Extravagantly Indulgent....Beer Bare Bear

Well aren't you all lucky - three new blogs in a week - now you'll be expecting this all the time won't you! (For those who haven't checked our blog for a while there are three new entries - including this one for you to read).

Now that we are up to date we are more inspired to keep up with the weekly reports :o)

I was again at the WI this last week, and it was all supposed to come to an end on Friday (as they were supposed to have run out of budget) however, the person in charge of me was able to convince the big boss that they had to have me for another week.....so yet again I am at the WI for another week (this is my 5 ½ th week there!).

This weekend just gone, Bev and I decided to brave the Christmas shoppers at Harrods! We spent an astounding 5 hours there and we could have stayed longer as there was more we hadn’t seen!
Wow Harrods is every bit as extravagant and indulgent as I imagined it would be – however the bit that I hadn’t realised was that there is quite a lot of affordable items there as well, so it’s not just for the superbly rich – however of course we were really only there to check out how the others live! And we weren’t disappointed – what with the £20,000 watches and jewellery, designer label clothing, £4,000 rocking horses, £200 little girl dresses – you get the picture. Not only does Harrods have clothing and perfume and toys like other department stores, but it also has restaurants, and ice cream sundae parlour (of which we couldn’t help but sample the goods from), a bakery, vege department, butchery (carvery), liquor store, pet shop, handmade chocolate stall...mmm yep. Each section impressively set out to the theme of the items sold there – ie the lolly section looked like Willy Wonkas factory etc
The kids section was like every kids dream (as was the lolly section), as they have some really impressive toys and it is huge – so many excitable kids! - see photos below......

Some well-fed Madagascan prawns on the left, and king sized prawns on the right....scarily impressive!

Some fine examples of how much you can fork out for normal items:

Fussball table for £7995

£549 for a toilet brush!!!!!!!!....who decides on these prices!?

A bottle of 1986 wine for £650

Christmas crackers £999 for a pack of 6. Thats over £150 a pop...POP!..where'd my money go?

An example of themed layouts:

The chocolate section was like heaven!

Even the staff are dressed to suit the scene

Each colourful tube in the backround is filled with jelly beans

The rich desert we devoured in the themed bar

On Sunday, we decided to get our butts into gear and find a church, so we went to Hillsong, and man it was awesome, it was in a theatre, and it really felt like we were at a rock concert! They had really cool music and everyone was around our age. Will definitely be going back there next week! Heaps of the people involved were Aussies, so it felt a little like home – yep I’m sad to say it, but I am starting to form an affinity for our aussie mates (don’t cough and splutter mum and dad – I am just as surprised) but Renae did say that this will happen, however I was quite sceptical at the time – but she is right, we have all just grown up with similar foods, sayings, and I guess we know the differences between kiwis and Aussies already so it’s all familiar ground – and hey they dipped out of the world cup before we did! :o)

Earlier last week, after a million years of not having a haircut, I decided enough was enough, and set about finding a Hairdresser. However, I nearly died when I saw the exuberant prices they want to charge you for a haircut around here – biting the bullet, I booked in for a haircut at a place nearby. Imagine my surprise when I bowl up to find that the one hairdresser I didn’t like from my last salon in NZ also works in the very same salon I chose to part with my precious pounds at here in London! I mean, of all the chances, I honestly should have taken a lotto ticket – however at least she wasn’t the one cutting my hair! Honestly, this world is far too small!

On Sunday we arranged to have dinner with Dee and Mark (Bev’s cousin and fiancée) as Dee is heading back to NZ for a couple of weeks, then they are heading Spain for Christmas so we won’t see them both together until January.

Bev’s IT work at the bank is starting to run out, which is a little bit of a worry as they said that it would be a three month contract, however it has only been 7weeks....so that is a little unsettling, however at this stage they haven’t given him an end date for the project, but they have another project starting after Christmas, which he may be able to work on, which therefore just leaves a couple weeks over Xmas that he may have to fill with something else – one of his workmates may train him in software installation of Blackberry’s (a type of phone/email/diary organiser for the IT illiterate – not fruit haha).

