Reality sets in

Wednesday 14th January 2009

Sorry its been so long - either been too busy or too tired or too lazy. You all know me - Its probably more the latter.

Had a fantastic New Years. We went out to dinner with Jodie, Matt, Sumeika and Seb, and I experienced my first ever Fosters. I enjoyed. Afterwards we jumped on the tube and headed into central London and found a good position for the fireworks. They were so awesome. They almost rivalled Bendigo Easter Fair's at Lake Weroona. Crowds of people trying to get home, was very well managed by London Authorities. There was a little bit of waiting, but overall very efficient.

We went and did a bit of shopping and sight seeing over our week in London. Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly, Oxford St, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, 10 Downing St, Whitehall etc etc. All the photos are up, have a squiz.

After massive tiredness, the fateful Saturday arrived. We had to make the journey out to Benfleet to move into our house and eventually start work on Monday morning. Back to the real world.

The train lines weren't running where we needed to go in London, so the 4 of us hired a car, for a rather testing trip out to Essex.

Dan and I got out in Benfleet and spent 2 hours walking around what we thought was the main shopping strip, while we waited for Anna (the girl living in the school house) to arrive home, so she could let us in. After sitting around in the cold for a while she arrived and we were welcomed into a lovely warm double story house, just on the other side of the school basketball courts. Our room is nice, the bed(s) are comfortable - it is two single beds pushed together with king size bedding on it (heaps of room for me to spread out and not annoy Dan), the finest of cow-print 'duvet' (apparently they aren't called doonas here!) with pink and brown sheets. So matching and so very classy. It was nice that we had everything supplied and didn't have to go shopping as soon as we arrived. Sunday saw the arrival of Hannah, an English teacher who just arrived from Melbourne, but grew up on Wangaratta (small world hey)!!

Benfleet is nice, but small. We did find out that there is a second and slightly larger shopping strip on the other side of the hill, upon which we are perched. A few small supermarkets, a few pubs, a few banks, post offices etc. It's comparable to main street Mooroopna, or slightly larger than Kangaroo Flat for those of you playing in Bendigo.


Sunday we trialled the local bus service to figure out how Dan was going to get to school, all seemed well until we realised we were nowhere where we needed to be, so on take 2, we found his school and bus route. This was followed by a trip to nearby, larger town, Basildon, to do some grocery shopping. Again, dark at 4.30.

We awoke at 6am Monday morning to a snow-covered day. It was pretty cool to see, damn cold to be out in. Trudged off to school for a PD day. Way too much information to intake in 8 hours, but none of really what I wanted to know. Im teaching maybe 8 or 9 different classes, the worst of which being a bottom set year 11 group. (How great is UK EVERY class is streamed - not so great for me, being lumped with a lot of bottom set classes). Different kind of poor behaviour from these kids though. They are from fairly affluent families, so its more of an arrogant, defiant behaviour. Much harder to deal with on a regular basis. I have some really lovely year 7 groups (compares with Australian grade 6), with some good ability. The tough thing is that there is 33-35 kids in classrooms no bigger than at McGuire. I feel like I'm crawling all over them. The Maths department is only small, but very helpful. Its strange, there is no maths office, each teacher has their own classroom with a desk and computer, so its not as social able as I'm used to. The rest of the staff haven't been as friendly - there's not a "Hi, how's your day been", so I usually spend my lunchtimes in my classroom alone. Its better than spending it in room full of people and being ignored.

Friday night, Dan and I went to the local pub with a few of the Maths staff. It was built in the 1600's and very cosy. After a few pints and a stroll to the supermarket and bus home, and a very near pants wetting by myself, we arrived home, and I wanted to play more. No one else was keen for drinks, but I managed to have fun by myself with a bottle of wine and some Bacardi. I slept well that night.

On Saturday we had to take the 45 minute train ride into London for a training session with our agency. It was nice to meet a few other Aussies, and catch up with Matt and Jodie. It was long, and mostly boring, but gave us a good reason to spend the whole weekend in London. Had lunch at a nice little restaurant called "Benitos" - guess who picked it!?!?! We booked some super cheap hotel on the net, in Earls Court. If Dan stood in the middle of the bed I think he could have almost touched each of the four walls. The room was cold too. But it was a bed, and again I slept soundly, after wandering around the cold dark streets of London. Dan had wanted to find the temple church but it is only open to the public on weekdays. Sunday we woke up early and headed off to the Tower of London. We spent 3 hours walking through the buildings and had a little tour by a 'beefeater'. Heard all the stories - of which I recognised a few of the royal names - Thanks Helen! Walked through Lizzies jewellery box - man, that lady has some bling!!! We weren't allowed to take any photos of the jewels though, and had to go past them on an escalator. After a nice lunch at a French food van we went to Fenchurch St Station (Took a photo for the monopoly board) and went back to Basildon to do some more grocery shopping. Bus backed to Benfleet ready to start another week of work.

We're planning on visiting Southend On Sea this weekend, which is about 30 minutes by bus away. There is the world longest 'pleasure' pier - over 2kms long, which stretches into the mouth of the Thames or the English Channel. I think it's a bit of both, sorta where they join, if you get me???

Mid term break is in 4 weeks - again loving the UK system. Not sure where we are headed. I want Prague or Dubrovnik, Dan wants Paris or Barcelona. We'll see where's warmest.

By the way, I'm sick of all you p**** whinging about the heat and bragging about your holidays. Think of us. Cold and WORKING in January!!!

Miss you all heaps and heaps. And if you're as lucky as Krystal you might get a drunken phone call from me on a Saturday Morning (Friday night) sometime soon!!!

xoxox