Commuting NZ style...

Commuting NZ style...
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Couldn't resist posting this one of Adrian on the train in Welly...

Where does the time go....

9th July already.... catch up stuff below :-)

Tour de France starts in London

It was a super sport Sunday in London as as well as the Wimbledon men's finals, it was also the start of the Tour de France. Julia and I toddled off to Craig's place to watch the bikes - he doesn't live far from the start at Greenwich.

They were amazing, but went past in a flash! Didn't even have time to take a photo! They looked like a shoal of fish swimming past - colours were amazing.

After that we headed off to Greenwich and had lunch - then watched this amazing street theatre - which I'm assuming was French but they seemed to be singing in Italian! Looked very cool tho!

The singer

The singer
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Tour de France street theatre in Greenwich (2)

Tour de France street theatre in Greenwich (2)
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

No stopping yet!

Friday (another day off work for me...) Steve and I went along to the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show which was great. Given the torrential rain we'd had all week the gardens looked remarkably fresh and we didn't get any rain either which was great. The Festival of Roses was a bit disappointing - they didn't seem to have lasted too long, but the rest of it was good. Including some rather stunning garden statues...

No photos from this year however.

Maya turns 21...

No rest for the wicked... well there was a bit of a rest for me luckily. We had originally planned to meet at 11.45 but due to being somewhat under the weather I pushed that back to 1pm...

Maya, Chris and I had a lovely afternoon at the London Zoo which was great. We got to see the gorillas and we spent ages in the reptile house so Maya could admire all the snakes... Watching the tiger (looks just like Lenny!) was also a highlight for me :-).

Then we toddled off to Saltyard for a highly delicious dinner and bubbles to round off the day. Then I had to take my slightly worse for wear body back home...

Chris and Maya + gorilla!

Chris and Maya + gorilla!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Knowledge stuff...

Wednesday was our annual Knowledge Community Day which I helped to organise. The morning was usual work stuff - presentations etc, but in the afternoon we went to the Oasis Children's Venture to do some gardening and wall painting. Great fun despite the odd torrential downpour! I was in the painting team (check out a couple of the photos below) and had a good time turning a brick wall white so they could come along and cover it in graffiti...

Sobering to realise that for the kids who use the centre, that is their backyard - that is where they get to run around and let off steam. Makes you realise how spoilt we are back in Godzone.

Then in the evening it was our summer party... Fortunately I took many more photos than I featured in! Great night - although I really shouldn't have had the margaritas I had...

The group even happier that evening!

The group even happier that evening!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

The happy group at the end

The happy group at the end
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Hard at work during the rain...

Hard at work during the rain...
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Hard at work painting under the trees during a downpour...

The Hold Steady...

aka as the most "boysiest' band I've been to in a long time...

The Hold Steady get rave reviews when they play here, but it really was a very male oriented audience. I went with Divya and I'd say we were one of the few 'girl couples' there - as opposed to girls who were there with their blokes...

And they were really good - but didn't light my fire as much as I thought they would. Perhaps it was also due to it being a Monday night gig at Shepherd's Bush - never a good time, but I just couldn't love them as much as I knew I was meant to. I'm sure all the boys would disagree with me tho!!

Back on the merry-go-round...

So here we go again... back at home watching the news stories about the car bomb found in central London. Sigh. You forget for a while and then something happens and it starts all over again. The news has been full of differing stories but currently it seems like there were two - at least neither went off.

On a more positive note I've been a social butterfly this week so updates are below!

Its Monday - must be the cinema...

Went to see Jindabyne with friends from work - it has probably been out in NZ for ages as I think it was filmed a couple of years ago. Great film tho - beautifully filmed and quite thought provoking as well - and despite it being Australian it did make me feel a bit homesick - just the sounds and some of the sights were very reminiscent of NZ...

Expect (hopefully!) more filmy things as we're aiming for at least one per month - which will be better than my current hit rate!

Gemini drinkies and Sups & Wine

Tuesday it was off out with my Gemini chums (David and Chris) and Daphne for belated birthday drinks at the Archduke. Daphne was the ringer, but as Pete is a Gemini it all sort of made sense really! And he was on baby duty looking after Olivia :-).

That really is the final birthday thing though and I've accepted that now I have to take my birthday cards down...

Wednesday was a visit to my friend Simon's place for 'sups & wine' - lovely evening chewing the fat and enjoying some nice wine :-).

Snow Patrol at the O2

Thursday (last night) was Snow Patrol at the new O2 arena - interesting gig that one...

I'm a BIG fan of Snow Patrol - their last two cds have been on pretty high rotate on my iPod, and I've seen them a couple of times (once at Somerset House, once at V-Festival). So I was very excited about the gig - plus the O2 is brand new, so was also curious about what it would be like.

What it was like was incredibly sterile... Going into it (it's in the old Millennium Dome) it was like walking into an American shopping mall. Very very strange. The actual arena was good - great sound, and we got quite close to the stage as well. But the atmosphere just seemed really constrained. We had some very drunk girls dancing next to us for a while but they were behaving too leerily so the 'Customer Team' came and moved them out... At another point, some girls climbed up on their boyfriend's shoulders to get a better view. Cue more security guards into the audience to get them off again. And what was really weird was that there were no ticket touts - anywhere. I don't think I've ever been to a gig in London that hasn't had touts either outside the venue or outside the station - just added to the whole strangeness of the evening...

