Quick London update - skiing this weekend!

• I've moved into my very own room, finally. If you'd like my address send me an email and I will let you know it :-) It's in Dollis Hill (NW10), for those of you that know London...
  
• Still working at the Catholic school in Shadwell, but it's half term this week so I've been doing some waitressing/catering work and and am working at a primary school in Camden tomorrow and Friday. The kids at St Mary and St Michael are getting better with me and I'm figuring out the best way to handle them, which is heartening!
• Today I worked at the EMI music headquarters and when we finished we weren't allowed to leave right away because Jamelia was about to come in. And then Richard Hammond was outside filming Top Gear!
• Heading to France via Switzerland on Sunday for a week of skiing. I'm so excited!
  

More soon, I promise!

Sark - 8th September 2006

My day trip to Sark started with a fairly early boat ride over to the island from Guernsey, which was pretty calm. I'd decided to hire a bicycle on the island so I walked up the hill from the port to the main town area and followed the signposts to the nearest bike hire place. I kept meaning to take a photo of my bike but never did! Oh well.

I started out with one that was kinda like what you would expect an old schoolmistress to ride - it didn't have a basket on the front but it could have and it would have been in character with the bike. I decided it was a bit weird and went back to change it for a mountain bike, but then the first one seemed a lot more comfortable (cushy seat) so I changed it back. The man at the bike shop was SO grumpy. It didn't really seem justified, but whatever.

I decided to ride up to the north of Big Sark (map) first because I wanted to spend more time on Little Sark. It didn't really work out this way but I had a great day all the same! Maybe here I should explain that there are no motorised vehicles allowed on Sark apart from tractors, so all the roads are unsealed. It seems that most locals have bikes and maybe a horse and carriage. There are quite a few hotels on the island and these all operate a horse and carriage service for their guests. As well as having a few bicycle hire places, there are also several people with a horse and carriage in the town above the port that you can hire.

So I biked all the way to the end of the road, which took only about ten minutes, and then walked my bike further along some paths that led right to the northern tip. It was a beautiful sunny day (although quite windy) so I found a seat and sat admiring the view for a while. I also wrote a postcard and read a bit of my book (see the photo below).

Everything was really well signposted so I just decided to do things as I saw them on my way. Next stop was the gardens at La Seigneurie. This is where the governer, or Seigneur, of Sark lives. I'm not sure exactly what his role is now but it is a title that is passed through the generations and the Seigneur used to be, if not still is, the ruler of Sark.

Anyway, I had a wander around the gardens, took some photos, and tried out the maze ;-) It was actually made for kids so I could see over the top of the hedges...

The next stop was the Window in the Rock, which was very pretty and was another good opportunity for playing around with my camera some more. There was also behind it a sheltered sunny area where I sat down and read some more of my book :-)

Time to head back south and across La Coupee, which is very spectacular and photos do not do it justice. As I mentioned earlier, it was quite a windy day so walking across this narrow strip of land could have been quite freaky. You're not allowed to ride bicycles on it; you have to get off and walk them across.

Because it was such a sunny day I wanted to have a swim somewhere, so I headed down to Venus Pool, which was mentioned in the book that partly inspired me to go to Sark in the first place. However, on the way I got distracted at a hotel and ended up having a Sark cream tea with scones and little cucumber sandwiches, and reading some more of my book!

So by the time I finally got to the Venus Pool it was getting a bit late and cold and the pool wasn't there! I found out later that it is exposed at low tide and when I went it was high tide. Should've done more research...

I was still determined to go swimming because after my day of riding around I was hot and dusty! So I went back to La Coupee and walked down the millions of steps (6 million perhaps, apparently only 328) to get to La Grand Greve, a lovely sandy beach. And I went swimming! It was fantastic! But then I had to climb back up the steps and by the time I got to the top I wanted another swim.

But it was time to head back to the port for the boat home, which was much more exciting than the morning's trip! A few people had to go outside for fresh air to calm their stomachs...