In a book that we were recommended to read before we came over here, called the Big OE companion (I definitely recommend it to anyone considering their OE- it is excellent info and very entertaining), one of the things the writer points out is the difference between the way the Brits say the following three words: Beer Bare Bear, and how we kiwis say them (ie Kiwis have no distinction between all three – vowel distinction is extinct, whereas Brits pronounce each slightly different!). So we tried this on a few Brits, our flatmates and Bev’s workmates. Bev’s workmates thought this was really hilarious, and continue to tease him about it – now a common joke if there is any communication breakdown!
You can surprise yourself by giving it a go and see if you can pronounce the distinction!
That leads me to another point – there are a lot of people – mainly British that don’t understand us – yep I know –how? What? It is really quite frustrating believe us! We speak English, and so do they so how can there be any confusion – beats me! One of our friends wondered whether it was because as kiwi’s we watch a lot of British and American Telly, but neither watch any Kiwi telly, so we are therefore more fluent with their accents, so when they come across ours they are dumbstruck?? Sounds pretty plausible to me.

Anyway, that is well and truly all of what we have been up to - please also see that I have added a photo of our lounge to the blog I wrote on Monday.

Lots of Love

Jam and Bev

Interesting things

Here are some interesting things we have noticed whilst being here - we will try and write a blog for what has happened this past week soon - please also look for the blog immediately prior to this one as it is also new.

Everyday over here you see something funny or strange just because of the sheer number of people over here and also the sheer number of people you see everyday. Last week I saw this lady walking a little white scottish terrier on my way to work. With the footpath being quite narrow, they had to walk in single file, so the lady went first, and the dog towed along behind her, and you could see she really had to tug it along. When there was nobody walking the other way the dog moved from single file to walking beside the lady.
I also saw a guy riding a bike with a basket on the front, with a little dog in it barking furiously at all the passing people and cars on the road! He must have had such a headache by the time they arrived at their destination!
Around here there are quite a few people who bike to work, but the funny thing is, although they are saving the planet by biking, they are harming themselves as the pollution is quite bad, but heaps of them wear these gas mask type things.

A few other things that I have noticed:
At the chemist down the road from our house you can buy flea treatments for your cat

They lock the door at the laundromat at 8.30pm to stop homeless people sleeping in there – I didn’t realise this until the other day (during the day) I went to the laundromat to dry our towels, and it smelt really bad and I couldn’t work out why until I noticed the homeless guy asleep on the bench. He eventually got up, but he just stood watching everyone doing their washing – I guess he misses the usual goings on of life...? I find the whole homeless people thing really hard to handle, especially when you make eye contact with them and they ask for money. There are quite a few around generally outside the tube stations.

One thing I love about the Brits (see I do say nice stuff too) is that they call things like they are ie ATM's are called "The Hole in the wall", and their Eftpos cards are called "Chip and Pin" because it has a chip and a pin! (they have no idea what you are talking about when you refer to it as Eftpos!)

One thing we have really struggled with over here is the lack of businesses that accept Eftpos. I think we can blame NZ for making us so reliant on our eftpos cards that we never carry cash, and you can find yourself in some very sticky situations over here if you have no cash and only your card - you might as well have no money!

I think I finally understand now why everyone in NZ says “the brits love kiwis – they think we’re good hard workers”. I find this really funny, as I have noticed the large number of cup of teas had at my work – a sure sign that people aren’t doing anything :o), and also the extremely specific roles people fill. A good example of this is when I was working with that disabled lady and I had to take her to a course that she was enrolled for. It was offsite so we had to catch a taxi to the venue. As we left the course at the end of the day, we went through reception, and I asked if the receptionist could call us a taxi – a standard practice in NZ – she honestly looked at me as if I had two heads! Nope, obviously not part of her very limited job description – even for a disabled lady! I could’t believe how rude she was! So I had to flag one – no small feat for a Kiwi girl who had never had to flag a black cab before! That leads me to another point, anyone that works in customer service or some aspect of customer service is either rude or completely indifferent towards you – you are just a number. You become so used to this that when you do get a friendly, joking person, you are so taken aback you have to ask them to repeat themselves in case you were imaging things! I now understand why people say they are surprised at how friendly everyone in NZ is!

We have also noticed that Personal Assistants (PA’s) over here get paid quite hansomely in comparison to home. PA’s can earn more than people such as myself in science – even with a Masters!
The British find Kiwi’s and Aussies overly friendly – ie they think that you are hitting on them (didn’t happen to me but that’s what they said about my Aussie work mate!)