And then to cap it all off the transport was really skewed up so it took 1.5 hours to get back to Waterloo - a journey that should take 10 minutes... Not happy - and been very tired all day today :-(.

50 not out...

And Leigh
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

And so Leigh turns 50 today - happy birthday sis!! (I know your hair doesn't look like this anymore but its the most recent photo I've got of you!)

Food recycling!

Very exciting - got home tonight to have a new little brown recycling bin outside my flat. My council is trialling food recycling for the next year :-). Which means that all my food waste will go into a bio-degradable bag which will then be used as a 'soil conditioner' on local farms. I've already started using the bin :-).

And before all you smug NZers start leaving comments about doing your own composting, bear in mind that I live in a flat on the top floor of a purpose built flat with no composting facilities of my own - this is a good thing they are doing!

On The Run

So I've started to read On The Run by Sean Damer and Ian Frazer - the story of Anzac escape and evasion in Crete.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it is fantastic. I guess it is more interesting because of Dad, and because I've been to Crete, but it is a really good book. I recommend everyone to read it.

Some of the stuff is mind boggling - reading about guys who walked up the Samaria Gorge, and did it when they were in a terrible physical condition, and the whole march over to Sfakia to be evacuated. Incredible. My favourite story (which I'd read before) is about the Kiwi soldier who was picked up by other escapees who were in a boat - he was paddling naked on a plank of wood... You can only imagine what would have happened to him had he not been picked up!

Forewarned is forearmed...

So I've been having a bit of dental pain over the last couple of weeks so I finally went to the dentist...

It turns out it is either nothing (which is what I'm really hoping for obviously....)

Or its going to be really awful - and all I can do is wait and see. So now I'm obsessing about my teeth and am convinced there is a root canal with my name on it coming my way. Watch this space...

Its my birthday month don't you know...

So I finally had my belated birthday dinner on Tuesday... Despite three friends going all the way to the States to avoid my birthday (Nicola, Craig and Julia), and another one breaking her ankle (Kristie) I still managed to get them all together this week to wish me happy birthday. While Maya, Owen and Finbarr helped me celebrate for the 3rd and 2nd times respectively...

And I got some more pressies :-). Not that I'm materialistic at all :-)

Sad movies always make me cry...

I took myself off to see Bridge to Terabithia today - on the recommendation of Lindsey who saw it a few weeks ago. I loved it, although I did cry :-). I won't say why, but I am terrible at sad movies.

Lindsey had told me that it reminded her of games we used to play when we kids - jumping out of the nectarine tree at Wheretia St, and everytime we would enter a new world, and this film really captures that sort of imagination as well.

It was just a lovely movie.

Clash of cultures - The Mall

Clash of cultures - The Mall
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

I loved the clash here - a Dirty Dancing taxi and the flags! I think the flags were either lining the Mall for the 'Trooping the Colour' or something to do with the various Falkland War commemorations that have been happening recently.

The Silver Surfer on the London Eye

The Silver Surfer on the London Eye
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

The Silver Surfer rides the London Eye... promoting the new Fantastic 4 movie I think, but I thought it looked pretty cool!

Good times

On Tuesday I took the afternoon off work to meet up with Mike - a friend I've known for a long long time now... We met when we flatted when I went to Library School back in Wellington - so a wee while ago! We met at Green Park and wandered up to look at the NZ Memorial at Hyde Park Corner which I'd wanted to do for ages, then ambled through Hyde Park as well. Finally saw the Diana Memorial Fountain as well which I'd never seen before.

I took a few snaps of the memorial - check out my flickr account as well as those below for a few more.

New Zealand Memorial - 'The Southern Stand' Inscription 2

New Zealand Memorial - 'The Southern Stand' Inscription 2
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

The inscription describing the memorial. Most of the stands have different stories/writing on them as well.

New Zealand Memorial - 'The Southern Stand'

New Zealand Memorial - 'The Southern Stand'
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

View of the NZ Memorial at Hyde Park corner. It is diagonally opposite from the Australian memorial which is also really lovely. Very different from the NZ one, but they complement each other nicely.

Birthday round up...

I had a lovely day on the 7th - spent it hanging out with Maya. We started off by going to the Anthony Gormley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery - the Blind Light room was fantastic! Then we went for lunch at Ping Pong Dim Sum which was very nice. I hadn't been there before, but it was handy to the gallery. Then it was off for another drink before going to see Sunshine - starring the fabulous Cillian Murphy and NZ's own Cliff Curtis. It was good - bit of a weak ending we both thought tho. Then off for another drink and dinner at Strada. So a good day!

Friday I went and had my hair cut & coloured (but you can't really tell from the photos...) to finally get rid of all of the grey. Then it was the 'June Babies' drinks at The Horse - pub by the office. There are many of us at work (including two on the 7th!) so this is the second year we've done a big joint party.