So that was my day on Sark. Here's an interesting article I found in case you're interested in more.

Sark photos

Welcome to Sark. The boat comes in right by this tunnel which you have to go through to get up to 'civilisation.'















This spot is right at the northern end of Sark (where I wrote your postcard from Charlotte!) The road ends and you can walk quite a bit further on to get right to the northern tip of the island.











The Window in the Rock, one of Sark's attractions. It's manmade. I stopped here and read my book for while. Cruisy day :-)











A horse and cart crossing La Coupee, the narrow isthmus of land that joins Big Sark with Little Sark. The concrete road was built by German prisoners of war in 1945.















La Grand Greve from up above La Coupee. I went for a swim here!











Venus pool at sunset. At low tide there is a circular pool which is apparently good for swimming in. (I like this photo)

London, Christmas, New Years, moving, jobs... aaaaarrrggghhh!!

Okay, so I've been REALLY slack since I came to London. I apologise! Up until Christmas there probably wasn't much to say - jobhunting mainly. To be honest I can't really remember what I did! House-sitting with Emma was great; we both fell in love with the house and the attention-seeking cat and were sad to leave on January 9th. Since then I've been staying in a friend's room in West Hampstead, while she is on holiday in New Zealand (thanks bec!). She gets back next Thursday so it was finally time to find a place of my own, and I have! I'm moving in on Tuesday. It will be nice to have my own space again and to stop living out of a suitcase. Let me know if you want my address or contact details.

Job - I am working as a teaching assistant (long term temp) in a school in Shadwell, which is in east London. And living in northwest London so it takes quite while to get to work but I wanted to live near people I know in London. I will get lots of reading done on the tube! The school I work at is a Catholic school, so is well funded and quite nice. It's kindof a shabby 
area of London but none of the kids in my class 
actually live in the area. They live nearby, but not
in Shadwell! I'm working with a Year 6 class, which 
is the last year of primary school. So they are getting ready for SATs at the end of the school year. They are also the naughtiest class in the school, lucky me :-/ They're not really bad kids, just very disrespectful, like laughing when you try to tell them off and NEVER doing something the first time you ask them. Hopefully once they know me a bit better they will get better, but i'm not holding my breath.

I think I've mentioned my other two jobs before - waitressing at functions and at a Kiwi cafe in Covent Garden in the weekends. Working 7 days a week at the moment! Not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up though - it's already annoying that I don't get to do fun things much.

Umm, for Christmas I was at Nick and Tash's house in Kilburn - check out their blog (link to the right) for a good description and some photos. I had a few drinks on Christmas Eve with the people from Snow + Rock which was quite fun (and dangerous!). The cafe I work in is on the third floor of Snow + Rock, which is an outdoors store specialising in winter sports and climbing (which you probably already guessed).

I want to put some pictures on to describe my New Years' so keep checking and I will hopefully have them up here soon!

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition

I went to this exhibition in between New Years' and going back to work. It was really cool! All the photos are on the internet but these two are my favourites :-)

Turtle grooming


Quiver tree frame

Realised I forgot to say anything about where I'm actually living. Have been staying with friends in the Kilburn/Queen's Park area (northwest London), with one weekend in Acton (west London). Today I am moving into a place in Willesden Green, which is also NW, with my friend Emma from NZ. We are house-sitting for about a month for some friends of friends of hers - rent free, yay!!

Living in London

I've been here now for just over a month (that went quickly!) and I've been working this week and last week. I was starting to panic about finding a job and then ended up getting three all in the space of two days!! Don't worry - two of them are pretty flexible so I can work HEAPS if I want to or just normal hours otherwise.

