Hello! I am killing time in the internet cafe waiting for the post office to reopen after lunch. I ask you, who closes a whole post office just to eat?? Anyway, I wanted to fill you in on my last couple of days at work.

I was told by a mother that I "ruined her daughters day" on Sunday. Yay! That's part of my job description.... Not really. I was the gallery atendant for the children's interactive gallery we have at work. There is a soft play area there for the kiddies who are under 1 metre tall. It no longer goes on age, as it was deemed dangerous to put a big 4 year old in with a small 2 year old. You can guess why. Anyway, I was feeling particularly lenient, and I told the girl and her mother when they came in that the girl was too tall for the soft play area (which she clearly was), but I was nice and told her that she could go in until other small kids came in then I would have to ask her to leave that area and do another activity. Obviously not pleased, but that's not my problem. I was approached by the mother some 5 minutes later telling me "If you don't mind me saying this, but you have ruined my daughter's day. She is only 4 years old, and was looking forward to playing in there. I am trying not to give her a complex about being tall, and you have not helped one bit" or words to that effect, then started blubbering and ran out of the room. I just giggled, as I knew I had done nothing wrong, and quite frankly, she will give her poor child a complex if she treats her like that. I told the manager, who said that I was in the right, and there was nothing to worry about at all. We decided that it was not me who ruined the child's day, but her mother ruining her life. We all had a good laugh!!

I saw weeping willows today that had had "haircuts". :-)

I am going to meet an old school friend today. I have not seen her since the end of first year uni I think. Will be really weird to see her, but nice to catch up too I think.

Hope you are all well. :-)

Not much has happened in the last week. We went for a walk through the square mile that is the City of London. It was really interesting, and I learnt a lot about the City. I think my favourite place was an alley way called Change Alley. It's not your typical alley way as it has 5 entrances.

Work is going well. We went out for dinner last night at a restaurant. There were 12 of us and it was really lovely.

Sorry it's so short!! :-)

Moving House!

Hello! Yes, it's that time again, to move house. Scott and I decided to move closer to my work, which also means a shorter journey time for him as well. So we decided to move to the east of London. And we will be travelling to work on the Docklands Light Railway. This is a tram-like train that travels above ground (a nice change from the underground). We are taking the opportunity to send a lot of things home. We seem to have accumulated quite a bit over the last 11 months, so it is high time that we sent it home! And it's better not to move it to the other side of London. Our landlady has said that we can leave the stuff we are shipping home in our room until necessary, which is a big help. Judy is coming to help us move the rest of our stuff on Sunday afternoon. She kindly offered, and I am very grateful.

We are moving in to a house near to a DLR (see above) station, about 20 mins from my work. We will be living with three Polish guys, who all seem really lovely, and all seem to be neat freaks! No cleaning is expected of us, other than cleaning up after ourselves and keeping our own room clean (easy).

Work is going well. I am still enjoying it. I have interesting conversations with people at work, which is great. I am happy there at the moment. The money is not great, but our new place will be cheaper for rent, as well as travel costs (for me anyway). Work has been quiet of late though. It has given me the chance to write some snail mail. So if I have missed anyone out who would like an email please let me know! I will be happy to write you a proper letter. I figured that people get very few letters these days with emails etc, and I love getting mail (hint hint!!).

Today is the first day of Open House London weekend. Basically, for one weekend each year many buildings that are not normally open to the public open their doors so we can see what's hiding inside. Scott had a look through the booklet I had brought home from work. He found a building in there that he had heard of, and really wanted to see. It was called 19 Princelet Street. Not very imaginative I know, but it was built by Hugenots in 1749, and has been used by many different peoples over the generations. Its uses by the French Hugenots, the Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia as well as the Bangladeshi immigrants of recent years truly reflects the character of the East End. It is a fascinating building. http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk We have stopped in at an Indian restaurant that has internet computers. We are currently in Brick Lane, which is a very famous part of London with more Indian restaurants per square inch than anywhere else!!

Toodles!

It has been too long since I last posted. I mentioned in my last post that we were going to be having a really busy weekend at the museum. Well, my expectations were well and truly fulfilled! On a "normal" day at the museum we have about 100-150 visitors. On the Saturday of the weekend we had 2311 and on the Sunday we had 3208!! It was absolute bedlam. I was on the ground floor all weekend so I was in the thick of it all. We had free entry all weekend, so a lot of people came in just to see what was inside. It was good publicity for the museum really. And hopefully the people who came in will come back to see the rest of the museum. It was a fun weekend, but I was absolutely exhausted by the end of each day.

I had the Tuesday off and spent most of it in bed as I think one of the 6000-odd people who filed past me at the front desk on the weekend had given me the flu. I called in sick on Wednesday as well, then went to work on Thursday. I lasted all of two hours, when I was told to go home!! They rang me later in the day and told me I was not to come back to work until Monday! That suited me fine as I really was not well and slept quite a bit. So I effectively had 6 days off work. I lost only 1 days pay too which was a nice surprise.

On the weekend we met Judy at the Imperial War Museum for coffee. They have a new exhibition that I wanted to see, so it seemed like a good point to meet at. The exhibition is on the second world war, but all about how children were effected by the changes, rationing, etc. It was very interesting. They even had a house that you could walk through. Coffee (well, tea) was lovely, 'twas good to catch up with Judy. We were telling her about the fact that we have to move house. She suggested we move closer to the east of London. It makes sense really. We had thought about it before, but now it just seems quite logical. My life seems to be in the east at the moment, with work and the gym being over there. And it would make my days shorter at least! And coming up to winter that is a big deal, considering it gets dark so early in the evening.

Saturday we went on an adventure. We went to Shadwell, in the east, to try and find a church that ancestors of Scott's got married in in 1855. We found the church which was very exciting. It is now in a run down area, but it's nice to know it's still standing. The area would have been very different back then. At work we have a reconstructed 1840s street, which is dark and smelly, called Sailortown. It really gives you an insight into how the area would have been back then. And I am sure the smells are accurate too!!

Now it's back to work. They asked if they could change my roster on me. That's fine. I will now have alternate Wednesday and Fridays off instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays, but that's okay with me. It was the roster I agreed to in the first place, it was only when I got here that they changed it on me!

So that is my life to the present. I hope I have enlightened you somewhat. :-)