february begins

well party peoples...as i write this london is covered in a not so thick blanket of white stuff (no not their usual party drug white stuff) we canadians call this snow. transit has come to a grinding halt. no one, well barely anyone, went into work today. i was off anyway - what a waste of a snowday! couldn't mother nature cut me some slack and wait till wednesday or sumthin' - ouch. it all began on sunday when gusts of white flakes began to fall from the sky and walking from work to baker street with moa, rich and jp - it felt a tad on the magical side to be in a slightly snowy london with some good people. until! i ended up at king's cross on a sunday with no forseeable way to liverpool street or home except via bus - so i sucked it up and hopped on, only to be unceremoniously dumped at highbury islington waiting in the ever increasingly heavy snow wearing only my flimsy work shoes for another bus to get me on my way. ended up at devora's for some tasty dinner, too many chocy bickys and a fair amount of red wine finishing the evening off by cabbing it home due to the nast weather and heavy grocery burden caused by impromptu shopping at M&S.
Today I woke up and wandered about in my pyjama pants not realizing the havoc that was ensuing outside of my front door as to a Torontonian, what I saw outside my window was hardly newsworthy. Realized fairly soon after that all the tubes were down, no buses were running and that everyone was out and about marvelling at the snow like it was an alien substance sent by angels or...aliens maybe? Finally sucked up some courage and headed out into the white to meet up with Devora for a drink (mulled wine and snowmen were on the books). Met at the Inn on the Park which was packed and smelled of wet dog (not cause of dogs tho :(. So we decided to stroll thru some of Victoria Park, met up with a snowman friend for some photos and wound up at Garbo's which was serving mulled wine. So all in all, mission accomplished. We then convinced one another that we needed pizza which we whipped up out of corner store ingredients with quite positive results in spite of the unsuitability of some purchases and some doubt on Devora's part. We were hoping to enjoy our dinner over some crap dance movie on demand but it had myseriously disappeared - so we watched Wanted with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie instead for some well delivered eye candy. Been blessed with some new music recently so am enjoying that while i type - bed soon and another snowy day off tomorrow...serious doubts about my ability to accomplish errands in the whiteout.

that which is new

hmmmm
my apartment is loud (and by that i mean the people who live above us are loud). i hate it, it drives me insane. i want them to die....ok not die....but definitely move away and hopefully be replaced by the quietest little old lady who doesnt even walk and therefore makes no noise whatsoever.
in other news: devo got her own place - yay her! went dancing last night in old street. i love dancing. i also love cheese. i hate my upstairs neighbours. bedz.

Better Late than Never

Thanks Ainsley for reminding me I even had a blog....oops...
but seriously - what with Christmas and New Years and Devora arriving - life has been hecticosity! Christmas was so so so so busy at my work I barely had time to do that thing that keeps you alive....breathing I think it's called - let alone update my blog. NEwayz as I said xmas was madness at the cheese shop - lineups going around the shop to get into the cheese room section and then all these special cheese preorders that I somehow got suckered into helping with...this kept me at work in the cheese room till 9:30 two days in a row and then 10:30 on the night of the 23rd with me having to be back at work at 8am on the 24th...sooooo as you can gather from that...i was pretty beat. on the upside our work gave us champagne for xmas presents (so nice....so deserved). 24th-26th was......interesting. 27th even more so. then all of a sudden devora was arriving! i went to pick her up at victoria station where we subsequently couldn't find each other - great. then the next day was new years! i of course worked the 31st till 5pm, skeddadled on home quick to find renee and devora in equally soporific states to my own ( i seriously could have snuggled into my coat and happily fallen asleep on the bus ride home) but we rallied and told each other we HAD to go out - it was NEW YEARS. so we got gussied up - probably the best part of the evening - jumped on a bus and headed to a bar for some drinking and dancing then called it quits a few hours later, headed home and hopped into bed! seriously...no exciting news to report! London's having a cold snap - everyone is cold! It's hilarious to have Devora here and host a baby Londonder myself - see it from the other side - everyone's advice to me when I arrived all makes sense now! But I guess you have to struggle through it on your own to understand properly - remember....experience is not transferable! ;)

"winter" in london

so it's cold here....but not really now is it my toronto lovlies!? you have lots of lovely snow that a part of me is secretly still waiting for over here and isn't likely going to get - another part of me is happy i get to wear lovely coats and fun hats and dramatic scarves and wicked boots but doesn't actually have to contest with the actual brutal reality of winter that demands hardcore parkas and sorrels ;)
uhhhhmmm i went to a party the other day - that was fun. it was in this weird converted building that used to be something else and then was made into apartments and then they had obviously taken one of the apartments and gutted it to make some kind of "event" space that was really only the size of a one bedroom apartment...but they managed to make it work and there we were at this dance party for about 50-60 people and it was hilarious to be at a dance party that teeny and that cool that only had one bathroom....ya....that was fun.
today renee and i went to ikea...we took a bus...in retrospect this seems like a silly idea as it took us about 2 hours to get there - but oh the sights we saw made it almost worth it - imagine bussing through north toronto - it's not really toronto, but in a way it might be even more toronto than toronto - know what i mean? well i got the london equivalent today. we even passed a mall and boy did i have the itch to hit that up...an evil evil disney loving part of me craves a giant complex of my favourite stores all in one place...as for ikea...we got what we needed (and more) and in the end we admitted defeat and cabbed it home in about a quarter of the time with our booty in the...boot...