The main job I'm doing is teaching assistant work through an agency. So schools ring up an agency when they have someone call in sick or something like that and they ring me up and I go to work. There are some longer term ones available but at the moment I'm just doing day-to-day supply. I've worked in the same school in Hackney for this week (and Thursday last week), in the reception class. That's kids aged 4 and 5!! They're very small but they can be trouble! We've pretty much only been preparing for their Christmas performance, which was today. The parents came to watch. We got them all dressed up and they learnt a poem about the nativity story and recited it with some actions and songs thrown in too. It went really well!! And they looked so cute in their costumes :-) It's been quite nice being with the same class for a few days because I've gotten to know them a bit better and they actually pay attention to me now! The first day I was there I was left alone with half the class for a bit and they just ran riot and wouldn't listen to me. I've probably also figured out the best way to get them to behave now too :-)

Last week I had one day at a special needs school with a class of primary school boys in wheelchairs, most of whom couldn't really speak. I actually quite enjoyed my day there but it is a very different experience to what I've been doing this week.

Job number 2 is working in a cafe called Bullet Espresso in the Snow + Rock store in Covent Garden. It's owned by New Zealanders and there are three of us who work there who are all also New Zealanders. So when I'm there it pretty much feels like I could be in New Zealand apart from the pounds in the till and the English customers (although lots of Kiwis there too, the word is spreading about how good we are!).

I work there in the weekends and at the moment I'm pretty much just doing the till and dishes although I will get some coffee training at some point (I just need a refresher and to learn exactly how they do it - every cafe is different!) and I think I'll be making the sandwiches every Sunday. It's really fun and generally pretty cruisy and we had a Christmas do the other night (the only one I'll get)!

Went to a restaurant in Covent Garden called Belgo where they had lots of mussels dishes and a really wide range of beers. I got mussels with chorizo in a tomato-y sauce with potatoes. It was really nice but I never realised that the mussels over here are so small!

After the dinner we went to a Comedy Club on a boat on the Thames and saw three comedians plus the MC who was a New Zealander! It was a really good night. Especially since it was all free :-)

Anyway, the third job is working for a company called the Esprit Group who provide wait staff for functions. So the work can be walking around with a bottle of wine or champagne topping up people glasses, walking around with a tray of canapes, serving meals and clearing plates at a function with 500+ people, working in the coat check (usually before doing food service), and/or silver service. So far I have worked in a marquee (for a Christmas function), in a small art gallery, at the offices of a client (a consultancy doing Christmas drinks and nibbles for their client), at Tate Britain, and at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. They also do events at Buckingham and Kensington palaces and at film premieres - all sorts really! And there is no minimum requirement of work - you just ring them and say when you're available and they will usually have something for you, especially at this time of the year. It seems so far like quite a good London job to have because I will get to go to lots of places I would never have the opportunity to go to otherwise. And the people I've worked with so far have all been pretty cool :-)

That's enough for now. If I'm not in touch with you personally before Christmas have a good one wherever you are!

Guernsey

On Tuesday 5th September I started my holiday to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. I had wanted to visit there because my grandma was from Guernsey and I also wanted to visit the small nearby Isle of Sark. I wanted to visit Sark because a book that I really like is set there (what a geek!).

I flew from Southampton to Guernsey and the first thing worth mentioning is the restrictions on hand luggage that I had to deal with – no liquids or cosmetics of any sort (so no lip balm) and size restrictions. They were happy to check in any extra luggage you had though so no worries there. I also had an empty water bottle which I wanted to take with me and at the ticket desk and the first gate they said it would be fine but at the security checkpoint they took it off me and threw it away. If I’d known I would’ve put it in my check-in luggage!! This probably sounds really petty and stupid but it was a bit annoying.

Anyway, arrived in Guernsey and got a taxi to the camping ground I was staying at. The office was closed and it was already getting a bit dark so I found a site, pitched my borrowed tent and boiled some water on my borrowed cooker for pot noodle dinner. Thanks lenders!