And I finally got to meet Maya's boyfriend - I tried really hard to be the scary aunt (apparently he was nervous of meeting me...) but I don't think I succeeded very well! I'm just too nice... :-).

Needless to say Saturday was a very slow day for me...

And again in colour...

And again in colour...
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Me, Simon and Jackie

Aunt, niece and boyfriend!

Aunt, niece and boyfriend!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Bliss...

Today was the start of my birthday celebrations as I used my present from Kevin last year - a day at The Sanctuary.

It was fab - I just lazed around, did a bit of swimming, had a facial (first one ever!), spent some time in a chilling out colour room, and bought some lovely products for my face - all part of the new me as I head into the last year of my thirties!! Great way to spend the first half of my birthday (you know - the whole 6th vs 7th June thing...).

Coldy...

I can't believe it - its my birthday week and I feel like I'm coming down with a cold! Which I can only assume I got from Pete :-(. There are some shockers going around at the mo so I'm going to dope myself up and head off to bed - I refuse to get ill this week.

I have too much planned!!

The Future is Unwritten

Mhairi and I went to see the movie about Joe Strummer tonight - The Future is Unwritten. I really enjoyed it - I realised I didn't actually know all that much about him and his life and it was filmed quite cleverly. Lots of his voice overs, lots of actual footage - so at times it was actually hard to remember that he has gone. One minor quibble would be that it would have been nice to know who the people were who were talking about him. There were no names until they were credited at the end - a bit frustrating as I doubt there are that many people who would have known they all were....

But still a great film. And a great bit at the end from him about life and what its all about. Gave me and my angsting a bit to think about anyhow.

Just get over it...

Saturday was a train trip out to Tonbridge to go to Olivia's 2nd birthday BBQ - as always Daphne and Pete struck gold with the weather, and despite having just finished a week of cold and rain we had a lovely sunny afternoon... Although Pete was struggling with a cold he soldiered on. And luckily there were enough men there to take over the BBQ when he needed a break!

I'm in the middle of angsting about my rapidly approaching last year of my 30s - for which I got very short shrift from Pete and Steve - both older than me who both said 'Get over it' - good old Kiwi sympathy there...

Manics at Shepherd's Bush

I went to see the Manic Street Preachers at the SBE - first time they've toured for a while - well certainly first time I'd seen them for ages anyhow! I'd been playing their latest album heavily so I would know most of the songs, but they did a great gig of old and new stuff so it didn't matter too much.

They played my current fave, which is 'Your Love Alone is Not Enough' - absolutely fantastic. You can listen to it on their myspace site here. They ended with 'Design for Life' which is one of my all time faves of theirs - how could I not love a song which starts with "Libraries gave us power"...!

And the great thing about them is that they look so normal. They've been around for years, and James Dean Bradfield just looks like a middle aged man - brilliant.

After the gig we met up with a friend of Divya's who looks after gig merchandising so I also managed to get a free t-shirt and some very cool badges as well - not a bad evening all up!

More books!

I've added some more books to my LibraryThing as well - at long last. I'm very proud to say that one of the books I added I appear to be the only person who has catalogued it! And somewhat unsuprisingly, my last Harry Potter book has been catalogued by over 16,000 people...

Still got my graphic novels to do yet :-)

Tragic Life Stories

I have to admit I've noticed the plethora of these books coming out over the last couple of years - you know, the triumph over extreme tragedy/hardship/abused childhood etc. But in WH Smiths today (bit like Whitcoull's - in fact they owned Whitcoull's for a while) I was shocked to see they now have that as a category for their books. So in addition to Crime, Romance, Horror etc you now have 'Tragic Life Stories'.

I find that a very sad and very scary inditement of the world we live in.

A very wet Bank Holiday weekend...

So the UK's last long weekend until the end of August (gulp!) is drawing to a close, and given the lovely days we've been having until Friday its been like another country! Started raining on Saturday and hasn't really stopped since.

Quite pleased tho really - there is no compulsion to get out and do anything when the weather is crap so I've had 3 days of extreme laziness and vege-ing out. Including starting to watch the series The Green Wing which I've borrowed from a friend. Absolutely brilliant - very typical C4 comedy so maybe not to everyone's taste but I've found myself laughing out loud. I also took myself off to the cinema to see Spiderman 3 - again not to everyone's taste, but now that Pirates 3 has opened I thought it would be the quieter of the two. And its not bad - not great, and could be shorter (does a superhero movie really need to be over 2 hours long...?) but it filled a wet, Sunday afternoon!

Also went out to the wilds of South East London on Sat night for a drink with Finbarr at
The Clockhouse - his version of a 'local' pub. Not so local for me, Owen and Julia, particularly given that the rain was chucking down as we walked for what felt like miles and miles to get to it...

Wilco, 22 May 2007, Shepherds Bush Empire (8)

Wilco, 22 May 2007, Shepherds Bush Empire (8)
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Wilco, 22 May 2007, Shepherds Bush Empire (1)

Wilco, 22 May 2007, Shepherds Bush Empire (1)
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Wonderful Wilco

So I went to the second night of Wilco's two night gig at the Shepherd's Bush Empire last night - how many ways can I rave about it?? All kudos to Kevin (also known as "I'm your biggest fan Jeff") for letting me take his spare ticket for the show - his second show I might add. He also went to see them on Sunday night as well. He is not named IYBFJ for nothing!

