Greenwich, Butterfly Blue & Pottery

On the weekend to enjoy the sunny Saturday we headed off to Greenwich Village on a touristy mission. We decided to really do the touristy thing and get there via the river boat as well. This was great even if we had to wait some time for a boat that wasnt full ! !
It really was a beautiful day to head off down the Thames in the sun with our biltong for the Saffa store in London bridge.

We wandered around the gardens and buildings of the royal Naval college, Trinity music college and Greenwich university. Then we headed up to the Greenwich park which was completely full of people enjoying the sun, picnicing and playing ball games! This is truely something that I'm not used to, it seem so community joining together in the park to worship the sun. I suppose it is kinda like Cape town on the beaches but it really does have a more united feel here.

Then there was the obligatory look at the greenwich mean line thing that divides the hemispheres. There was no way we were going inside the observatory to stand on it though since there was an insane queue to get near it to stand there and have a photo opportunity! Not thanks - we were so not in the fighting with crowds mood.

After more wondering around the park and the village and the markets we finally settled in a little pub for a traditional lunch of steak and Ale pie and Roast beef and yorkshire pudding.

Of course I did get some shopping in, in the market there (which is great...so many gift ideas!!) and have to tell you what I bought. I think it is such a great idea and bought into it whole heartedly. The company is Butterfly Blue and they create these beautiful buckles & belts. The concept is you have a black or brown leather belt and then all the buckles clip into that 1 belt. So you buy as many buckles as you want and then just have 1 belt strap. I loved this and really could decided which ones to get, so since there were 3 for the price of 2 on the buckles I landed up getting 3 buckles and both a black leather strap and a brown one. I just love the whole interchangeable concept and will def be getting some more buckles in the future. Check out the link...Butterfly Blue


Sunday saw the arrival of the rain ...which was fine since we were off for a day of pottery. I havent been to pottery in ages as I was seriously disconserted with the slowness of my work. i know that I hadnt done it in years but that was no reason why I should be so slow. But my doubts and fears of lack of talent went out the window this sunday as I created a vase that i'm really happy with from start to finish in one sitting. (well other then the firing and glazing of course) Now the question is whether I can get back into going every tuesday and not putting it off.... talking of that it is Tuesday and time to leave work and decide about going to pottery!

Attention Span

I so think that I must have ADD or something ...cause at the moment I have the attention span of a ...umm... well a very small attention spanless animal!

I have no been able to focus on one thing for more then 5 mins today !! this has not made for a very productive day - oh dear! Luckily i didnt have too much on my plate and with a nice long lunch thrown in it was all good.

And now i've become bored of this and my attention is elsewhere so and going to post this before it becomes another post in my drafts.

Climbing graphics/ Prints

So to try and continue my push to keep posting I've got a link for people today....



http://www.smallmountains.co.uk/home.html

This is the website for a graphic designer that creates these very cool and funny climbing graphics. There are def some of them that only climber can 'get' but they are still very cool in the graphic sense. The are available to buy as postcards, prints framed in various sizes as well. My personal favorite is a mountain with a sign pointing to the top saying SALE...it is entitled "Motivation" - how apt !

Otherwise I've had the most boring day including a 3 hour seminar on freaking roof tube lights (i.e. skylights that direct daylight into a space) I found the point of this seriously useless as we mostly only do office fit out's in like multiple story buildings in the centre of London. So when the hell are we going to have the top floor that we would be able to punch a hole in the roof and put one of these in. Nevermind that we would have to be landlord permission as well as the ever elusive council permission as well as meeting all building regs and DDA compliance ...NO thank you very much! I'll just avoid that as much as possible.

And now i much stop procrastinating and get back to my annoying sectional elevations....

I"m still Alive ...

So yeah its been awhile since i've posted. Sometimes life just runs away with me and then i get into this cycle of not posting and then its so much hard to start posting again. So i'm writing this inane stuff and see if that can get me back into the flow of writing.

So quite a bit has been going on in my life lately. I had my first climbing outside experience on the Isle of Portland in Dorset which was amazing but freaking cold !!! I did love it though! It was the easter weekend and 4 days of climbing was pretty exhausting so chilling out time was def needed after that.

But alas there was no rest for the wicked and the rest of the week was taken up with furniture supplier parties, birthday drinks, colleges farewells and trying to get sort for my birthday and our trip away to Mallorca the following week.