Also we have been learning a few terms/sayings that the Brits say:
"British term" = Kiwi equivalent

"Rough" = Hungover - "You're looking a bit rough" or "I'm feeling a bit rough"
"Muppet"= A dick head - "Don't do that you muppet"
"Asians"= Indians
"Orientals"= Asians
“Rubbish” = Crap
They also always use words such as Mad (said Mard with a british accent) ie Crazy
and Fab (Farb with a british accent) ie we'd prob say awesome
Haha we have also been talking about getting a wireless router for our computer, and we nearly wet ourselves when our flatmates started referring to it as a rooter!
We have also been trying to teach our flatties a few Kiwi words such as Puku, Kia Ora, Rangi,

Slowly Slowly

Hey People,

Sorry it has been such a long time since we last wrote a blog....we have been waiting for our internet to be connected, but in true slow British systems as we are becoming accustomed to, our home internet is yet to be connected, despite the installers coming on Tuesday (even then they came to the wrong house!). Also I have had a bit of flack from my Kiwi-British friends about being so blunt about the things we don't like over here, so I have been waiting to be in a better mood/mind set to continue with what we have been up to :o)
So we have been over here 8 weeks now! Wow! (Two months exactly on Friday 16th Nov).
The first four weeks went really slowly, however, these past four weeks have gone really fast, I guess we are more settled now since we have our own house and have been earning a bit of money. Funny how time goes slowly when you are sleeping on a couch!
Anyhoo, we will try and update you in a chronological fashion about what we've been up to since our last blog

I found a duvet that I quite liked the look of on the Ikea website, and I also found out that Ikea was open until midnight, so Bev and I thought it might be quite exciting to go on a mission to this infamous place called Ikea - the closest Ikea to us is about 45mins (south) by train and tram away. For those of you that have no idea what ikea is, it is a massive Swedish department store quite like freedom furniture (but way cheaper). So on a Thursday night Bev and I braved Ikea and couldn't believe the place - it is massive! We were worried we might not find the stop to hop off the tram however, we shouldn't have worried as the tram stop was actually called Ampway Ikea so there was very little doubt about where to hop off :o) They basically have one giant warehouse with display kitchens, bedrooms and lounges all set up so that you can see all their products then at the end they have this giant store room where you can collect the kitset furniture and purchase it.

We have also tried traditional British fare - Fish and Chips
Our flatties decided that we needed to try Friday night Fish and Chips, and we were very impressed! They were very tasty and the fish was very fresh! And the vinegar on the chips wasn't half bad either! Annnnnnd to top it all off the chips weren't soggy as we had heard! Yum! However, at £5 (per person) they are quite pricey! The fish and chip shops here must do a lot better than our poorer NZ counterparts.

Stonehenge/Salisbury
We found Stonehenge to be really interesting, however a lot different to the image we had been mislead it to look like. Your first glimpse of Stonehenge is really exciting, it really is a set of large rocks in a paddock, however, as you get closer, you realise there are flaws with this picture.....including, large loads of people, a main highway right beside the paddock containing the “rocks”, an underpass for you to get from the car park to the rocks, and then when you get close to the rocks, you realise that you don’t get very close at all as they are cordoned off by a rope and a few pigtail standards marking out your path(our pictures are a bit misleading - you can get a bit closer than where we took our pictures from).

But as our guide explained the history behind the rocks you really do appreciate the scale of the work that was involved to get the rocks on site and then to make such a formation – considering they didn’t have the technology of today, as well as the underlying suggested purposes of the monument.

After looking at Stonehenge, we had a quick look around Salisbury, and treated ourselves to a cream tea (Scones with Cream and Jam and tea). When we entered the tearooms, we had to wait to be seated, then once seated, we waited and nobody served us, so we ummed and urred as to whether we were supposed to go and order at the counter or whether someone would eventually serve us. We buckled after about 5 minutes, and Bev went and asked if they were to serve us, or what, (in a nice way), however I think they thought we were pointing out that they were slack at serving! Anyway they then served us, but as we were going to leave we got up to go and pay the bill, but of course this is also not how they do it over here, you are supposed to ask for the bill, mull over how much you are going to tip them for the service and then take the bill to the counter and pay(or hand over the money whilst still sitting at your table). I know at some places we do this in NZ, but either method is accepted. Here I think they are worried you are going to leave without paying your bill if you don’t put the money on the tray offered with your bill at your table! Something we are slowly getting used to!


Earlier in the blog we mentioned that we had a blocked drain outside our kitchen. A couple of days after we moved in, our flatmate dobbed them into the Environment Health council, the building’s external landlord (different from our landlord) therefore had so many working days to fix the problem before they were given a bill for the work having been done. So they acted smartly once given an ultimatium (surprise surprise), the external landlord sent round the supposed drain guys to unblock it. Now back-tracking, remember when me(jam) was given work by a temping agency, and I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, well the drain guys turned up looking like they came straight from a temping agency. According to our flatmate, this was quite a sight, one wearing a business attire and later on, he ended up standing in the poo hole with “wellies” on (gumboots), still wearing business attire, smoking a cigarette, speaking on his cellphone loudly in a foreign language – possibly to his agent! The other guy was wearing a nice leather jacket! However the issue is now fixed, for which we are grateful, as we can now flush the toilet, wash our clothes and dishes without flooding the drain outside!

