July 07, 2005
Sarah and I are Safe and Sound
After the events in London today I think it might be prudent to say that both Sarah and I are safe and sound. My office is on Fenchurch Street, a few minutes walk from Aldgate, however I was not affected by the tragic events of today.
Our thoughts and best wishes are with all those who have lost family members in the events of today.
November 28, 2004
As summer progresses to winter...
Winter is setting in here, but at least this year we are both prepared with warmer coats, jackets and umbrella's. It has been painfully cold some days and it is set to get worse. It is times like this where I long for some Australian sun. It has been so cold I have had to scrape ice off the winshield of the car a few times now before driving. I even managed to start driving once without realising the windscreen was iced! I can attest to the fact that windscreen wipers go absolutely no way towards clearing ice off the windshield, on top of this, adding extra water from your winsheild sprays (in order to attempt to melt the ice) makes things even worse. Luckily after a few minutes of driving with the head out the window to see where you are going the ice melts and you can drive normally again :)
On the work front, Accenture has started consolidating it's London based offices into a brand new building, Plantation Place, 30 Fenchurch Street (Map). Our office made the move a few weeks ago, and it is a great one for me. Journey time to work has been cut down to only 55 minutes, without requiring any changes so I can just get on at Westcliff and get off again at the end of the line at Fenchurch street station. I have a view of the Lloyds Building from my desk. This building is supposed to have large architectural signifigance, however to me it really just looks like an isor, but maybe that is just because of the angle I have on the building. Sarah has had a busy busy month, with a understaffed office, everyone has to take up the slack and it makes for some tiring days. Hopefully after this week is over it will start to get a little better as some staff who were away on leave are back in the office and things should settle down to a more normal pace.
I think it is most likely we will be spending this Christmas with each other for company here in Essex this year. We are both working between Christmas an New Years, so it makes more sense for us to spend it here in Essex rather than away somewhere for a few days.
On the travel front, we are going to lie low for another few months, and our next trip is most likely going to be a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, in April 2005 with some of Sarah's work friends, one of whom is running in a marathon. I am really looking forward to this trip as I have wanted to visit Prague for a long time now, and looking through Bernie's Prague pictures just makes me want to visit more!
June 26, 2004
The Championships, Wimbledon 2004 + Delta Goodrem
Making the most of our location, Sarah and I decided a day out at Wimbledon would be a fantastic reason to take a day off work. The weather this week has been horrendous to say the least for Wimbledon. Luckily however we managed to select a day that was warm and sunny, and spent all day friday at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. After gaining entry to the ground and relieving ourselves after a long 4 hour queue to get in, we bought a program, got some refreshments and headed straight to court 13, the location for the upcoming Mark Philippoussis game. We sat through a womens singles game (England vs. Spain) in the lead up to the match we wanted to see, and it was worth it. We had seats 3 rows from the front, no more than 5 meters from the court.
0500: Wake up.
0600: leave for Southfields tube station.
0645: Arrive and join first queue.
0715: Get itchy feet from waiting.
1045: Pass through the gates.
1330: Watch Mark Philippoussis Match.
1430: Realise Delta Goodrem is in crowd.
1500: Finally give in to temptation and take photos of Delta
1630: Spend some time on Henman hill watching Rusedski game.
1900: Decide we are burnt enough and head home
After this we walked around the club grounds for a while, peeking in on different matches and finally found ourselves on Henman hill, watching Greg Rusedski play on the big screen. (The match was being played on Show Court 1, we didnt have tickets for that court). The rest of the day was spent watching some doubles matches, before we finally decided we were burnt and tired enough to go home, at about 7pm.
For a pictoral view of the day visit the photo gallery.
March 23, 2004
Comments fixed
Apologies to those people who tried to leave comments over the last few days but found that they were unable to do so. We have a comment - spam filter that filters out junk/spam comments to keep the website clean of that type of stuff, and unfortunately it was configured slightly incorrectly.
I have now fixed it and it should be running great, so you can now leave comments again.
March 20, 2004
Marguerite in Japan
Hey, just a note to say that Sarah's friend Marguerite, who recently moved to Japan to teach english, is now blogging.
Although she doesn't have a link to it on her main page, her RSS feed is here. Subscribe to it in your favorite aggregator, or mine.
March 09, 2004
Weather, more snow?
Well its trying to snow at the moment. It started about 3 hours ago when walking home from the train station. Well I say snow, but it was more sleet, half snow, half hail, and very cold. Its tried again a few times in the last 3 hours, but popping my head out the curtains a few minutes ago and a couple of cars are starting to get a light coating of white.
It's quiet around here with Sarah off in Italy. Getting home to a dark house, but at least the central heating is warming it up nicely for my step from outside.
Anyway, off to bed for me. Got a 3 degree morning to enjoy tomorrow morning, mayaswell make the most of a warm bed.
January 30, 2004
Moving to the UK - Quick Financial Guide (For Renters)
If you're going to move to the UK, here are a number of bills you should plan to expect in the first month or 2 if you plan on renting.
