Leaving London Life

Just over three years ago we left everything we knew in New Zealand for an adventure of the unknown! Now we are once again leaving, London this time, for more adventures over the next five months but what did we do in London town over those three years?

Hmmm. Good point what did we do? We opened our bank accounts, got jobs, moved into a flat and were given a Ngaio plant. The transition was complete - we were living in London.

We have lived in three flats over our time in UK's capital. Our first was with my brother Paul and his girlfriend Lauren at number 59 Flat 3 Fordwych Road, Kilburn NW2 3TN which was on the Jubilee (grey) Line. With West Hampstead just up the road with a good supply of pubs and eateries. We paid £500 each a month which covered our rent, water, gas, electricity, council tax and four dinners per week. 

We stayed a year and then booked a van to move us all to two separate flats to North East London, Islington. We found another cute Victorian terrace flat B at number 86 Drayton Park, N5 1ND which was a 15 minute walk to L&P's flat. It was directly opposite Arsenal Stadium and our nearest tube was Arsenal on the Piccadilly (blue) Line. The flat was a fully furnished one bedroom affair which made it a lot easier for us with no kitchenware!  We paid £1190 per month for rent, £130 per month for council tax, water, gas & electricity wasn't too bad as it was a small flat and efficient systems.

Our last London flat I found on GumTree as we only needed six months before our great Europe Adventure started and on the very first day of looking I found what looked like and was the perfect match. We popped around the corner to visit the flat, which Cath and Si rented, got to know each other over a few vinos (NZ might I add!) and then decided on a further date with dinner and by the end of the night we had new Aussie flatmates and moved into number 64 Mountgrove Road, N5 2LT in January. We paid £840 per month and a little more council tax as we had moved into the Hackney area. But between four the utilities never seemed too steep. We finally had a large bedroom which squeezed in both desks, a lovely en-suite bathroom, a great kitchen and an outdoor area which we enjoyed over the last few months with a few BBQs. I even managed to get in a spot of gardening in our many pots which all flowered in time for us to see them. We had to buy up large at our local Sylvanian family store neighbors for a few keepsakes to remind us of our time on Mountgrove Road, a few new families have joined the fold now.

Over our time in London we have both stayed in our original jobs. Tom finished up his job with Delete in February with the mindset of being his own boss so he left behind a tight bunch of visionary minds with plenty eyes for design. He did sneak down for the odd lunch at the best fish and chippery in London - to keep Friday lunchtime Delete tradition alive for his belly. Over his time Tom met some fantastic Deleters and will hopefully have a few ports to call on in the future in France & Spain.

I have remained in my original job with Clear Channel Outdoor which was situated next to a few nice clothing stores. Lucky me! I quickly joined the Ramen girls group from work at Ramen Seto on Kingley Street. Work drinks weren't confined to a Friday and bottles of wine were bought not glasses! I soon conditioned myself to 250ml glasses of wine - a fish bowl! and later adopted a splash of Soda water and ice cubes in the summer months. Through my work place Clear Channel Outdoor I had great opportunities to see a few tourist attractions for free and with a glass of Champagne in hand with canapés at arms reach. The land Transport Museum, a few exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery, Kapoor's sculptures and Vincent Van Gogh at the Royal Art Academy, The Cabinet War Rooms to name a few. Over the years I came to realize I wasn't the only foreigner (not that I felt like one) as 90% of my workmates weren't from London and were all away from home - just not as far as I was! I left CCO in early July and left some amazing people which I will definitely keep in contact with, and I will never look at a billboard in the same light again.

It was hard to keep up with what was on offer in London over the years, but we gave it a good go. Tom signed up to a few websites for music and we managed to see a few greats, and possibility a few up and coming ones? To list a few… The Subways, The XX, The Ting Tings, Mark Knopfler, Massive Attack, Kasabian, Oasis, Cat Stevens, The Cranberries. We even saw the Auzzie band The Temper Trap and we couldn't pass up a little Kiwiana with The Flight of the Concords, Dave Dobyn, The Feelers and Super Groove at three separate Toast NZ's.

Festivals seemed like they were on all the time, Glastonbury will have to wait but we did get to V Festival 2008 to see The Killers and Hard Rock Calling 2010 in Hyde Park with Pearl Jam as lead act on Friday and Paul McCartney on the Sunday night in June this year. I wouldn't call it a festival but Tom popped off to the Rugby Sevens with Marcus & Jess with a rather attractive muscular outfit on (note from Tom: which was kind of like wearing a sleeping bag - and it was the hottest day of the year so far. You get the idea).

Theatre shows were also in abundance, so we frequented the theatre circuit to a degree. Managed to take a few visitors along for the ride as well. Anna & Perry took us to Avenue Q which was a nice start to our theatre campaign. We were hooked and started looking on Last Minute for any hot deals, like Hairspray with Tom's parents & brother James, Spamalot with my parents and Paul & Lauren, Oliver with Shane & Jo, The Lion King with Sara & Luke, The Woman in Black with Marcus & Jess and Andy & Nicky, The Jesery Boys with Em & Seb. I even managed to get the girls together at work and see Wicked. On my first month with my work I received some freebie tickets to Afrika Afrika which we saw with Lauren. I even won best dressed at a Christmas party (not dressed as a Xmas tree but a glam girl!) and got tickets to Love never dies which I only discovered when we sat down in the auditorium that Tom hadn't seen The Phantom of the Opera! So I had to quickly explain it wasn't an Opera and there was a man running around with mask on. Tom will have to wait for the original Phantom to piece it all together.

We got to the point where we combined the two, music & show with Star Wars Musical in Concert - a present for Paul's birthday - there is nothing as dramatic as the opening music to Star Wars with a live Orchestra But the first show we saw and I would say both our favorites still was The Sound of Music, who could resist the hills are alive with the sound of music or Do a Deer? But the costume winner was The Lion King and set production was Love Never Dies.

Over the last month in London we visited our favourite eateries and pubs from around work and home, managed to catch a spot of Shakespeare in action - Henry the VIII and wished we had bought a cushion and fan! The V&A Museum got another visit for Grace Kelly outfits on show as well. I hosted my first tea party for Lauren's surprise baby shower which was a bit of nursery rhyme fun! We had a casual BBQ leaving do affair on a lovely sunny afternoon to send us on our Smurfy camping way. Bought our souvenir teapot from Fortnum & Mason so we will always have fine bone china if the Queen should call. 

On our last week we celebrated our last 'going out' anniversary with a surprise lunch for two at Gordan Ramsey's at Claridges restaurant with the full menu! Amazing food and experience but maybe we didn't need the Beef Wellington for lunch! Never thought we would be this full leaving a fancy restaurant. With only a few nights to spare we managed to say our goodbyes to friends we have gotten to know a lot better over our time in London, in the big old city it is always nice to have a friendly Wellingtonian face not too far off.

Smurfy was named and then packed, our boxes were packed for shipping, the flat was clean and empty so the only thing left was to have our bottle of NZ bubbles and our last supper together with the flatties as they were off on their Poo adventures a few weeks behind us on the European road of camping bliss.

London was a fantastic experience, such a multicultural, vibrant and true city of opportunity - not to mention a great travel hub. We are very sad to say goodbye for now to our London home but… we will be back just try and stop us!

G

PS. The smurfy adventures to follow in the coming months!