They were just fantastic. And as I think I've mentioned before Wilco do have ground to make up for! It was quite strange to be stood back in the Empire watching Wilco, and having such a completely different experience. Kevin got to see them do 'Be Not So Fearful' on Sunday night, and I live in eternal hope that they will play Lonely 1, but I still haven't seen it. They did however finish with Woody Guthrie's California Stars from the Wilco/Billy Bragg album Mermaid Avenue, which is one of my favourites so I was pretty happy at the end :-). It has taken a long time but I think I've almost forgiven Wilco for that first experience of them...

And they played for almost a full two hours - almost unheard of nowadays. So I took my camera for Kevin and as well as the photo blogged there are a few more on Flickr. Not great photos - but they are my first gig ones!

Another plug for one of my fave blogs...

I've really been enjoying reading the Crockatt & Powell blog recently - I think I wrote about this ages ago.... Sadly I don't get to go into the shop that often now as I work in our other building.

I'm particularly impressed with their Harry Potter offer - but you'll have to read about it to find out what it is! Suffice to say, that I had a small part in also getting Ernst & Young involved...

John Simm - the Master!

Or should that be Sam (Life on Mars) or Elling - the play I went to this week with Jax. He was absolutely brilliant in it - I didn't see John Simm at all - just his character. The theatre was pretty small as well (probably only about 100 people) so it was very intimate. Very funny, and while all the actors were good, I did think John Simm was the fabbest :-).

I also found this article from The Sun (a quality paper...) that has reported that he is to play The Master in Dr Who. How cool - David Tennant vs John Simm. What a show that will be!

Lunching weekends

I had a weekend of lunches - on Saturday Nicola, Mhairi and Jackie came to mine for lunch. Very stressful time for me as I'm not a particularly confident cook, so I find entertaining not that relaxing! And with various dietary requirements to be catered for it became even more challenging! However all seemed to go well and as my guests didn't leave until about 9pm I think I can safely say the day was a success!

Sunday I met Julia and we went for lunch at the revamped Dog & Fox in Wimbledon. It has recently reopened and has gone non-smoking ahead of the law change in July so it was great. No horrid smoky clothes at the end, and it was quite quiet as I guess more people were going to the pubs that still allow smoking!

Has it been that long???

Here's a wee round-up of what I've been doing (that is of any vague interest!) since my last post...

Very influential

I've just spent the last three days at the Kettering Hotel & Spa on an influencing course for work. It was really good - I learnt a lot, and as always, more about myself. The hotel looks fab from the website and it was pretty good - on the inside. But it is literally sited on a roundabout so there wasn't anywhere to go outside! I did manage to for a swim on one of the days though which I'm quite proud of!

Wivenhoe wandering, Renoir and the British Museum on a Bank Holiday weekend...

I went out to visit a friend from work, Jax, who lives in Wivenhoe - deep in the wilds of Essex. A bit like going out west in Auckland (but different somehow...). Although most of the day was spent shopping in the neighbouring town on Colchester. I so rarely shop with other girlies so I had a very successful afternoon, acquiring some new colourful tops for work (as opposed to my usual black and brown...)!

Sunday I met up with Nicola and we went to see the Renoir exhibition at the National Gallery. This is sponsored by EY so we used my freebie tickets - quite good as I think we were both a bit underwhelmed with the whole event. Some good ones in there, but it wasn't amazing, and judging by the crowd it didn't seem to be super busy either.

Then we trotted off to the British Museum - my first time for years. I think Nicola was a bit horrified I hadn't been since the Great Court was finished... We went to see La Bouche du Roi - art considering the slave ships that used to come out to England. The accompanying video was also amazing - showing how the petrol smugglers of Benin take their lives into their hands by expanding plastic containers over the open flame so they can get more petrol in to them, then they strap about 10 of these containers on to the motorbikes and off they go... A very high fatality rate unsuprisingly.

On the way out we wandered through the Egyptian room which was way cool!! I hadn't been that keen but Nicola forced me and I loved it. Sadly the museum was closing so it literally was a walk through. Fantastic though - and I'll be back quite soon me thinks!

So what was I looking for?

Aaah - that would be 'wilfing' - although technically it should be spelt 'wwilfing'...

But apparently that is what the British are spending an awful lot of time doing on the web - getting distracted and heading off on many different directions as we surf.

I have to admit I'm a bit guilty of this... but this is something that I've seen mentioned loads over the last couple of weeks. So yet another new word enters the lexicon - as we all head off to carry on wilfing...!

James

James, Brixton Academy, London, 26th April 2007 #21
Originally uploaded by Guildford Ghost.

This is actually from the gig the night before, but there aren't any decent photos of the Friday night one...

James - a band from the past...