The other big thing that was going on in the week was me changing teams at work. I was playing the politics at work as best as I knew how and it has seemed to have paid off. I had to tread very gentley as I had to get Miss Unhinged to feel like it was her idea for me to move on and I had to not make it seem like I forcing Trini Party Boy to def leave even though his visa had run out. And not make new guy, hong kong guy, feel like he got the raw end of the deal by having to now work with Miss unhinged ! EXHAUSTING. Oh yeah and make my boss think it was the best idea and make the move around happen. So it all happened smoothly and I'm so happy with my new designer and her boyfriend the team leader !! We were all already good friends mostly from nights stumbling around london together including situations of being in the team leaders bed (totally innocent) and messing around in a sex shop (never an innocent place ;) !

So am going to post this now before it becomes even longer since i've written something...
More catch up stories to follow :)

Climbing in portland

The view from the Cuttings

KoЯn

So i've been promising myself that I would get these posted sooner but you know how life goes and once I have a break from blogging I have to find a quiet moment to respark the routine.



I was downloading the pictures of my phone and the videos as well and found the few ones I had taken of the Korn concert - I apologise for the quality etc I was too busy jumping up and down in the mosh pit ...well on the side of it.





I have no idea why i'm so attracted to mosh pits - I think it is the energy and most of them are really happy places as well. It feels like everyone is part of it cause they are just loving the music and the vibe and energy so much that just jumping up and down isnt enough of an expression of joy. Plus i have to say that it is def easier to see the stage as a short person by being near the mosh pit. I had the most perfect view over the mosh pit as everyone makes a huge gap for the mosh pit and keeps the veiw clear.



*Jonathan Davis playing the bagpipes*


I just cant beleive that I've finally gotten to see the band that I've loved for so long and never thought that I would ever get to see live. This is def another reason why i'm loving living in London. (but I must say that it is typical that once I leave SA Korn go and make plans to play there. They are actually performing this easter weekend in SA)





So here are 2 of the short videos I took - again very short and bad quality and I just couldnt stand still with my favorite song playing ....

Home for Christmas

It is official...we finally found and bought tickets to go visit home for next Christmas :)

What a mission to actually find tickets that are at least a reasonable price for the high season. Most tickets are just horrendously priced and I seriously wonder how people can pay that much more for ticket in season compared to out of season! Mostly they are triple the damn price. Ok so enough whinging about the cost of the plane tickets... It is so great to have a set date that i'll be going back to visit. And the best part is that it is for 25 days in summer !! Glorious Cape Town summer :)

Family, friends, beaches, climbing and the beautiful mountain ! Cant wait.

Party Weekend

I cant believe how fast the last week has gone and that i havent gotten any posts out! Especially since I've had a very eventful week at that.
Friday was a much better day mostly just because I decided that it was going to be and it was of course nearly weekend and we have a fun filled weekend ahead !!
We got some climbing in before heading out to see a workmate, Mrs Quiet's husbands band play. Climbing was at first frustrating and I was getting my confidence seriously shaken but then we found a set of routes that I really enjoyed and flashed my first 5A (I know that means very little to most of you out there but I was struggling with that grade and always had to struggle with it so was great to do it first time) Rushing off straight after that with the adrenaline pumping through my veins we headed back into central London.

The band, A Quiet Minute, who arent very quiet were great and since it was only their second live performance it was very impressive. But the big shock/gossip of the evening was when the 2 senior designers from work that had joined us made it very clear that they were now dating by very publicly snogging over the bar. Now that was entertaining. The evening as a whole was great, there was such a good vibe and C and I just enjoyed being in the moment together!

Saturday was a very late start since we had only crawled into bed at 4am. Mostly the day was just lounging around and C off playing shoot em up computer games with the housemate... this was until they then decided to finally hang up the coat rack. This was def a very entertaining experience ...boys are funny ! Firstly there is the whole debate about generally were the electrics are in the wall and the basically just decided to drill and see what happens. At least they did think to turn off the electricity. Then they proceed to have a great debate about how to hang the two pieces together. We havent hung it for almost a year now cause of missing pieces (washers) but strangely enough they now landed up with pieces left over. Now to position it. I would just like to point out that using the straight edge of a book to line up holes that are further apart then the spine of the book isnt a good idea ! but anyway. Being boys it was basically about using the power tools of course. The best part was when the housemate would just wander off with the torch and leave C drilling in the dark. This resulted in C finding his head torch which just looked hysterical!! So through the whole process I got to sit back and watch in fits of giggles.

We had plans to head off to a party at a club in town called Abacus which was organised by a bunch of Trinidadians of which one of my workmates is part of (him being Trinidadian and all). The committee that holds these parties once a month in London is called busspepper and seriously have a look at the website and head to one of their parties sometime. It was touch and go about whether we we going to go being all exhausted from the party the night before but we did land up going and having a fab time !! What a nice happy chilled out party vibe !! It was packed but everyone was SO friendly! It felt like the same vibe we would have partying in Cape Town. We had such a good time getting all hot and sweaty on the dance floor and got to be all ranchy and stuff - even tho C and I were so not ranchy compared to the grinding that the Carribean people like to do ! I was very impressed that we stayed at the club till 3am but hey time flies when your having fun !!

