Dodgy dealings

I don't know if I have talked about this previously, but I have never been all that impressed with my accountant. NB doesn't think she's much chop either (she is the accountant for his business also). Her secretary on the other hand, is an absolute angel who is always a fantastic help with any questions we have.

Friday afternoon I got an email from my accountant encouraging me to join her at her new firm. I hadn't even been told she was leaving.

I decided that I would only go with her if her secretary was going. I phoned to find out today and was advised by her secretary that my accountant and her husband (another accountant at the firm) were sacked on Friday for sending the email attempting to poach clients.

Fortunately, the secretary is staying put, which means so am I.

My ex-accountant sent a bit of a nutty email today advising that the firm is trying to ruin her and that she is taking them on for unfair dismissal. Good luck love. You'll need it.

Why the two of them ever thought they could get away with sending that email is beyond me.

p.s. happy end of financial year to those down south. Allie - do your tax return!!!

You see that rock over there? You know what to do

This post is going to be a bit of a rant, so I apologise in advance. I'm not apologising for my views, just if you were expecting a bit of light hearted fluff.

Now I know the majority of you think that it is all whinging poms over here. Seriously, it's not. If they are moaning, it is normally justified. The ones that are doing most of the complaining are bloody Australians.

There is nothing worse than having to listen to people tell you how much they hate it over here. Complaints range from the weather, transport, crowds, pronounciation, crime, cost or life in general. If I have to hear it from one more person, I don't think I will be able to stop myself saying in my most posh accent:

'Get the fuck over it or piss off home ya miserable bastard'.

Having the excuse of staying here because it is close to Europe for holidays is not good enough. Surely that cannot compensate for the barrage of complaints about everything else.

The worst bit is when they have their rose coloured glasses on about Australia. We have even been told that crime does not exist in Australia and the public transport is excellent. I don't know what Australia they came from. Not one that we know.

Highlights from these nutters have included one of them telling me that she keeps a scrapbook of clippings of crime reported in the newspapers in London. That way she can take these clippings home and show all her family and friends how horrible it is over here. Sorry lady, but where I come from, that is called 'fucking nuts'.

I have even been told that I am not affected by the crime over here because I would have been used to it as we are from Melbourne and would have experienced it during the 'underworld war' as seen in Underbelly. I was even asked what did we do in Melbourne while this was all going on. Did we just lock ourselves in our homes and not come out? This is all from Sydneysiders, by the way.

An Australian working in the London Mayor's office was sacked for racism a few weeks ago for telling certain people if they didn't like it over here they should go home. He's a right wing Australian so he is racist by default, but I think his comments would have been much more worthy if they were directed at his fellow countrymen over here.

Smell ya later

We said farewell to Phuc today. She's on her way to Paris. I'll miss her little laugh and listening to her stories of experiencing London.

We went to the movies last night. NB was surprised at my choice of film, but we all enjoyed it. Kind of a mix between Fight Club and The Matrix.

NB has to work today, but he is going to get time in lieu for it.

We're ok

We're still here. It's just all a bit quiet. My blister is better.

Very good news that HB & K are coming back to London after their sojourn in Honkers.

Very sad to say a temporary au revoir to Phuc who leaves on Saturday.

Watched the best documentary this week on migrants to the UK since the 1950s, especially people from Jamaica and the West Indies. I love BBC documentaries.

I know it has been a while between posts and this post is a poor excuse for one at that.

p.s. We hope everything is ok UP. We didn't see you on Skype on Sunday.

...in other news

- We got tickets to see Adam Hills at the Edinburgh Fringe!!! Very stoked about this, as he is only doing 4 shows.

- Am going to the doctor about my blister. I am walking like a gimp.

- Phuc has not had to use her rape alarm in London. That is good news.

So what's news with you?

Special delivery

We get our groceries delivered each week. It is just easier when you don't have a car and it means we don't have to go to the supermarket all the time, which is fantastic. And as you probably all know, if it's done online, it is always done better.

Each week the grocery truck blocks our entire street while they deliver our goods. The issue with this is that our street is often used as a shortcut for those trying to avoid the traffic lights further down the way. This means that without fail, as our door bell goes off to let us know the truck is here, a horn starts blasting in the street by cars who can't get through because of the truck.

Last night was no exception. Except this time the driver fought back. A 4WD (a rare sight to begin with) was being really aggressive towards the truckie, so the truckie started shouting back and it became a battle of the alpha males.

The truckie was lovely to us, apologising for all the nuisance as he handed over our groceries. He then got back in the truck and reversed to allow the cars through. However, as the 4WD passed the truck, the drivers then exchanged more abuse at each other. The truckie then got out of his truck and punched the 4WD. Not the driver, the car. The 4WD then stopped, but by this time we couldn't see it as it was round the corner. What we could see was the truckie taking off his reflective ASDA vest. We don't actually know what the purpose of this was. We think it meant 'If I take this jacket off, I don't represent ASDA while I bash this guy's head in so I therefore won't get reported and lose my job'. What happened after this we are not sure of, but the driver then got back in his truck and drove away.

Everyone in our street was gawking out their windows to see what all the commotion was. All this just for a bit of fruit and veg!

I checked my phone before I went to bed and noticed that I had 5 missed calls. It turns out that it was the truckie. I didn't call him back until today and he didn't return my call. We think he was going to ask us to be witnesses if the 4WD rang ASDA and complained about him. Hopefully we don't hear anything more!!

p.s. You know how I said I had a really bad blister? It has turned black. I am worried.