As many of you will know Speights sent over a boat with a speights pub built on it to London via Samoa, and some other countries, and I think you could get yourself a place on the boat through ZM radio station. Well, on the day that it finally took up residence above temple station we were some of the first few people to have a Speights – I have to say that I am not usually a Speights drinker in NZ, however the fizzyness of the Speights was greatly appreciated compared to the English Beer that I have had since arriving here. The Pub also felt like home as it is quite similar in design to the Cadrona, with gorgeous Rimu floors, a shist bar and Dave Dobbyn music – that made us both feel extremely homesick! Pride of the South in the North 19100km from home! We had to laugh because there was a guy sitting next to us at the pub, an American I think, and he goes – so where is this beer from??? He obviously missed the whole point of the pub!

We went out to our first theatre to see Stomp at the Ambassador – it has been going since 1991 non-stop! It was a really great show, they made noise out of everything – and they even made noise out of kitchen sinks!(I thought that was a nice touch, and a good play on that particular figure of speech). However, there is only so much banging and clanking you can listen to, so we did find it got a little boring in parts – bring on a musical I say!

For Guy Fawkes, we went to a public display at Battersea Park – there was rumoured to have been 5000 people there (and we still managed to bump into someone from home!). We had heard that Brits don’t do things by halves, and we were not let down! The fireworks were fantastic! We also go to try Mulled wine, (we looked for roasted chestnuts but couldn’t find any) and chips and burgers (they are always marketed as Aberdeen Angus Beef over here – which I find really amusing – I haven’t quite worked out why Beef has to be Angus and from Aberdeen to be good – I guess they like to support the local farmers, but why Angus...? Is that the only type of beef cow they have over here?
As with everything over here we had to join a giant queue to buy food, but we were pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of the fastfood caravan workers – obviously far more accustomed to large crowds than our NZ equivalents! – Bev was also stoked to hear that Skyrockets are not banned over here!
Every major park around London had big expensive displays. After work on Friday night we went to Putney and watched a display from the bridge near Bev’s cousins house(it was held in the park we went for a walk in with Bev’s cousin when we first arrived with all the established trees that we drawled at), and then went home for some strawberries – Fireworks and Strawberries, just like home (well a tradition that Bev has introduced me to – he swears that the best strawberries are the first ones in early Nov coinciding with Guy Fawkes (hence the association). The ones over here were of course from Holland – but good nonetheless. One thing we have noticed over here is that all the fruit is imported from all over the world, Strawberries from Holland, Apples from South Africa – and they are all really fresh – however quite pricey as a result.

The people at the Women’s Institute(WI) like me so much they have extended my time with them. I find it extremely funny that I am working at a magazine for old ladies, but the most amusing bit is the letters that the old ladies send in and the phone calls they make! One old lady wrote a letter to the WI telling them that she thought the magazine smelt funny – however, not only was it funny that she had time to write a letter, she also had enough time to make the letter into a rhyming poem! Haha some people have way too much time on their hands!

Mum sent over our Christmas presents, and some long missed vegemite and marmite - our saviour. We tried our British flatties on the Australasian versions but they weren't taken with them - however we are pleased not to have to share!
On Thursday Bev and I had the morning off work so that we could go to a meeting to get our National Insurance(NI) numbers (similar to IRD numbers) set up. We just about wet ourselves laughing when we found out that we wouldn't receive the actual card stating our NI number until 9 months time - haha 9 months! That is a classic example of how long it takes to do anything over here.

We have started watching a TV programme over here called Spooks which is much like Alias, however it is set in London, so it is quite nice actually being over here, because all the places they go to we have been to! (I have no idea if we have it in NZ – I think we may do on Channel 1?).

This weekend we just laxed out on Friday night, then on Saturday we went to Yum Cha (Chinese Brunch) and then a matinee of Fiddler on the roof, and then a nice pub meal (all with Bev's cousin and her fiancee). It was great just to lax out and eat some really nice food :o)
On Sunday we had a lazy morning, went to a breakfast bar (not really a cafe, more like a fish n chip shop at home but with seating) for brunch, then bought a desk for our laptop to sit on and then put it together at home. We then did our usual boring house chores:groceries and washing.


I have included a few pics of our house - our's is the bottom floor house on the very left of the picture - you can see the bay window of our lounge. And the last picture is of our back door (very right of photo) and shared garden with the other people living in our building.