And sunday was pure recovery day and recharging for Korn the following night.... but that will have to be another blog soon :)

Teary Thursday

Well today started off badly! I got an email from Miss Unhinged and it was the most confusing toned email and upset me no end. I think that it was just a last straw after so many other events that i've ignored. She would throw in little "nice" comments between her tell me off for no reason. The 2 hour lunch came up again. She accused me of leaving things unnecessarily undone until her return to the office, and the main thing was to sit and do space plans and dont help other people or start 'networking' in the office. Basically she doesnt like me talking to anyone ! it drives me up the wall as I am a very social person and dont enjoy sitting infront of a computer all day and not saying a word to the people around me. I have had no complaints from them that it distracting them and they have actually said it makes it easy to approach me when wanting help.

I was just so angry and emotional! I hate being like that as I see it as a weakness so who knows what other people think. But i just knew that I couldnt let this one slide. I was planning to speak to my boss about it at some stage but as soon as I stepped into the office he just knew something was really wrong and approached me and I landed up showing just how upset I was which upset me even more.

Anyway we went for a long chat and a hot chocolate. (yes yes i know I failed to stay away from the chocolate today. But it truely was the most devine hot chocolate - or should I say chocolate soup!!! It was so insanely thick that I had to stir it the whole time to stop it from becoming solid. The place that serves this divine stuff is Apostrophe ) He was great and helped me work things out for myself and try and see all her side of things etc and teaching me methods for conflict resolution.

After that the day went pretty well as I got to have lunch bitch to Persia (Designer & friend that sits across from me) and then we also made plans to go shopping after work and retail therapy was def needed :)

Once Miss Unhinged got back to the office she was all sugar and sweetness and didnt even notice anything was upsetting me. (even tho post her being at work others were still noticing that something was up) For once I was able to calmly confront someone and bring up what was bothering me. We had a chat and it was all nice and stuff but now that she was all appologetic etc she still made me feel like i was over reacting and that it wasnt such a big deal.

Basically she STILL confuses the hell out of me and I HATE being all emotional! My boss says that I will become harder and that I just tend to be very feelings orientated even in the way I perceive other people. I'll learn to turn down the volume button on that when needed to.

He also confided in me that he has been given alot of negative feedback about her attitude and that she doesn't seem to have enough respect for the directors including him. So I don't feel so unvalidated in my feelings.

What an up and down day ...but ending on a good note with some much needed shopping in Zara and a few other stores :)

Pitch

So the pitch is overs, so the serious stress of the last 3 weeks is overs! So today was my first day attempting to cut down on chocolate. And it seems to be working out better then I thought. i broke down at about 11am and had a single minstrel (chocolate button type thing) It did however help that we were taken out by a lighting company to a 2 hour long lunch! so basically was at my desk for less hours of the day and therefore not being taunted by the bag of chocolate on my desk! 

But dispite my happy mood or because of it Miss Unhinged (my senior designer - who we work as a 'team') decided to ruin the afternoon with her insane demand, snide comments and general all around bad attitude. She seemed to be unhappy with the 2 hour lunch that "I" had decided to take and seemed to want to lash out at everyone around. I would just like to point out at this point that the lunch was a design dept event that both she and I rsvp'd to go and then she decided to take lunch with her boyfriend that she lives with anyways. I was at this lunch with my boss and he had no problem with us taking off some time for lunch after working so hard on the pitch. I am completely confused by here. So i landed up staying at work until 19:30 helping out the other design support guy as she had given him a whole load to do with a deadline of tonight and told him unequivocally not to leave until it was done! I dont understand her and sometimes i think she just enjoys the power trip! Not to mention that majority of the time I think she is just trying to hide her massive insecurities. 

Anyways - besides her multiple unhinged personalities she and I did happen to put together a great design for the pitch yesterday and the presentation as a whole including loads of work from the other departments was apparently one of the best presentations that the people in the company had ever seen done there. So at least we do seem to be producing some good work together - which is a good thing and it will mean winning more jobs and then getting better bonuses :) 

So that is enough of my ranting! Am def exhausted but in a much better mood then the one i left the office in thanks to the lovely bf and the housemate! They do make me laugh hysterically ! And we watched a cute little movie called Dedication which made you realise that there were alot more crazy unhinged (but in a good way) out there! But now am off to sleep land now to recharge the batteries and prepare for tomorrow afternoon (thankfully I will not have Miss unhinged designer in the office tmr morning).