Kevin and I went to see James on Friday - as good as they used to be! They sort of disbanded a few years ago, but I suspect they got back together again for the money (as so many bands are doing these days...). But we always used to enjoy going to see them - the lead singer is just a livewire on stage so he always gives a great performance. It wasn't too much of a 'best hits' performance which pleased Kevin - being more of the music afficionado than me...

It inspired me to check my gig tickets when I got home tho, and I only had one other ticket for James in my book - but I know I've seen them loads more than that!

Busy busy busy!!

Been a busy wee thing for the last week - so below are some catch up posts! I've also uploaded a few more photos from Jordan to Flickr as well - in case you aren't bored of them yet :-).

Running in the sun...

On Sunday I was up out again, this time to go in to town to watch the London Marathon. We went to Canary Wharf - around the 18 mile mark, and stood in the sun to clap and cheer the runners as they went past. We even managed to see and cheer our friend Sam from work, who did a cracking time of 3 hrs 36 mins! Sadly one runner died afterwards - the heat really must have been extreme for those running. It was hot enough just stood in it.

We finished the afternoon off by getting a boat back down the Thames to London Bridge to get home - another lovely day spent making the most of the glorious weather London has been having recently!

Walking in sunny East Sussex

On Saturday Julia and I headed off to East Sussex/Kent to go walking. We did a walk known as the Robertsbridge Circular (11.5 miles) and it was fantastic! It was a gorgeous day, the bluebells were out in the woods, we had a fantastic lunch at The White Horse Inn, the apple trees were just starting to blossom (we went through an orchard at one point), we saw the fantastic Bodiam Castle and got to have a delish National Trust icecream, plus had time for a pint at the end as we waited for our train back to London! One of the best walks we've done for a while - there are a few photos on Flickr, so check them out!

Bodiam Castle - way cool!

Bodiam Castle - way cool!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

This really was a perfect castle to sit and admire in the sun!

Bluebell woods...

Bluebell woods...
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

So pretty!!

Trendy birthday celebrations, Sevenoaks and a gig...

On Thursday I was off out to help Finbarr celebrate his birthday. We had pre-dinner drinks at The Foundry - achingly trendy Hoxton type pub. Julia and I felt very wrongly dressed in our 'just come from work clothes'!! Then we went for very nice Vietnamese dinner, followed by more drinks at a not so achingly trendy pub....

Fortunately I had taken Friday off to go and visit my friend Jannine and meet baby Miles for the first time, so I didn't have to drag my sorry carcass out of bed to get to work by 9! Method in my madness! I had a lovely afternoon playing with 2 year old Daisy and 3 month old Miles, then it was back in to town to meet Maya to go and see Bloc Party at Brixton Academy. Fortunately we were upstairs in the balcony which is seated so we got to sit for a good while until they came on! And as always they were great.

A real find!

Met up with some friends for a drink after work, and Nicola suggested the Prince of Wales in Kennington - fantastic wee pub! You just wouldn't think you were in London at all! Damn fine fish'n'chips too!

Alex surfing at Piha, Good Friday

Alex surfing at Piha, Good Friday
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

I just loved this photo of Alex so I'm also blogging it!

OK - I admit it - I'm a bit sad...

But I found a link to LibraryThing on a friend's blog the other day and I just love it!! So I've started my own wee catalogue :-)... Still not that much on it as I've only added recent books I've read (although there are still some of these to come), and I'll keep populating it as I go along.

I think I truly must have been destined to be a Librarian - I couldn't wait to get home and start entering my books! Oh dear...

So as you may have noticed I've also added a link to my catalogue under my links to other peoples blogs. Love it! I'm having some issues with getting a link just to my catalogue that I've created so I'll keep working on it!

Let me entertain you...

Now that I've finally uploaded most of my photos I can catch up with other stuff that I've been doing since I got back. Which actually isn't all that much- except for going to see The Entertainer on Tuesday night.

Fantastic play - great cast as well with Robert Lindsay and Pam Ferris. Apparently Laurence Olivier saw a play Robert Lindsay was in a long time ago, and said to him then that he should do The Entertainer one day.

It was quite amazing to listen to the dialogue (the play was set around the time of the Suez Crisis), and think that they must have changed the lines to reflect current events - but they hadn't. Incredible to listen to what they were saying, and everything could be directly related to the situation in Iraq as well. Shows how for all things change, everything stays the same...

Phew!

Thats all of my photos up on Flickr now! A few more still to go up from some of the rest of the group but Flickr is currently throwing a hissy fit at the mo, and I feel like I've been uploading photos for hours so I might leave the rest until tomorrow!!

A few more added....

OK - I've finished Tuesday now... :-). Only 3 more days to go!! It is my plan to get them all up over the weekend - then just need to add the highlights from other people...

Tuesday - Indy again...3

Tuesday - Indy again...3
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

The Indiana Jones aspect of the Treasury! You can see why Petra is called the Rose Red City...

Tuesday - Me & Julia outside the Treasury

Tuesday - Me & Julia outside the Treasury
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Photos being added - slowly

I've started to add my photos to my Flickr account - check them out and also the couple below. Still loads to come yet tho!