Day two started with a walk to the nearest bus stop which was about 15 minutes away and near an ‘attraction’ called the Little Chapel, which I never actually managed to visit close up! I took a picture of it from across the valley though…

Got the bus into the main town of St Peter Port and bought some groceries (woohoo!) and then caught the bus to go right around the outside of the island. The buses have a flat fare of 50p so it was definitely worthwhile and a good way to get my bearings. The round trip took about 1hr 45min but I got off about three quarters of the way round to go for a walk. The south coast of Guernsey has amazing cliffs and there is a walkway that goes all the way along the cliff tops from St Peter Port to the south-western corner of the island. It was an absolutely gorgeous day so I spent The rest of it walking along this path, although I did get a bit disoriented at one point near the start and had to scramble back up the cliff through gorse :-I

The first fort I saw on my walk!



























An example of the really cool coastline.













And a not-very-good picture of me, but I had to prove I was actually there!

Guernsey has lots of forts and lookout posts along its coasts from World War II because it was occupied by the Germans from 1940 to 1945 and they constructed a lot of fortifications around the island. I saw these on my walk and there was one spot where a cannon (not sure if this is what you call it) had been restored and put into the pit like it would’ve been during the war – that’s a bad explanation so here’s some pictures… You could walk into the pit through a trench dug into the ground. I was actually a bit nervous although I had no reason to be! It was very surreal.























































There were also some lookout posts that you could walk into that were very dark so I didn’t venture far. All in all it was a really nice way to spend the day, topped off with simple pasta and sauce for dinner back at the campsite. Yum! I actually missed cooking for myself when I was at Little Canada! Possibly partly because the food there wasn’t brilliant… (that’s actually a compliment)

I was lucky enough to be in Guernsey for the Battle of Britain air display, which is one of the only ones that you don’t have to pay an entry fee for. SO I watched that and took some pictures but there are some really good ones here, especially the ones of the Red Arrows, who are the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team.

After the display I went to the Guernsey Museum which had a bit about the history of Guernsey and an exhibition about one of Guernsey’s most famous people.

The view out over the harbour from the museum garden.












Castle Cornet at St Peter Port, which I didn't actually manage to visit












On Friday I went to Sark, which was the absolute highlight of the trip so I will write a blog entry about that day all on its own :-)


The view of St Peter Port from the boat on the way to Sark. The building with four towers is part of Elizabeth College, the boys high school.




Saturday was the day that I left but not until the evening so I filled my day with going to the Occupation Museum and Lihou Island. The occupation museum was all the about the time when the Channel Islands were occupied by the Germans in WWII and what life was like. There is a lot of equipment and clothing and things like that from the war and even a tractor that a man made out of bits and pieces and used up until about 20 years ago! There were also stories from locals and from Germans who have been back to visit since about their lives at that time, and a street scene set up as it would have looked then.

Lihou Island is off the western coast of Guernsey and there is a causeway exposed at low tide that you can walk across. It’s quite small and there’s just one house on it, which was being renovated when I went there. There are also the remains of an old priory which was apparently used as target practice by the Germans during the war.

After that I had to go back to the campsite and pack up and head back to the Isle of Wight ready for work the next day. It was a really good break though and I definitely needed the time away so I didn’t go crazy!

Reunion

The last day of the season was Friday November 10 and the next night was the reunion which is held every year. Anyone that has worked at Little Canada during the season can come back for the night. It was a really good night! There were awards early on, a finger buffet dinner and a band and music till 3am. Good times...

(if you want me to name everyone/anyone in these photos let me know but I figured it wouldn't mean much and if you were there then you'll know them anyway!)

 

 

 

Halloween Party!

On Sunday 29 October there were no kids on centre so the manager organised a Halloween party and we also had some fireworks since it was pretty close to Guy Fawkes night. The fireworks were a bit of a disaster but the party was really fun! Pics to prove it...

Girls in the caravan before the main event



























Gimps... don't ask













People on the pool table

Woody and Tim













The ever non-PC, Dave the suicide bomber


















Hollie and Matt













The eeevil surgeon