The TV Man...

Came to the front door of our complex today, and rang the buzzer. Me being me, had to go down and see the guy....

As you may, or may not be aware, it's law in the UK that you pay for a TV licence. IE, if you own a tv, they assume you watch what they call "terrestrial" TV. It should be noted that you require a license no matter what tv you watch - sky, hd, cable, terrestrial, even live streaming Tv on a computer.

Doctors and nurses...

Once again, we're discovering how different things like GPs and the medical system are over here. I've already posted about the need for an NI number here. We received an NI number each - Rhiannon on Friday, and mine on Saturday (Yes, mail gets delivered on Saturday!) so in my absence of any work, and Rhiannon having a free day, we thought we'd go down to the local surgery, as we need some scripts re-issued for the UK chemists...

Booking Trains...

Those aware of our plans (in so far as we have them) will be aware that in late May, we're flying BA to Rome, staying a night in Rome, then getting an overnight train from Rome to Venice, to board our cruise. (Choose the 7 day, Greek Isles cruise). Then we're staying a couple of nights in Venice, hiring a car, and driving around Northern Italy for 8 days, before flying back again in early June. This trip is both our honeymoon, and our 3 year anniversary, so we're pretty excited.

Camden Market...

Today being Saturday, we decided we needed to do something..... see London and all of that. Rhiannon has been at work, pretty heavily limiting our time to do things during the week...

An NI number...

Is one of the essential things you need to work (legally) here in the UK. It's kind of a cross between our Medicare and Tax File numbers back at home, except, it's both.
NI stands for National Insurance...

To keep money...

One must have a bank account. Getting a bank account in the UK is notoriously difficult. There's also quite a number of differences, and gotchas, particularly with Australian bank cards, which I'll explain below.
You should also bear in mind the difficulties involved in communicating with banks when you're in a different time zone, and that you can't go into a branch to sort things out. Changing institutions is going to be very difficult, unless you're created a power of attorney (which we discussed, but did not do. Damnit.)

The thing about London is...

It's close to Europe. And so many dance music legends come from Europe - The netherlands to be precise.

Our first break...

is currently being planned for the Easter weekend - 2nd to 5th of April. Gives us a good 4 day weekend, and cause I have nothing to do right now, I get to plan it.

We have found....

A pub. As I mentioned earlier we've been doing the rounds of all the local pubs and drinking establishments in walking distance. So far we've been into, or at least observed and discounted, 6 including tonight.

Welcome...

A big welcome to our wide range of readers, clearly coming from all over the globe.

Feel free to leave comments and feedback at any time - you can do this by clicking on the 0 comments link at the bottom of each post. We are moderating, and it helps if you tell me who you are :)

Job hunting...

Ain't all it's cracked up to be. I'm hammering off heaps of applications, and I've had a couple of agents come back here and there seeming interested, but so far, not-so good. Rhiannon has already started working, so we're not totally bereft of money so far - in fact, we calculated before we left that even if I didn't work, if she got 5 days a week (which is looking pretty likely) then we'd have enough to survive without touching our savings. I'm getting bored though.

So much so, that I applied for a temp, part time IT support role on Gumtree yesterday. It was an.... interesting.... experience.

Our little flat...

So while Rhiannon is off at work, making money so we can eat and all that, i'm sitting at home being a little house wife husband in between hunting for jobs.

I got a little bored today, and decided to create a video of our little unit/apartment/flat/studio/whatever – so you can see what $AUD290 a week gets you in north west London.

Pubs...

I can't beleive we've gone this long, without writing about pubs, and/or beer....

anyway so where we live in Willesden Green, we've counted at least 5 bars or pubs near us. We've had a few drinks in two of them, decided two others are more like sports bar, and thus not worthy of our patronage (:P) and another seems to only open at about 5pm, so we think it's more a bar, and haven't been in there yet.

Ok, I admit it.

I'm kind of addicted to the supermarkets here. They just have so much cool shit, like the ready meals. Or, stuff like single-serve shepards pies for 90p, 3 for 2 pound, stuff like that.
The meat prices are pretty crap, which is basically in line with most of the meat quality, but oh well.

One thing that we haven't been able to find though: Chicken Salt. And, Pasta Salad! i don't know if creamy pasta salad even exists here !


Also, differences:
Chip packet colourings. Blue is plain, green is chicken, purple is salt and vinegar, right?
Oh no.... no.. blue is Cheese and Onion. Orangey-red is original (or, lightly salted). Green is Salt and Vinegar. I haven't really noticed a chicken, or bbq flavour yet. Prawn cocktail flavour is pink though. At least that colour makes sense.

The London Pass

Ok so, London is an expensive city. There's no doubting that. Here's a few prices for amusements and touristy things - per person. And remember to convert backwards, at a rate of about 1:1.6...

The differences between Metro and Tube...

Ok, so here's a bit of a rundown on the differences between Metro, or Metlink, back in Melbourne, and the Tube here. This post could equally be titled "Tube is better than metro because..."

The news came...

We got some uplifting and happy news last night - all went well, and all are well. I'm pleased and glad, but a bit upset we can't be there :(