because Alex’s mood is directly proportionate to the amount of sun/snow falling on London.

It is ridiculously warm today (by English standards) and one of those wonderful days where you can smell the flowers, and pollen in the air makes the view hazy. The crocuses are budding in the rose beds, and the blossom on the cherry tree that prematurely tried to flower at Christmas is starting to make a fresh appearance.

Alfie has been annoying all morning since we got back from our run, wanting to go in and out of the garden every ten minutes so I ended up staying out with him this afternoon attempting to take photos of him for Eva’s vast photo collection.

    

I really like the tree he was trying to dig up – anyone know what it is? It is super wiggly and has caterpillar-like flower things budding from it.

 

Only 8 Weeks Left!

I can’t believe I’ve only got two months to go in the UK. Super sad stuff, though I am looking forward to my holiday home! I know the next weeks will fly by and have started making a monumental list of things I’d like to do in London before I leave, and all the things I want to do in New Zealand and people to see while I’m there for six weeks. I’ll be in Auckland for a few nights from April 17, then to New Plymouth for a bit to see the family, then Wellington, maybe a flight to the South Island (Christchurch, Wanaka) and hopefully a road trip up to Farewell Spit and through the Bay of Islands. Other than the friends spread far and wide over the country (why couldn’t you make it easy and stay in Wellington after graduating??) I’d like to climb Taranaki finally.

Remember this picture from my first posts?

But! I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve got eight weeks left to: dress up and go to the Opera, see the Hockney exhibition, go to Brighton for the day, go see The Lion King musical, and Singing in the Rain now that that’s on, go to the British Museum, visit the Royal Observatory one evening, and spend a day wandering round as a tourist with my big camera taking photos – because I really don’t have that many photos of London except Hampstead Heath.

I would like to visit Scotland and Ireland, though not sure if I’ll have the funds or time – could be a sweet last trip though. Anyone want to join me?

The snow is melting

Maybe more posts about London?

Being so technologically advanced and all that, it only took me a year to download the blogger app for my phone. But now that I have maybe I'll get round to posting about life in London! Maybe.

SNOW DAY!

Katie came over for dinner last night, bringing with her a heavy snowfall that covered Hampstead within a few hours. So of COURSE we had to go play.

  

I set up the camera to take a photo of us (on my new Christmas tripod – thanks mum and dad!) but hadn’t gotten round to installing the remote control software for it so Katie and I starjumped ourselves into giggles trying to get the timing right for a photo. If I was more patient I’d make a .gif but I’m not today so here are all the photos in a line :D

And then of course I got up nice and early this morning to take Alfie out – he went absolutely insane with excitement! My new favourite game is to throw snowballs at him and watch his confusion at the ‘balls’ disappearance when he catches them in his mouth.

    

If you click on the last photo you can see a mad man in his speedos climbing out of the pond where he’d been swimming. In the background you can see the pond frozen over.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Hope you all had wonderful hot Christmases and ate as much food, drank as much wine, and had lots of hugs like I did! I spent a traditional English Christmas at family friends in Swindon on the same road I grew up on. A bit surreal but very relaxing. We went for a walk in the wild weather up Barbury Castle (remember flying kites up there Sam?) a bike ride down the old railway path past a whole new housing development by the green belt, and played lots of boardgames. I had turkey for the first time that I can remember!

I can’t believe it’s 2012 already. Last year flew past! I noticed lots of people were talking on Facebook about how good or bad 2011 was - I think that it’s kind of odd to lump an entire year as ‘bad’, but maybe that’s because all my years are pretty good! 2011 was definitely a year of learning, exploring and growing as a person. It seems a long time ago that I arrived in the UK, and this year I’ve been to Sweden, Berlin, Greece, Venice, Madrid twice, Croatia, and Amsterdam. Not quite the country a month of my New Year’s Resolution, but not bad! Hopefully Paris next month, and Scotland this month.

This year’s resolution is probably more ambitious – something new every week. Maybe it’ll get me blogging a bit more. Haaa…

Anyway, on more Christmas news, I want to come home this year for Christmas. Christmas just isn’t the same when it’s cold and miserable and there’s no pavlova, barbeque or crayfish! The ice skating is good though. :D

I’ll try to reply to all the emails that I’ve let build up, and leave you with the BBC video of the fireworks for NYE in London. Amaaaaazing.

A Quick Trip to Amsterdam

The lovely Grace and I booked a very expensive weekend to Amsterdam at the last minute after she found out she was leaving grey old England to return to the motherland for sunshine and medical school. I shall miss her! You all will too – there will no longer be a steady stream of photos going up on Facebook!

We stayed in a less-than-luxurious hostel by the Van Gogh museum (very cool, go early in the morning to beat the crowds) and within walking distance of the city centre. Lesson learnt – book as far in advance as possible, and try to go during the week – hostel prices were around 30-40 pounds a night! We spent hours walking the city, getting lost, eating my bodyweight in waffles and pancakes, and generally giggling our heads off the whole time. It was very cold, the Dutch have fabulous hot chocolate, and we drank a lot of gluvein(sp?) (mulled wine) and ducking into little cute design shops that are everywhere, because they’re so hip and coooool. We visited the zoo, tried to avoid being killed crossing the street but paying attention to trams, bicycles and cars (all which seem to be on different sides of the street in different directions,) went to the Anne Frank house for a more sobering side of the weekend. We seemed to be one of the few groups of girls visiting, mainly because of the massive numbers of stag-do groups that were on our flight I think.

There’s not a lot I really want to write about except that it is a fantastic city, and I’m glad I went – it actually was never on my list of places to visit, but maybe that meant I had no expectations. And I’m going to get a bike now!

       

The above right is a strange Dutch Christmas tradition which I am yet to be enlightened about.