Next time I will wear trousers

It was one of those days today.

I have a massive blister on my little toe and walking to the station was agony. The pain was so bad that I could feel my temperature rising and I was getting all clammy. As I was concentrating so much on the pain, I walked in front of a car. Fortunately they saw me first. That frazzled me.

As I was composing myself on the other side of the road, a lady approached me and said:

"Excuse me, but your skirt is all lifted up at the back"

Sure enough, I had been baring myself to the entire population for the past 10 minutes during my walk to the station.

I just wanted to go home. I soldiered on and it turned out to be a pretty good day in the end.

Apart from on the way home a big gust of wind lifted my skirt up. I got a wolf whistle that time. I am thinking I am never going to wear this skirt again.

Rated PG

Our little lodger just got completely freaked out watching Doctor Who with NB. He'll probably have nightmares for weeks and his mother will kill me!

To top it all off, I was performing at my usual best playing my DS Lite, forgetting little ears are present. My standard game vocabulary normally goes along the lines of this:

'oh whoops, didn't mean to do that....come here you little bastard...shit....shitfuckshit.....ah shit I'm dead'

Shop til we drop

Having the most amazing action packed weekend.

Phuc had not really thought of any sightseeing that she wanted to do. The main agenda was - SHOPPING! Too easy - Oxford Street it was. We only scratched the surface, visiting Topshop, Urban Outfitters, Zara, Schuh, Gap & Miss Selfridge. We didn't even make it to the gazillion department stores! I bought a new frock in Gap and some ace new shoes I have wanted for ages.
We walked for ages going all along Oxford Street, then Regent Street (the Mac shop of course!), Piccadilly Circus, St James Park, Horse Guards, Downing Street, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. By this stage we were exhausted and hailed a cab to Waterloo for the train trip home.

As we walked through St James Park, we noticed that there were all these flags on display and they were setting up for something important. Police were also walking around with massive guns. We didn't know what was going on. I just took photos of the flags. When we got home, the 'Trooping of the Colour' was on TV. Sure enough, there were the flags and there was St James Park. So that was what they were getting ready for. So then I had to google what the 'Trooping of the Colour' was. It is a military parade celebrating the sovereign's birthday. So you Aussies get a public holiday for Queenie's birthday and we get a bloody parade on TV. I tell ya, it hardly seems fair.

We promised to babysit a friend's 9 year old son, so NB was rapt to have a little mate. A night of Wii (and a decent opponent for NB for once) and Doctor Who. So we have a little lodger for the night. It was great to hear kid chatter, as we haven't heard it in ages.

Tomorrow we are off to have a mean time in Greenwich (sorry - very, very bad pun). We are taking a ferry there, so that should be a bit of an adventure. We also managed to secure a booking here for dinner tomorrow night, so that will be very chic.

She's here!

This week has been really hectic. So glad it's the weekend - for two reasons. One is pretty obvious, because weekends are the best and the other is because Phuc arrived last night!

Took her for a little tour of our area and went out for dinner. She was a trooper, she stayed up as late as us before going to bed to try and avoid jet lag.

It's so good to have her here AND she bought us a present! DVD of the Powderfinger/Silverchair 'Across the Great Divide' tour, which was the last concert we went to together before leaving Oz.

Oh yeah, in case anyone out there was wondering, I have deleted myself off Facebook. It was getting boring.

Hot and spicy

IT. IS. SO. HOT.

I came here for the mild weather, not this bollocks!

Phuc gets here on Friday. Thank god it will be back to normal weather then. A nice and mild 17 degrees. Bliss.

p.s. I just read that you Aussies had another public holiday today. Do you people ever go to work?

Hello Summer!

Have had a great weekend. It's been filled with sunshine. As I rub my eyes with exhaustion I am greeted with the familiar smell of summer - sand and sunblock.

We had a picnic lunch in the tropical garden section of the park and hired a paddleboat on the lake today. I don't know what it is about over here, but when it's warm, it feels bloody hot. It was 26 degrees, but felt closer to 36 degrees. Most people you talk to say the same thing.

But as expected as soon as the mercury is over 20, all the English geezers take their tops off, so it's a sea of pasty white skin.

Proper huge

We're still here. Just nothing much doing lately.

Went for a big walk at Battersea Park today. That place is massive. Oh yeah, talking about massive, I went and bought some new bras the other day from a boutique down the road. I thought that was my best bet, as I don't know what my size is over here.

The lady in the shop was so lovely. She couldn't believe I didn't know my size. She said that I was lucky they had my size as they mostly cater for very big breasted women. She then added:

'You should see some of the women I get in here. They is proper huge!'

Little Damon, I hope you had a proper huge birthday yesterday :)

Friday on my mind

I was gonna say we had a pretty easy and quiet weekend, but when I think back to what we did, we had quite a bit on:

- Said farewell to Becs, who starts her travel plans.

- Caught up with Aunty Poss when she was in London town. Introduced her to her first cider, which she enjoyed. It was the middle of the day, so the snakebites didn't come out. Good to catch up on all the goss from my old work back home.

- Got to speak to almost everyone in our immediate families, which was great. So good to hear your voices.

- Got up to date with all the wedding news: Manda & Dave rescheduling theirs to elope to Thailand! Lil'M bought her wedding gown and HB & K got engaged. Aunty Maura - all the best for Paul & Gra this month too. Congratulations all round.

- We drove a 160 mile round trip today for NB to go 'bodyflying', which is indoor sky diving. Absolutely brilliant.

Back to work tomorrow. Boo. Weekends should last forever.