So I had two weeks off.  The days seemed to whizz by, and already it is time to go back to work.  This I’m not impressed with, because I didn’t get half of the things done that I actually wanted to get done (i.e. work on genealogy, and organising my blog).

Today Ants went to town for geeking, and I tagged along to town to wander around the shops.  I needed to get some exercise shorts for pole dancing tomorrow night, which saw me going to Sports Direct.  I found a cheap pair of cute grey and pink Lonsdale shorts that will do the job just nicely.  I’m supposed to take a comfy pair of high heels as well, but I don’t own any high heels.  I’ll go barefoot for the first lesson, then see how much I really need them.  If I can get away with going barefoot, then no need to spend that money just yet.

Ants left me for geeking as I paid, so I wandered around the streets and the stores.  I saw lots of things that I would like to purchase, but managed to keep it to a minimum.  Boots proved to be a good time-waster and I picked up 3 new 4 pallet eyeshadow (3 for 2).  I went into the new store that’s where Zavvi used to be.  It’s turned into a clothing and accessory markets store, it has lots of small merchants occupying the space.  Beautiful clothes; not really my style (quite frilly and the like) but lovely all the same.

I wound my way in and out of shops until I found Boarders.  Good place for a drink and a read.  I found some genealogy books, and DIY wedding books to browse through while I had a hot chocolate.  3 hours later I had jotted down some ideas for table decorations and favours from The DIY Bride: 40 Fun Projects for Your Ultimate One-of-a-Kind Wedding, and decided that I would purchase The DIY Wedding: Celebrate Your Day Your Way which has loads and loads of tips for things to organise and put together.

Walking back to the tube station I happened upon a store selling nuts, seeds and dried fruit goods.  Sainsbury’s not having almonds stocked for the last 3 months or so has been annoying me greatly, so I purchased them, pumpkin seeds, brazil nuts and sunflower seeds.  All of these together in a mix are great to have with fresh fruit and soya yogurt for breakfast.

Home again, home again jigiddy jig (and with the central line down meaning 3 tube changes) and all I want to do is plan our wedding!

Do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?!

Current Mood: content

… delighted in the wonderful white (and sometimes slushy brown) world around me. 

…listened to Handle: Fireworks & Water on my phone.

… walked carefully along the frozen snow and delighted at it cracked underneath my boots.

… waited for two buses before I could fit onto one.

… squeezed onto a bus and exchanged polite words with a handsome man. (ie, when the bus started to empty, I said ”ahh breathe!” and he replied “yes finally” with a smile.) It felt very weird when he watched me get off the bus. Men shouldn’t check out taken women Maybe we should wear a sign.

… giggled as an elderly gentleman carefully but quickly stepped along the snowy footpath, coincidentally in time with my music.

Current Mood: relaxed

And what else does the news talk about? Snow!! You must be a pretty good journalist to write about snow for a whole day, and probably the rest of the week! Read more…

Source: The Guardian

The heaviest snowfall for 18 years paralysed swaths of the country today, bringing chaos to roads, railways and airports, closing thousands of schools and businesses, and costing the economy an estimated £1.2bn in lost working hours.

Although the snow had been forecast since last week, much of Britain was overwhelmed, with conditions forcing one in five workers to stay home and resulting in the closure of as many as 3,000 schools and the cancellation of many non-urgent hospital operations.

The south-east bore the brunt of the snow, which settled to a depth of 25cm (10in) in Kent and Surrey, and saw all flights cancelled at Heathrow and London City airports, leaving thousands stranded.

London’s public transport system buckled under the stress, with all but a handful of bus routes cancelled today and 10 of the 11 underground lines either completely or partly suspended.

Rail passengers trying to travel in and out of London found services disrupted or cancelled, while motorists hoping to use snow-choked roads were warned they risked hypothermia if they failed to take reasonable precautions.

As the snowfall intensified this afternoon, and forecasters warned the cold snap could last for the rest of the week, the government and the London mayor, Boris Johnson, were under pressure to explain why they had not been better prepared.

During a press conference with the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, Gordon Brown said every effort was being made to get the transport system moving again.

“We are doing everything in our power to ensure that the services – road, rail and airports – are open as quickly as possible and we are continuously monitoring this throughout the day,” he said.

But the Conservatives said bad winter weather was not a wholly unexpected phenomenon and better provision should have been made. “Both our national and local transport infrastructure should have better contingency plans in place for extreme weather,” said Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat shadow transport secretary, said Britain had collapsed “into chaos at the first hint of snow”.

Johnson defended his decision to suspend London’s bus network, saying while everything possible had been done to clear the roads, the capital simply could not cope with heavy snow.

He also argued that the rarity of heavy snow in the capital meant it would be uneconomical to buy the kind of snowploughs that clear New York streets.

The mayor announced a one day suspension of the congestion charge and urged the city’s inhabitants and workers to “pull together and pool resources to get London through this difficult situation”.

A spokesman for the mayor said today there were no plans to waive the congestion charge tomorrow should the weather worsen, but added the situation was being kept under close review and a “Herculean effort” was being made to get the city moving again.

Local authorities denied suggestions their failure to grit roads in time had led to large numbers of workers staying home. The Local Government Association said it was the responsibility of Transport for London to keep arterial roads and red routes gritted. Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA’s environment board, said councils were being used as scapegoats for others’ failure to adequately prepare. “The claim that it is local authorities’ fault that they cannot run services needs to be treated with a huge pinch of gritting salt,” he said.

The London Ambulance Service said it was responding only to “life-threatening” emergency calls because it was under pressure and had received more than 650 calls between midnight and 7am.

