My hero for the Week...

Is.............................................

RYAN NELSEN

Not only has he starts on a regular basis for Blackburn Rovers, hes also captain too!

Kiwi soccer REPRESENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate food shopping!!!

Whether it be having to lug it all down the road and on the bus, having to unpack and put meat into freezer bags etc. etc. etc... I hate food shopping- even though I do like to eat!!

Here is a numbers rundown of my trip to Sainsburys, West Ealing today:

3 - Number of people encountered talking to themselves about random shite
1.5- Number of trolleys that would fit side-by-side in any shopping isle
5- Number of items on special that I wanted to buy, but were out of stock
15- Minutes it took to get through the checkout
2- Number of carrots I bought today
2- Random customers arguing about something
4- bottles of soft drink I bought

Ah well.............................

Big Day Out and Music in general

Who went to the big day out??????? I'm dying to know how it went I was thinking about it all day I so wish I could have gone!

I especially want to know how Franz Ferdinand, Kings of Leon and Magic Numbers were...

Heres a pic I finally got off Kris from Franz Ferdinand concert- isn't it great that rich is so tall and can take good pics from afar....

January Sucks and so do new years resolutions

Further to my January Blues post I'd like to note that I don't think Ive seen the sun in the last 2 weeks..... nothing springs to mind anyway. Stupid dumb british winter Im so jealous of everyone saying they been to the beach etc..... lucky bastards!!!!!!!

Oh well ive been trying to do heaps of stuff to cheer me up and Ive complied lists of the good and bad of living in london..... just to cheer me up (and most of it is food related!)

ANNOYING DISADVANTAGES:
Heaps of dog poos on the pavement
Expensive to live
Dark and miserable winters
Too many psychopaths
Not having a car and going to the beach as I please
Having to lug food shopping on the bus
Crap reality tv most of the time
Pubs not being smoke-free
Those annoying crows that squwark really early in the mornings in the summer

ADVANTAGES:
Pubs
Public transport
Cool job
Lots of cool people to meet (that aren't psychopaths)
Pubs
Galaxy minstrels
Cadbury Chocolate tastes better (apparently theres anti-melting stuff in the nz ones)
Coco shreddies
Pubs
Have I mentioned football?? And watching it in the pub
Handy for places to travel
Penguins (the chocolate kind)
shhh... celebrity big brother
All the great british music
The spinning wheel (pub down the road)


I still haven't quite convinced myself but oh well I'm still having heaps of fun (most of the time) and thats whats important. Not that theres heaps of people back home that I love heaps and aren't important to me in anyway but I think Im just in the right stage of my life to be here so yeah thats my big self-indulgent rant for the day!!!

I have also come to the resolution not to have anymore resolutions (har har thats such a funny joke!)

So far I seem to have broken all of my New Years resolutions bar the one that stated 'thou shall not eat any sugary frosted breakfast cereal'- and you will be please to note that I have eaten bran flakes for breakfast WITHOUT SUGAR since the new year! Yay maybe I should just buy coco shreddies for desert instead : ). But the 'thou shall play football for a team', 'thou shall give up alcohol for the month of january', 'thou shall not eat too much chocolate' and the usual 'thou shall be more like a lady' are well out the door. TOO BAD YOU CAN'T CHANGE BAD HABITS NOW!!!

Thats my big rant for the day anyway... Im sure I'll have something interesting to post soon. I promised id do it at least once a week tonight so keep looking you sexy bietches!

The Spirit of the FA CUP

Ive found a new found appreciation for the FA Cup since Ive been here and watching all the games. Back in New Zealand all you get is the final between normally 2 big league premier teams. Sigh boring

What you don't see is the brilliant second, and third round games which are just as entertaining as any Chelsea VS Liverpool clashes (which is this sunday, I might add!).

For example as I type Manchester United are playing some low semi-professional team called Burton Albion. Burton drew with them last week so earn a replay at Old Trafford. At the moment they are 3-0 down (Kieron Richardson just scored an awesome goal) but they are still playing their arses off, theres some playing with stitches on his lip and they are just not giving up.

Last weekend- Liverpool beat Luton Town 5-3 after being down 3-1 at half time. Their pretty much fielded a full-strenght team with Gerrard and Garcia and all the usual first team players. Luton i think from memory are in league 2. Such a brilliant game anyway. We were all cheering pretty loudly in the lounge for Luton

And then theres Tottenhams INJURY TIME GOAL loss to Leicester (HAR HAR MATTY!)