In answer to Eryn's question re the holiday, I went with Explore to Jordan. An organised holiday with 16 people in the group. We did 2 nights camping in the Wadi Rum desert, 2 nights camping above Petra, and 3 nights in a hotel. Absolutely fantastic!!

Sunday - Desert views...with camels and blowing sand

Sunday - Desert views...with camels and blowing sand
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Monday - me and that Bedouin look again

Monday - me and that Bedouin look again
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Tuesday - strolling on - with baby camel

Tuesday - strolling on - with baby camel
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Camels, sand, walking, Bedouin and history...

Got back from my week in Jordan on Saturday - and what an absolutely fantastic holiday it was. My first time to the Middle East and it made me realise how little I know about that part of the world - despite it being so crucial to world politics at the moment.

We had a fab guide, Hazem, who just loved his country and Wadi Rum (the desert we camped in), and it just made such a difference. He was fantastic - it just added so much to the whole holiday.

So read on for highlights of each day - photos to follow shortly on Flickr!

Friday - Moses, the Dead Sea and Romans

Friday started off with a visit to Mt Nebo - the mountain from which Moses saw the Holy Land - and is reportedly buried somewhere around it as well. I loved this spot - we were there early so it was relatively empty, and it just seemed to be both incredibly spiritual and incredibly historical. For me it was one of the highlights of the trip.

Then it was down to the Dead Sea for a float... so bizarre. Very strange to be able to go out of your depth in the water, and stand up, but not sink!! We weren't anywhere near where you can slap yourself with the mud, but I did go on to buy many Dead Sea products for my skin!!

Back into the bus and off to Jerash - good, but after having been to Agrigento, Pompeii and Rome, one Roman ruin begins to look a lot like the next... But not many have Bedouin bagpipe players - you'll have to wait for the photos for that one!!

Then it was back to the Toledo Hotel in Amman for our last night. We went to a traditional restaurant for our group meal - we had the traditional dish of lamb and yoghurt, which I couldn't eat much of. Partly cos I was full, partly cos it tasted a bit sicky. The yoghurt wasn't really to my taste...

Thursday - Day of much driving

Overwhelming memories of Thursday are driving... although to spice it up a bit we did drive down the scariest road I've ever been on to get to Wadi Ibn Hammad. We went for a walk along the river bed here - it was quite a stunning gorge, and a lot of it was spent walking in the water. It was a nice walk, but I'm not sure it warranted the really scary drive down the hill. Nor the drive back up - I got a bit worried when the bus started to slide backwards... I wanted to take a photo, but I honestly was too scared to do it...

Another long drive till lunch, (up and down an amazing valley) then on to Madaba to see the mosaic map at St George's Church. Sadly it was all a bit rushed as the church was closing early due to it being Good Friday the next day. So it was back to the Mariam Hotel for a G&T before dinner - the gin had to be bought in especially, but we did enjoy it! We sat by the empty pool for a pre-dinner drink - given Jordan's water shortage I can't imagine it is filled that often!

Wednesday - More Petra - and Turkish baths!

Tuesday was spent back down in Petra (apparently our group was the fastest one down from the camp - broke the record by 40mins...). So we walked an hour down to Petra to walk 900 steps up to The Monastery (which was well worth it!), then back down again...

In the evening we went for a Turkish Bath - my first one and it was fantastic. After 4 days of no showers we were all feeling VERY grubby, but that was soon fixed by the steam, the scrubbing, the massage and the shower. It was absolutely heaven!!

Tuesday - Camel riding & Petra

Crack of dawn start as we headed out of camp on our camels at 6.30am for a 2 hour ride back to the road! Strange sensation as the camel stood up - big lurch forward then a big one back, then another forward lurch - luckily there are handles on the front and back of the saddle to hold on to! My camel had a wee baby camel tied to it who spent most of the time pushing against my foot - obviously annoyed that I was on its Mother's back! Plus there was another younger one roaming around which wasn't tied to any of the other camels and I think it was a bit jealous!!

Had a tea stop (more for the camel walkers than us!) at the spot where Lawrence first met with Prince Abdullah, then another tea stop for the camel walkers - most notable for watching the baby camel drink water out of one of the camelbaks one of our group was using!

Then it was a wee while in the bus down to Petra - the Siq was incredible. I just loved it. It really is the Rose Red City. We didn't do too much exploring of the city - although Hazem did put some Nabatean make up on me! Not that I wanted it, but I was chosen as a volunteer! Then it was about 1.5 hours up the hill to our next camp site :-).

Tragedy at the camp site as we realised there was no beer! Much consternation amongst the group, especially as Hazem was busy telling us it was difficult to get beer in the town! Luckily some super organised walkers had bought a cask of wine so we got a wee glass of red to drink while we were watching the sun go down until our beer turned up! Much relief by all walkers!!

Monday - Walking in Wadi Rum

A day spent hiking in the desert - having fun spotting the camels and realising that Lawrence of Arabia was all around Jordan (no - I hadn't read up on the history of the place before going!). It was a great day walking - the scenery was just amazing - I just kept taking photos which you'll realise when I get my photos up on Flickr! Highlights were seeing the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and our fantastic lunch stop - under a cliff, listening to one of our group members playing the tin whistle. A bit surreal hearing Irish jig music in the middle of the desert!

