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This is my first attempt at moblogging so this is a bit of a wee test. Main reason is to speed up posting because I am such a lazy blogger. Me wife on a few occasions in our close on 30 years of marital bliss has often accused me of being so lazy if it wasn't for me mum I would never have been born. Now behind her back I tend to disagree with her but never to her face otherwise she would despatch me back into said womb.
In the mean time a number of things have happened though. I finished in Korea in the middle of August and spent the last two weeks of the month at home in South Africa taking a break and preparing for the next job in England, getting visas, etc. We arrived in London in the beginning of September and I started work at Oracle, the huge database company. We found an apartment in Barking and I sort of settled into work. Leaving home again was really tough, perhaps traveling has lost it's novelty status a bit or it was just hard to part with kids, hounds and house again but I really just steeled myself and tried to focus on getting to London and getting things going and did not really get the kick of being in London, England in an English environment and culture as I had dreamt of so much while I sweated away in Korea. Since then though we have tried to get around and explore and every now and then I have gotten this rush and thought 'Wow, I'm working in London!'.
There are so many things to arrange when moving to a new country even though we still have the house in Gordons Bay. New job, apartment, council tax, telephones, broadband Internet, power, national insurance, bank account, etc. The worst must have been trying to get through to BT for the home phone, took ages. We had a phone line in the flat but it still took weeks to get the line switched on. Most things are nicely automated on the Internet or there are pretty efficient call centres to arrange stuff. Getting the apartment was a bit of a mission. We stayed in a few Holiday Inn Express hotels for two weeks while we hunted for a place. We were keen on Docklands at first but it's very pricey and saw some pretty nasty places for too much money. We then found a newish 2 bed place near Barking which we just took at first sight as it was newish and nicely equipped. Now Barking is known as one of the poorest areas in London and also the thirteenth most unpopular place to stay in the UK but to be frank we have settled in ok. We are about 800m from a good station with convenient 15 minute trains into the city every 10 minutes or so. It is a quaint unpretensive area with convenient shops and a pretty quiet safe area so far. There is a huge Tesco very close by as well as a bit of a retail park too. Then the obligatory pubs abound as well and we have taken to one of them a bit. There is a nice Nandos too, South African based Portuguese Mozambiquean grilled chicken chain that are in the UK too, we go and chomp on a chicken bone whenever we need a bit of consolation.
The job has been good though. The company is very global and huge. They have a massive head office complex in Reading and a nice modern London office near Liverpool Street station. I know a few of the people I work for and this has made settling in easier. I'm based at GAP in London at the moment. It is in Berkeley Square where the nightingale sang. "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is the title of a well-known romantic British popular song. Berkeley Square (pronounced "BARK-lee") is a large leafy square in Mayfair, an expensive part of London. The Ritz Hotel referred to is also in Mayfair. This is where I work et al Wikipedia.
So let me go and find this nightingale...........
In the mean time a number of things have happened though. I finished in Korea in the middle of August and spent the last two weeks of the month at home in South Africa taking a break and preparing for the next job in England, getting visas, etc. We arrived in London in the beginning of September and I started work at Oracle, the huge database company. We found an apartment in Barking and I sort of settled into work. Leaving home again was really tough, perhaps traveling has lost it's novelty status a bit or it was just hard to part with kids, hounds and house again but I really just steeled myself and tried to focus on getting to London and getting things going and did not really get the kick of being in London, England in an English environment and culture as I had dreamt of so much while I sweated away in Korea. Since then though we have tried to get around and explore and every now and then I have gotten this rush and thought 'Wow, I'm working in London!'.
There are so many things to arrange when moving to a new country even though we still have the house in Gordons Bay. New job, apartment, council tax, telephones, broadband Internet, power, national insurance, bank account, etc. The worst must have been trying to get through to BT for the home phone, took ages. We had a phone line in the flat but it still took weeks to get the line switched on. Most things are nicely automated on the Internet or there are pretty efficient call centres to arrange stuff. Getting the apartment was a bit of a mission. We stayed in a few Holiday Inn Express hotels for two weeks while we hunted for a place. We were keen on Docklands at first but it's very pricey and saw some pretty nasty places for too much money. We then found a newish 2 bed place near Barking which we just took at first sight as it was newish and nicely equipped. Now Barking is known as one of the poorest areas in London and also the thirteenth most unpopular place to stay in the UK but to be frank we have settled in ok. We are about 800m from a good station with convenient 15 minute trains into the city every 10 minutes or so. It is a quaint unpretensive area with convenient shops and a pretty quiet safe area so far. There is a huge Tesco very close by as well as a bit of a retail park too. Then the obligatory pubs abound as well and we have taken to one of them a bit. There is a nice Nandos too, South African based Portuguese Mozambiquean grilled chicken chain that are in the UK too, we go and chomp on a chicken bone whenever we need a bit of consolation.
The job has been good though. The company is very global and huge. They have a massive head office complex in Reading and a nice modern London office near Liverpool Street station. I know a few of the people I work for and this has made settling in easier. I'm based at GAP in London at the moment. It is in Berkeley Square where the nightingale sang. "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is the title of a well-known romantic British popular song. Berkeley Square (pronounced "BARK-lee") is a large leafy square in Mayfair, an expensive part of London. The Ritz Hotel referred to is also in Mayfair. This is where I work et al Wikipedia.
- When two lovers meet in Mayfair, so the legends tell,
- Songbirds sing; winter turns to spring.
- Every winding street in Mayfair falls beneath the spell.
- I know such enchantment can be, 'cos it happened one evening to me:
- That certain night, the night we met,
- There was magic abroad in the air,
- There were angels dining at the Ritz,
- And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
- I may be right, I may be wrong,
- But I'm perfectly willing to swear
- That when you turned and smiled at me
- A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
- The moon that lingered over London town,
- Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown.
- How could he know we two were so in love?
- The whole darn world seemed upside down.
- The streets of town were paved with stars;
- It was such a romantic affair.
- And, as we kissed and said 'goodnight',
- A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
So let me go and find this nightingale...........
