Settling into London and TOOL is coming to Brixton!

Well this last week has what I have called “getting my life organised / sorted out” week. On Tuesday I moved into the new house. I’m all unpacked. I did lots of washing. I cleaned windows. I mowed the lawn! – which is something I’ve managed to avoid most of my life. The lawn mowers here are strange.

It was orange, electric, had no wheels (wtf!) and a rubber bottom – it was like some strange sort of electric hovercraft lawn mower hybrid that’s supposed to glide seamlessly over your soft lush green grass.

This device would never survive in Australia with our brown stick like excuse for what might have been grass a long time ago. Now this lawn hadn’t been mowed in quite some time (see before and after shots), and extra caution had to be made to not mow over the long cord. And surprisingly, because the grass is so soft and green here, the mower does actually “glide” over it. Anyway, enough about mowing (moe, moe, moe) – I mowed and it looks great – now let us never speak of it again.

What else have I been up to – oh – I’m supposed to be having an interview soon for a Technical Author / Sharepoint job. All my work clothes and suits were totally crushed from moving over here so I took my new snazzy Cue business suit that Bahadir bought for me before I left (thanks!) to the dry cleaners. So anyway, have been busy applying for jobs online, walking into town everyday, running errands, sorting things out.

Friday night, Steph, her friend El and myself had dinner here and then headed out to a local pub – the Effra. Had my first pint of beer here. We then headed to the Brixton Bar and Grill for more drinks. There was a friendly dog walking around and underneath tables (odd, but cute). Anyway it was pretty late so we decided to head home. We walked back to Steph’s old place and I started to walk back to the new house.

Now near the new place there’s this giant church. The front half is actually a church, the back half is this pumping night club called “Mass”. So curiosity got the better of me, and I went inside by myself. A large black lady (ie the bouncer) frisked me and my bag very thoroughly inspected. A 10 pound covercharge later (yikes), and I was in. Clearly everyone in this place was on drugs, jumping up and down to loud doof doof dance music with glowsticks – no drunk person could possibly have this much energy.

A lot guys weren’t wearing shirts which led me to thinking they were possibly gay - but I wasn’t particularly interested in finding out. I had two drinks and got chatted up by a short unattractive French fireman (ugh) whose opening / pick up line was “do you want to sleep with me”. (Clearly the answer was a big fat NO). So, I walked home by myself – which was a short 2 minute walk – but don’t worry! There’s CCTV (security cameras) everywhere here – even on my street – so if anything bad ever happens at least it’ll be on film :P

Anyway, on Saturday, the girls moved all their stuff in and I decided to cook them up a storm as I knew they would be exhausted after the big move. I’d already done my fair share of packing, moving and cleaning back in Brisbane, so I was not envious of their situation. So I cooked up a big serve of Spag Bol with salad for us (see photos). I’d bought the ingredients fresh from the markets which was way cheap – I’m going back there to get all my fresh food! Yum.

So at the moment, I’m just settling in, “trying” to save money until I get a job, plus the weather has been pretty crap (cold, rainy etc) so it’s a good excuse to stay in at the moment – and (!) I just got the digital tv tuner card working here so have been watching a an all day Scrubs marathon curled up in bed (there’s like tonnes of free to air digital tv channels here – way more than Australia). Anyhoo, once I start working, I’ll hopefully start doing some more exciting things and venturing out further.

Also! - I just bought 2 tickets to TOOL (oops and yay!) who are playing at the Brixton Academy www.brixton-academy.co.uk at the end of August. Their first show was sold out, so I just HAD to buy tickets - and don’t have anyone to go with yet either! Anyway, the Brixton Academy is a legendary live music venue here. Loads of cool bands play there and it’s one of the things I do want to do here – see lots of live music. So once I get a job, I want to go see these bands who are touring the UK this year: Muse (again), Mogwai (again), the Bravery, Keane, Bloc Party – and there seems to be tonnes of music festivals going on all the time too. So am keen to check some of them out at a later stage. Oh also! I also want to go to some musicals – especially “We Will Rock You”. Looking forward to some culture!

Oh also, I am now also on Skype for anyone who uses it – just search by my email address, and when I get myself organised, I might actually be able to ring people! Talk soon – Manda :)