- 1 Months rent in advance, and 1 months rent as bond. This is standard fare, but can be painfull if you live in (expect a medium sized apartment to be about 250-350 pounds per week) or very near to London (In the area that Sarah and I are in expect anywhere from 500-900 per month for a decent place, dependant on size)
- Over here rent tentants pay council tax (rates), expect about 700-1000 pounds per year. Luckily you can pay in installments so expect about 200-300 pounds in the first month
- Sewerage Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks of about 30 pounds each)
- Water Bill (Again charged in 3 monthly blocks), Most places are on a "rates" style system where you pay a fixed fee every 3 months but some places are on a meter. For rates expect about 50-70 per 3 months.
- Telephone Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks), Price depends on what connection plan you use but you will pay line rental up front.
- Gas Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks). Haven't recieved this yet so can't give an estimate in price
- Electricity Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks). Again, haven't received this yet so can't give an estimate in price
So intial outlay could be anywhere from 2,800 - 3,500 pounds ($AUD 5,500 - 9,000) depending on where you live.
Some other things to watch out for:
- Everything takes a _long_ time to get done over here. Expect a lot of things to require your presence in person. There are a lot of things you can't do over the phone.
- Most furniture is made to order, and it can take a long time to make. For instance the sofa's that Sarah and I ordered are going to take 8 weeks for delivery (ordered 3 weeks ago now). Our bed that was supposed to be delivered in 1 week has now taken 3 weeks.
- People don't like to help you even though its their job. You will get a wide range of attitudes when trying to sort things out on the phone from the plain unhelpfull to the rude.
- Your US or Australian keyboard won't have a pound symbol (currency pound not the # (hash)) on the keyboard, which can be a pain in the butt :)
If I think of anything I have missed here I will update this post.
January 28, 2004
January 21, 2004
So much good news, its all to much!
Since we have been over here in the UK, Sarah and I have not been used to good news. Its been delay here, delay there, hastle here, hastle there. Finally we have some good news, all at once.
- I have been offered (and have accepted) a Job with Accenture Technology Solutions.
- Our final box of stuff has arrived, after being declared missing and having had to request an insurance claim form it suddenly appears. This is better news than you can imagine as it has all of Sarah's extra clothes in it.
- The insurance claim forms for my camera that was stolen have been submitted, and it looks like seeings as the cameras are cheaper here in the UK I am going to be able to get a better spec camera, so instead of getting another Olympus C740UZ I will get an Olympus C750UZ instead, which gives me the option of an external flash, its 4mp instead of 3.2, and it records sound to the video it takes.
So, lets hope the news continues. I will be opening my bank account tomorrow, so lets hope that goes smoothly and all continues well.
January 06, 2004
A BIG HELLO
Well I thought I should write something....I cannot believe I have been in the UK for over two months time really does fly. So much has happened over the past two months. I am sorry to everyone for not emailing, but I have only recently had access to E-mail. I miss you all in Perth and have not forgotten you.
Life in the UK is different I guess. More people, little houses, no gardens etc....but I think Mark and I have fitted right in. As most of my friends know I am working at Southend Hospital as a Basic Grade Dietitian. I guess it was a shock to the system when I started full-time work, as I was only a casual in my last jobs. I am very busy with my wards which are A&E, Stambridge, Hockley, Bedwell, Chalkwell, Medical Assessment Unit and Southbourne. I spent quite a lot of my time on Stambridge and Hockley. My patients are generally medical and geriatric. All the basic grades have to rotate in six months so I can get a chance to do different things.
I think Mark and I are also lucky that we were able to find a flat that we both liked and is in a nice spot. It is very close to the train station and shops, it takes me about 30mins to walk to work, but at the moment I am catching the bus as the weather is cold and wet. I was very lucky when I first arrived, the weather was not that cold. It has gradually become colder, so I was able to get use to it. A common statement that I would hear when I was in Australia was that the weather in the Uk is very depressing and gross. I must admit it has not affected me yet. It does not really bother me at the moment, except when I dress up nice and try to look half way decent when I go into London and it is constantly raining and windy. I guess when I have been here a bit longer I may have a different opinion.
Christmas was great and New Years was relaxing. Mark and I spent the Holidays in Devon with Mark's family, which was heaps of fun and it was great to finally meet them all. There are heaps of photos of Christmas and the Wedding we attended for Mark's cousin Victoria and Marc. Mark will create a photo gallery for this soon.
Hmmmm well I guess that is all for now, that was just a quick summary. There will be heaps more to come.
December 31, 2003
Happy New Year
Sarah and I would like to wish a happy new year to everyone out there who reads our weblog. We hope you can all stick to your new years resolutions :)
Sticky Fingers
Sarah decided while in the middle of cooking that it might be a good idea to slice off her fingernail plus some flesh underneath. Here is the aftermath
PS. Not shown: copious amounts of blood
December 30, 2003
Welcome to our new weblog!
Welcome to our new weblog. I (Mark) Will no longer be posting anything related to whats happening here in the UK on my other weblog.
You will notice that there are 2 posters to this weblog, both myself and Sarah will be posting here, you can tell who wrote what by looking at the name that is displayed below each entry.
I will also move all my old posts regarding the UK etc from my other weblog to this one. Stay tuned to keep updated!
December 22, 2003
Contact Information
Here is the contact information for the new place:
Home Address
First Floor Flat
11a Marine Avenue
Westcliff-on-Sea
Essex, SS0 7PS
England
Phone Numbers
My Mobile Number: (44) 0796 333 1616
New Home Number: (44) 01702 354 133
Remember if calling from international, you need to drop the zero's on the front.