Living in England

Just a quick update to tell everyone that we are still alive and living in London, well, North London anyway. Oh, and we did manage to see "snow". It snowed briefly in Crawley before we left - not much, but we were excited anyway.

After New Years we went on the hunt to find a place to live, and time was against us as Anna was due to start her job a few days into the new year. We settled for a share-house located in Haringey, north of the centre of London. The house is your typically English two-storey place, with a bathroom (complete with carpet!) and 2 bedrooms upstairs, and the main bedroom (ours), lounge/dining, toilet and kitchen downstairs. We share the house with 2 single Germans, who are great to live with. We have been here for nearly 2 weeks now and have settled in well. However, the location doesn't ideally suit us, so we are keeping our options open to move closer to the city, as it is taking Anna just over an hour each way to get to work. There are lots of shops close by, which makes shopping a bit easier, as we have to carry what we buy and walk home. (We have been used to the luxury of having cars in Oz).

Matt is very excited that he has just got himself a job. After 2 weeks of signing up with recruitment agencies and applying for about 10 advertised jobs, it was a rather random email that got him the job. It was suggested that he should email some companies that he'd like to work for, so he did. A day later he had a phone call saying that they would like to meet him, and then an hour after the interview he had the gig. Cool! He doesn't start until the beginning of February, but he's really exciting about getting back into the swing of working again and earning those fabulous pounds!

Anna's agency (Roberts Knight) has sent her to work for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council until the beginning of March. She is providing admin support for a small group called the Family Intensive Support Programme (FISP). The travel to work each day on a bus, train, then tube and a further 10 minute walk was a shock to the system as she has been spoilt by me driving her to work and back in Adelaide.

One thing we have noticed, is that the weather in London is a lot milder. It's not really that cold, but we'd give it up for Aussie weather any day! It can change in a few minutes from clear and sunny to cloudy and rainy.

We are looking forward to celebrating Australia Day this Saturday, should be one to remember (or forget, depending on how things go). Planning on catching up with a few Aussie friends who are over here and embracing the bogan within.

Here is a quick video of us getting on the tube at the station near where we live...Turnpike Lane.