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Wednesday 4 August 2010

The Big Smoke in pictures

Maybe I should reflect on London as well? It is kind of a major city and I did just spend a month there (although admittedly most of that time was spent at City of London Academy- an impressive school but a little repetitive nonetheless).


I have an oyster card. These things are amazing! A £4 journey without a card is reduced to £1.80 with. However they are also very confusing and I get a 'seek assistance' message on pretty much every journey I take because something's wrong, I'm out of money or didn't scan the right thing or I don't even know. Also Tubes are horrible if you actually want to get anywhere. On holiday it's lovely because you probably didn't even realise it just took you an hour to travel between 5 stations on about 3 different lines, but when you actually want to get somewhere it's a nightmare, especially with the whole being in the belly of the earth thing and no phone signal to express your apologies that the only tube closures are on the tiny strip of line that you wanted to use. Frustrated much?

However I did visit the V&A museum. I had several hours to kill whilst waiting for my bus and I'd seen a photo of one of the exhibitions (Architects build small spaces) which looked interesting so I spent a happy 3 hours lost in other people's creativity from over the ages. And it was free! I'm getting old; part of me really wanted to stay and look at all the other museums too, but I didn't get chance.


Other claims to fame- I drove past the houses of parliament, spent a day at BBC (didn't see anyone famous apart from possibly a newsreader that no-one could remember the name of) and spent 3 weeks in Greenwich without ever reaching the observatory! About halfway through the first week I spotted the 02 arena and in my excitement said something about the millennium dome. These kids were born in 1994 and didn't even know what the millennium dome was!I am very familiar with the walk between Victoria coach station and Victoria tube station. This is beginning to sound a bit like a bizarre personal statement so I'd better stop, however I will comment that the grass is DEFINITELY greener in Leeds! None of that Southern drought stuff up here I can assure you!



My team was great. The other residential mentors: Bri, Eva, Tabitha and Bobby were brilliant and we all got on so well. That was commented on every week and was a real strength because it's a tough week if you're on your own. Tallulah was the 'logistics officer' for the Team challenge so she did all the organising (and is still going now for another 2 1/2 weeks) and is amazing at what she does- she held us all together and solved all our problems and was generally super. I don't know that any of them will ever read this but I reckon they deserve a special mention anyway :)

And finally... I don't have a photo but I spent the weekend with Maj and Seb in their beautiful new flat in Colindale. We didn't do much; just talked speech therapy and had crazy ideas for making resources (yes, we are planning whole weekends of colouring in!) and discussed being Muslim and ate good food. I miss those guys; gutted that they live so far away but happy that I discovered £4 coach tickets so I can visit them lots!

Sorry this hasn't been very entertaining reading. I expected better of myself after such a long break. Maybe next time.

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