You orright? Are ya bovvered?

Settling in nicely in our little cockney town.

Went for a stroll up the high street yesterday as they had a market on. I love listening to everyone's accents here - very, very cockney.

We had to take a look in the local pie and mash shop. We could hardly understand what the customers or the staff were saying when they were ordering the food! It was hilarious. It seemed that the only difference to the order was the amount of mashed potato you were asking for. You get a hot beef pie, with mashed potato slopped down the side of your plate, then it is all covered in a sauce called "liquor", which is actually a parsley sauce. A bit like mint sauce. It doesn't have any alcohol in it, not really sure why it is called that.

I wish we had the guts to actually order one, so I could have taken a photo.

When we were walking back to the flat, as one of the market stallholders was packing up to leave, I saw him gently lean over and fall into the blankets/doona covers he was selling. It was like it was in slow motion and I wasn't quite sure what he was doing. As we got closer I realised he was a little old man and he must have had a stroke. It frightened the life out of me. Quite a few people came over to help him. I felt terrible that I had a mental blank and couldn't even remember what the emergency services number is over here. It's 999. Someone called an ambulance and he could talk a little bit, so hopefully he was ok.

I accidentally said the price of something in a shop as "two dollars" and the shopkeeper laughed at me. Probably thought I was a dumb Australian twit. We still can't get used to the different coins here. Shopkeepers also get really annoyed if something is less than 5 pounds and you give them a 20 pound note.

I think I just need to respond in my best cockney accent:

"Sorry luff - I don't fink I got nuffink smaller".