bad blogger!

sooooo....i knew that eventually the time would come where i would come to resent this blog...and here it is! nah! just kidding! but seriously...ive been remiss...for a whole month! and don't think i don't feel guilty! really, don't worry, cause i do...

s'ok! updates! what have you missed out on!?

my mum and phil came to visit - i ate waaaay too much and marched them all over the city and back again - even my bones hurt at the end of the day so when they said they felt "stiff" the next day - i can only imagine how much they were downplaying it....but all in all it was amazing to have them here and show them around and have them take me out for food!! they are so awesome and i am so so lucky that they "get" me and what i am doing...or not doing. the fact that they enjoy the same cheap, easy and odd things that i do makes for fun times...not that we didn't go to nice places - there was plenty o' that - like our lunch at the national portrait gallery restaurant (the one from the movie "closer" - watch it, you'll see, actually don't watch it, i didn't much like the movie). ya, we went for this swish lunch on the third floor of the nat portrait gallery for lunch where you can sit and look out over most of london (it's awesome) and in the middle of our lunch the fire alarm went off - no shit - ya it did! and we had to leave our beautiful lunch half eaten and our wine half drunk and file out to the street! well you can only imagine what we did next! tooright! we left! what!? they wouldnt have made us pay anyway! and what did you think we were going to do - wait around wasting precious london minutes - hells no - we went drinking at my mum's fave london wine bar - i know my mum has a fave london wine bar - how cool is she? and how cool am i for having such a cool mum! yeah! anywaaayzz - other than that...we ate a lot - did i mention that? and we walked a lot, and we went on the london eye but i was too scared to get up from the bench, and we went to greenwich where we saw this amazing painted hall and listened to an organ recital and visited the greenwich ummm...place...where GMT is measure from and stood on the line separating the hemispheres where we had a debate about hemispheres and then just like that they had to go :( but it really was so much fun! in a way it made london a little more real, having them come visit me here....to be honest, i spend so much time working the whole "living in london" thing is still working it's way into my fat skull...london is wasted on me so far...but don't worry - i'll be making up for it as soon as i can!

lazy life!

literally some...snapshots...hahaha...of my life in london...

i like to spend time wandering around their grocery stores like: tesco, sainsbury's, but most of all waitrose...cause it's pretty and nice and...expensive...not to mention close to my work! i guess cause i really like food, it's a bit exciting to go into the stores here and see all this new stuff...mostly the same food but just with different brand names and packaging...but still...here's a discovery i made in waitrose the other day...which i then HAD to take a picture of...try looking discreet with a camera in a grocery store...

the other day...i happened to be near the whole foods that they have here in london...so...for the sake of comparison to north american whole foods i thought i'd go in and take a looksee round...not to mention i was bored and i love food shopping - have i mentioned that before? saw this and chuckled - so i took a picture

n.b. the bin says "organic minced beef only" - now i know the bin must have been enjoying a type of bin reincarnation here and is probably no longer used for minced beef...but it's still funny


when i'm not in grocery stores...i am either walking about, in my apartment or at work (or maybe in a clothes shop) or i am en route via the london transport system of buses and trains...here is a frequent sight in london tube stations...now i know we have these in toronto too...but rarely do they actually come up ONTO the platform like the london mice do! really, someone should teach those toronto rodents a thing or two about hospitality and manners - i mean....the least they could do was make some kind of concerted effort to get to know foreigners like the london ones do (pictured here)...so friendly.

here are some things i've stumbled upon in my recent wanderings of late....
above...i wandered down the canal today...yeah, you know...typical london day - go for a stroll down the canal - oh so civilized and all that rot...and came across this...have no idea what it is...but doesn't it look cool!?...yeah that's really all i got on that one...anyywaaay
below...yeah, that's right! clare street!! holy crap! you never see my name anywhere in north america! let alone my name spelled "right" and this street is just down the way from my house! crazy! please note however that it's a super short, dirty street that mostly houses the backends of car garages...no worries - i checked and there's totally like clare lane and clare place and clare...crescent or something in london too...i've assured myself they've got to be nicer than clare street...otherwise i might think it was some kind of omen or something...


catch all y'all on the flipside...till next time...lots of london love.

London Life!

Here I am in London, one of the most incredible cities in the world, on one of the most incredible days in history (the US election) – which, although I’m not in the states, obviously has worldwide implications and therefore is relevant in any cosmopolitan city, London being one of if not the most in the world….and what have I been doing? I am still in my pyjamas. I did leave the house. Once. For an hour. I bought fish and chips. Now I’m back. Fear not north American friends – I haven’t adopted fancy mannerisms or taken on any kind of airs or anything like that in my new city of residence – oh no, I am still salt of the earth, grounded, slovenly. Everyone, please rest assured that I remain quite myself.