Sunday - Amman to Wadi Rum

We flew in to Amman late on Saturday night - we spent almost an hour on the tarmac at Heathrow so it felt like a long flight (it's meant to be about 5 hours but it was around 6 all up I think). We were met by a representative from Explore at the airport who promptly took all our passports off of us and sent us to get out bags - funny how trusting you get! But we did get them all back with our visas. So by the time we got to the hotel and got into our rooms it was getting on for 1.30am and we had to be up bright and early the next day :-(.

Sunday we headed off in our wee bus down the Desert Highway to Wadi Rum. Lovely sunny day, seemed all well and good. Then we got out of the bus - wee bit windy! Makes you realise how the hajib etc comes from a practical necessity! We had a fun time as Hazem argued with our Bedouin camp staff who didn't want us to eat anywhere else, but we couldn't eat outside as the wind was flinging the sand around everywhere! Eventually a compromise was reached (luckily as it was about 3pm by now and we were all starving) and we found a sheltered place to eat a highly delish lunch of hummous, salad, potato and pita bread.

Then it was about 1.5 hours walking across the desert to the campground - realising everyone would all be in one tent was a bit of a suprise, but it was a beautiful spot. Dinner was pulled out of the ground (a bit like a hangi) and we ate around the campfire. Great start!

New Zealand-itis...

I seem to have been spotting many NZ related things in the UK media this weekend.

Well 3, but thats not bad for two days!

1. In a story last weekend (which I only read on Saturday) on Kate Middleton (Prince Williams' squeeze) there was a photo of her with him at the rugby a couple of weeks ago. And what was the future King of England wearing but a Line7 jacket from the America's Cup days, with Steinlager and Telecom branding clearly visible... Where on earth would he get one of those - and why on earth would he wear it??!!
2. Watching the truly fantastic Life on Mars, stuck on a locker in the police station was a clipping advertising a game - England vs New Zealand. A Kiwi in the props room perhaps?
3. Barclays Bank using Split Apple Rock as the main picture in their new ad campaign, with the tag line 'Anything is possible' (or something like that). Not credited to NZ of course, but I've been there/seen it, so I know the real thing!
4. Not exactly media, but I also noticed that Waitrose (my local supermarket) is now selling 42Below as well... (and I have to say that the 42 website has the worst song soundtrack - terrible!
   

Gazing Westward

Gazing Westward
Originally uploaded by enetheru_2006.

Fantastic photo of Sam's - been there, loved it!

Interesting article

I read this article yesterday and thought it was very interesting - good expose of how the big brewing companies here in the UK run the pub scene, and are slowly but surely squeezing out all the local brewers.

Feed The Cows

My friend Nicola sent me this link today and I thought it was fantastic! Lets hope those cows don't go hungry!!

Check out the cows here....

Fab Arcade Fire gig.. but no Arctic Monkeys

Mhairi and I went to see Arcade Fire at Brixton Academy on Thursday night - absolutely brilliant gig. Despite still feeling full of cold I loved them. Loads of musicians on the stage, all playing different instruments, and the most amazing guy who turned playing a tambourine into an aerobic work out! Since then have been listening to their new album, Neon Bible which is also pretty damn good!

I also applied for tickets to Arctic Monkeys - you had to apply through their website but I was not successful. As I had to put my age down (and I was honest!), I can't help wondering if I was considered too old... Although they say that it was completely randomly generated by a computer - but I'm not sure I believe that!

Fantastic slide show

This is a great slide show of the Midsummer Nights Dream performance I went to - works best with sound! Click here to check it out.

Shots (and a cold...)

Last Tuesday I went off to the Doctor's to get my required shots for my upcoming trip to Jordan and promptly came down with a cold. That cold conveniently brewed for the next few days, then came out with a bang on Sunday which I'm still suffering from :-(. I don't normally get colds, but I seem to have had a few this year and this one has been a bit of a doozy. Woe is me - I'm not one who 'soldiers on' through colds, so hopefully I'm over the worst of it now.

Looking forward to the holiday tho!

Shakespeare like I've not seen it before...

Went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream last Thursday at the Roundhouse in Camden. It was absolutely fantastic - although I'm glad I read a synopsis of the story before I went. I'm not that familiar with the play and I think I would have struggled a bit if I hadn't any idea of what was going on, but it was a very clever production.

Lunar Eclipse Totality

Lunar Eclipse Totality
Originally uploaded by murky.

Not my photo - blogged from Flickr!

Lunar eclipse

So there was a full lunar eclipse last night and we had relatively clear skies to see it as well. I tried to take some photos of it, but it didn't really work out - all I got was a lot of black sky with a pin hole image of the moon... Here's what the BBC said about it. There are also some great photos on Flickr as well.

I had quite a good view, and could definitely see the redness of it - very cool!!

Stromboli lava eruptions at night

Stromboli lava eruptions at night
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Just to remind people of what I saw!

Stromboli is erupting...

Was quite excited to read this news item on the BBC site today - considering I've been there, climbed it and lived to tell the tale! Stromboli is starting to kick off again!!