Oh well Im just in a bit of a footy mood. Im sure its all boring to most of you : )

Addictions....

Apart from my usual food addictions which I normally go on about on my blog (and for those of you who care Im addicted at the moment to penguins, any kind of soup) Im currently addicted to (completely appalling those around me)......................

CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER....

Such entertainment- theres Dennis Rodman, Michael Barrymore, MP George Galloway, some chick called Faria who is only famous for having flings with both Sven-Goran Erikkson and the CEO of the football association, the lead singer of Goldie Looking Chain called Maggot (their hits include your mama has a penis, guns don't kill people rappers do and the infamous your misses is a nutter- that was dedicated to david beckham when they performed before the england vs wales football game!!), theres some tranny who had a hit in the 80's and some models and washed up actors- just absolutey brilliant...

heres the link to the show anyway if anyone out there gives a feck!

Hogmanay...... a!

Hehe Jaz will appreciate the A! There

So yeah to counteract that rather serious previous post- heres the low-down from New Years!
Myself, Rich, Ian, Jaz, Nato, Gemma and Jerry all got up ridiculously early to meet at Kings Cross station to head up to Edinburgh for Hogmanay on the 30th. We were part of a tour package offered by Wanderers World (the same people that didn't front up with rugby tickets for the wales game- so i was slightly apprehensive) and were catching the 'party train' up to edinburgh. After a bit of a hiccup with the seating arrangements we finally settled into carriage D and we were joined by a Saffa called Matt who got on board the train and the last minute and sat with me Rich and Ian. Originally I had planned to go to sleep and maybe have a few brevvies at around midday but that didn't quite work out- so here it was that I cracked out my first stella at 8am and drank quite steadily all the way up. So by the time we arrived got to our hotel and rooms and went straight back out to the pub the day was very very hazy and I had one hell of a hangover the next day!















Heres a pic of me and Ian anyway with our first beers- it was still rather dark outside at that point too! And me jaz and nato with the naughty stick (not sure of the origins of that one!)


New years rolled along anyway- rather hungover but still managed to get up before 12pm for breakfast and Tim and I cracked out a beer at 11am to celebrate the kiwi new year. We went down to this really cool pub inside a cave where there was a pre-arranged aussie and kiwi new year party and had a few drinks there and then went back for a sleep for a few hours. It was then party in jaz and natos room- heres a pic of me and jaz on her bed- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It was then onto the street party- where the main street was blocked off and you could take as much piss in as you liked. Wish we had known that before hand as there was nowhere to buy any alcohol but we managed to find a pub and downed some tequila shots. Tim, unfortunately couldn't quite handle his and projectile vomited on some dudes back as he was heading to the toilet- heres a pic of rich and matt impersonating Tims mouth coverage...... we got a standing ovation when he emerged from the loo too- poor wee thing!
We headed down to one of the stages where this band i really liked called hard-fi were playing which was a bonus really as we hadn't realised. There were sooooo many people there it was wicked and the atmosphere was brilliant. There sadly wasn't a countdown but we knew it was new years when all the fireworks went off from edinburgh castle which was really wicked.

Im feeling a bit lazy and i can't be arsed writing much more so here an annotated version of the rest of the trip:

* went to pub after fireworks and got home at 4am
* got up next day, went to edinburgh castle, had a sleep, then got drunk again that night
* got home bout 2am, went to sleep and got up had breakfast and left.
* trip home was painfully slow and somewhat painful for the head.- But we did get home a little early than scheduled.

So that was it really- heres a pic of the view from edinburgh castle.....

Bloody good weekend was had by all anyway

January Blues

January in London is much less enjoyable than in NZ, despite the fact I do like living here. The profusion of summer BBQs and parties, as well as all those trips to the beach, always make the start of the year so much more fun.

Here in London people stop going out after the excesses of the festive season; plus all we have to look forward to is the weather getting colder. Woo!

- Sorry Mel I stole your quote off your blog but I think you have got it spot on here! January in London is proving to be a bit of a bugger really. At least on the other hand, my school, after only one day back closed for two days (yay four day weekent) because the heating had broken down and the school was like a fridge! Bonus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That wednesday was a bit rough- I had the non-pleasure (hes going to love my grammar here hehehehehe) of saying goodbye to Matt yet again that morning before work- it was definately harder the second time around. But I keep thinking to myself that we had so much fun together, clicked instantly and really enjoyed the time we spent together- even after spending the last 8 months apart. I still think though when the time and place is right things could work out for us really well.... until then ill just miss him like crazy and press on .......

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