Di and Cam

Hi all,

Since our last posting we have moved house to stay with Denise (& Cheyne, who is actually back in NZ at the moment) in Putney, have continued our job search on the internet, and had interviews every few days, so most of our time has been successfully consumed with this. However, we have managed to get out and about to a few of the sights in and around London and thought you guys back home might like to see some more photos of our adventures!

We walked around the South Bank of the Thames with Scott on our way to the Tate Modern. The city landmarks were spectacular against the backdrop of an overcast sky, in fact there had been a small 'dump' overnight leaving a sprinkling of snow for most parts of the city and South London...

Funnily enough while the Canadians (even those from the west coast) manage to cope with several feet of snow, the 5cms or so that fell in London caused major disruptions to the tube and overland trains with significant delays and even making headlines in the evening papers!

Anyway, the big drawcard at the Tate Modern was a piece of "interactive art", in the form of a display of slides, "The Unilever Series: Carsten Höller". These were on five floors of the gallery and were a lot of fun, as you can see below...

Unfortunately, our time looking around the permanent displays of artwork was cut short as Di had been asked to attend an interview in the afternoon, but we are definitely planning to go back to see what we missed as there is a huge amount of really significant artwork held there (eg. a huge Monet, "Water-lilies", in the Abstract Impressionism gallery).

We went with Cam's friend Dan and his girlfriend, Jo, to see a Bon Jovi tribute band play at a rather seedy pub in south London. Renee: The encore song was "Living on a Planet"!

We took a break from the job hunting in the form of a Sunday drive to Windsor with Tracey, Craig and Denise. Craig has a company car with his job, and it was quite a novelty for us to be going for a drive after making use of the public transport networks over the past couple of weeks! Windsor is a picturesque wee town with the main street curving around the side of the castle wall and we learned that Windsor Castle is the preferred weekend residence of the Queen although she wasn't 'home' when we visited. The castle is quite a tourist attraction now with paid admission and tours around both the outside and inside several of the buildings. We also took up the offer of free audio tour guides...

The photos below show the slots built into the castle wall that were 'once upon a time' used by archers to fire arrows at any approaching armys...

We learned that these slots were designed so that the archers had a wide range of fire, but so that they also afforded protection from incoming fire.

These photos show several of the buildings within the castle grounds. St George's Chapel is one of the most impressive displays of Gothic architecture in the area. We couldn't go inside as one of the three Sunday services were in session, however we did get our tickets stamped so that we can go back for free admission next time we visit!

We are off to see The Feelers and Anika Moa play tomorrow night and we have been 'roped in' to doing the Waitangi Day pub crawl (starting at 10am!) on Saturday. So, you can expect some more photos over the next week or so!

The other piece of news is that Di has been successful in getting a job offer (subject to reference checks), so we'll keep you posted about that over the next few days as well.

Hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine back home (except for those of you in the Northern hemisphere that is!)

Take care,
Di and Cam