The weather appeared to have claimed the lives of two brothers who were crossing Snowdon over the weekend. A spokesman for the Llanberis Mountain Rescue team said the bodies of two climbers had been recovered at 9am this morning.

“I would strongly recommend that people without a lot of experience and the right equipment don’t venture on to the mountain,” he said.

Current Mood: cheerful & cold

Source: The Guardian

Heavy and drifting snow caused travel chaos for morning commuters today with trains, tubes and buses being cancelled. Those travelling to work in London were hard hit after the heaviest snowfall in decades disrupted almost all forms of public transport. Read more…

It started to snow this afternoon! How excitement! The chill was definitely in the air last night when we were coming home.  It’s a pity the heater in our room isn’t working properly (air bubbles in the fins we think).

Anyway, we went out to play:

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Just as the snow started to fall

Ants writing his name in the snow… the proper way.

Look at that clean sheet of snow

Invizible Snoflake
<- Click the link for clarification

I did a pikture with my feets It looks like a colon

My favourite two pictures

Look how heavy it’s coming down!

Girls playing in the snow

Person draggin their suitcase through the snow

Peaceful cemetery.  I love this orange hue that reflected off everything.

Current Mood: crazy

It’s 0° here today in Londontown.  It’s feels the same as it did in Amsterdam and Paris while we were there.  Here’s a video of the frozen canal that Anthony and I stumbled upon after going to look at a couple of flats.

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Current Mood: cold

Happy New Year Everybody!
Anthony and I spend the spent the night with Ellen, Paul, Gareth, the Gayanadians, and their three friends.

I met Ants in town first (after having a row because he didn’t wait for me at the station, and we kept missing each other while trying to find each other) for a semi-nice Italian meal in a place just down from Leicester Square.  Then we met up with the other, who thankfully brought my jersey that I forgot (had my jacket, but that just wasn’t enough for sub-zero temperatures!!)

We stopped in at a club which had just opened, and we started with the “this club’s so new…” jokes;
“This club’s so new, you can still smell the paint on the walls”
“This club’s so new, they haven’t even hired good bartenders yet” (they were all over the show trying to flip their drinks/cups/serviettes, and making a big mess of things)
“This club’s so new, they haven’t discovered music from this century” (they were playing much 1990s music)
And I shan’t go on.

Around 11:00pm, we decided we’d head down to the waterfront to see the fireworks display on in Jubilee Park with the London Eye and the Shell Building (Ants’s work remember?).  We walked, and walked, and walked.  The Gayanadians needed to pee so they departed.  We carried on walking, because all the bridges were barricaded off for some reason or another.  Not really sure why, but we couldn’t get anywhere.  Finally we arrived at somewhere where we could see something happening.  This wasn’t too far from St. Pauls. We’d basically walked the distance of the City (from Soho/Convent Garden – St Pauls).  I could not get over how many people were there, and they were all just walking.  Walking pretty fast though, I was surprised at how fast the crowd moved.
Anyway, we got somewhere, with 5 mins until midnight.  Trying to to have a panic attack in the crowed I cuddled into Anthony.  There was no count down or anything, just a few fireworks started.  After a few mins Ants finally gave me a kiss *sigh*.

We watched what we could of the fireworks, but that wasn’t much because the chick in front of us had her digital camera up all the time, and there were so many people.  So I saw the tops of the fireworks, and the London Eye glowing different colours that matched the fireworks shooting off it.  That was pretty cool.

When the exhibition was over, that was a bit tricky.  We lost Paul and Ellen, but we’d all decided to head for St Pauls tube station anyway.  We got stuck, and then the crowd stopped.  We were very near some barriers, and so we managed to jump the barriers to freedom – or movement. There were so many drunk people in the crowd though, thinking with their drunk logic that you can push, and that will make everybody move, not crush them.  I told one of them off for doing it, because there was a family just in front of them with small children, and the parents were trying protect their children from being crushed.  We jumped the barrier, and helped this family jump the barrier too.  They were Muslim, so I had to help the two women over, because Ants and Gareth wouldn’t have been allowed.

Finally we were walking, and walking.  Oh, btw, I had my boots on too, which made life that much more uncomfortable.  We walked, and walked, and got to the tube, which we found was running all night, and was running for free until 4:30am.  This was very handy dandy because of all the people that were around.  That’s one thing that I just couldn’t get over; how many people were in such a small space.  It’s a good thing that they’d blocked all the roads off, because it just wouldn’t have worked, and wouldn’t have been safe if people weren’t allowed the roads.

Finally we were home, and my body was shattered.  Ants and I got to watch the Dr. Who Christmas Special before we went to sleeps.

Another thing that I couldn’t get over is how impatient and how rude people were in the crowd.  Instead of having elbows in and keep shuffling, there were some people who I yelled at (I don’t know if they understood me because they were Chinese) who were elbows out, push and try to walk as fast as they could.  Ants and I lost Gareth for a minute or so because of them, which I was so angry about, which is why I yelled at them. People who are rude, impatient, and generally have no respect for others just get on my wick.

All in all, our New Years experience in London wasn’t that fantastic.  I’m glad that we saw the fireworks, but the crowds (and being at near panic attack the whole night) just were not worth it.  Think I would have rather given it a miss and stayed in a pub with a drink.

Current Mood: frustrated & irritated

As you may or may not be aware, I am working for the Tower Hamlets Council, and today I had an induction day into how the council works, which was very interesting and useful knowledge. Read more…

Ants and I were invited out with Gareth and Janyo today to have lunch at the Brick Lane markets. Read more…

Current Mood: cheerful & horny