Outrageous Fortune!!

How excited am I? Sitting down for my weekly dose of America's Next Top Model (oh yes - I am sad, I love my trash tv...) up pops an ad for Outrageous Fortune! Cue immediate text to Mhairi, who doesn't really know it but shall no doubt have it inflicted upon her as I shall tape it and pass it down the line.

Very excited as I really enjoyed what I saw when back in NZ in November - and as I'm about to lose Sky 1 (no Lost, no Battlestar Galactica, no 24...) I'm thinking OF will be an enjoyable replacement!!

The lady goes to Glasgow....

I've just got back from a great weekend up in Glasgow visiting Lindsey, Ricky, Chloe and Jamie. Jamie spent the whole weekend calling me 'the lady', and then after I left, asked where Megan was!

I flew up on Friday which was majorly stressful as I almost missed my flight - the only other flight I've ever missed was one up to Glasgow so it must be something about that destination! I did leave a wee bit later than I should have but then the security queue was just completely horrendous - I literally did only make the flight cos I pushed to the front of the queue (and it was a long queue), and then ran to the gate. They were calling my name (plus a couple of others) as the final boarding call. It was very very stressful - and most unlike me!

But having got to Glasgow it was great. Saturday was a bit of a slow day (Lindsey and I put the world to rights the night before so it took us a while to get going...), but on Sunday we took the kids to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum which was pretty good. More of an art gallery than a museum, so not that good for the kids, but we saw a great exhibition of the MacIntosh and how Glasgow design was used in the Glasgow tearooms and Chloe enjoyed looking at the animal exhibits and the Egyptian mummys!

Needless to say I got to airport in loads of time for my flight back today!

I've loaded more photos on Flickr as well.

Advertising NZ, 18th century style...

Advertising NZ, 18th century style...
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Lindsey, Jamie & Chloe, Museum 2

Lindsey, Jamie & Chloe, Museum 2
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Chloe and Jamie, Monday morning

Monday morning breakfast & story writing 2
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Blogger 2

For a while now I've been getting prompted to upgrade my blog to 'Blogger 2', which involved having to have a Google account, so I've been resisting. But it seems I no longer have a choice and the deed has been done (although readers won't notice any difference).

So I now have a Google account which I don't really need, but I have noticed the return of the blogging formatting tools which is good :-). And I have no doubt that Blogger probably can now do loads more interesting things - which it will take me ages to get around to looking at!

Underneath The Lintel

So tonight Kevin and I carried on our tradition of going to see West Wing stars on the stage in the West End and went to see Richard Schiff in Underneath The Lintel.

Fab play - about a librarian who researches a book that is returned 113 years late. I won't say much more about the story for any UK readers who go to see it, but its a very good story. And the library stuff is brilliant! Anyone who has ever worked in a library would enjoy this - after all, haven't we all had that urge to punish that bad borrower...

More snow - lots more this time!

More snow - lots more this time!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

So here are the results of last night's snowfall... definitely more than last time, but amazingly my trip in to work was pretty painless. And I didn't even have to fight for a seat as loads of people had elected to work from home due to the weather!

It was pretty much all gone by the time I got home tho. I'm off up to Glasgow tomorrow so am hoping for enough snow for it to be fun but not enough for me to either get stuck there or here.

A very cool website...

I went to a CILIP seminar last week and they had a very cool display of Carnegie Medal winners, and I was sent the link to a website about it today - very cool! Check it out here.

I've only read 7 of them...

Red alert!!!

Oh no - a "heavy" snowfall of 4 inches is expected tonight/early tomorrow morning so the country will grind to a complete halt. On my home from work Surbiton station had a notice up saying 'Due to heavy snowfalls forecast please check with National Rail before travelling'...

It never fails to amaze me that in this country ANY weather can disrupt the transport system - if it gets too hot the tracks buckle, if it snows the whole system just collapses, in autumn the leaves cause problem (both leaves on the line or even worse - the wrong sort of leaves on the line...).

So the big question is - will I get to work tomorrow??

Barkus or Bacchus (yet to be confirmed...)

Barkus
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

The newest member of the family looking exceedingly cute on the deck at home in Taupo.. Soooo cute!!

And more on the animal front...

Nicola and I went to the Imperial War Museum today to see The Animals War, which was a very interesting but very sad exhibition about the use (or misuse to be more correct) of animals in wars across time.

Two things that stood out for me were the stories about the use of cats for bombs. They came up with the idea of attaching bombs to cats, parachuting the cat to ships, landing them in the water by the ships. The idea being that cats hate water so they would do anything to get on to the ships, then the bombs would go off on the ships... Unfortunately the cats became unconscious during the drop so they realised that wouldn't work... To be fair it wasn't just cats that suffered this way, but I (of course) focused on the cats.

Then there was the cat 'The Unsinkable Sam' with the incredible luck. It was on the Bismarck when it was bombed, was picked up and then was put on the HMS Cossack, which was then sunk, was picked up again and ended up on the HMS Ark Royal, which was then bombed and sunk again... and was picked up again, and lived out its life on dry land!