Red Bull Air Race - Saturday 28th July

O2 Dome

David Beckham Soccur Academy

Today Louise, Josh and I went to the Red Bull Air Race, they fly at all different locations all over the world and compete for each year. This time they flew on a course over the Thames. They took off from City Aiport and had to co-ordinate with the main planes taking off then they had to stop the ferries and everything from coming down the Thames. It was very spectacular to see. The planes were so fast, we could only get the photos by lining the camera up waiting till they were close and pushing the shutter and hoping that the plane was in the photo. They were so fast - it was amazing. The pictures don't do it justice. It was a warmer day and it wasn't raining so that was good. We are still waiting for summer, they tell us it may come at the end of August for 2 weeks!!! No wonder people move to NZ! After we went the the air race we went into the O2 dome - which used to be called the Millenium dome, it has a complex of restaurants and bars and movie cinemas in there. And to kind of pretend that it's summer here they have dumbed a huge pile of sand in the plaza area and put deck chairs up and fenced it off so it's like a beach. It's for the kids during the day but at night they open up a bar area and have cocktails, or have live music or show movies. We are going to check this out this week, so should be good.

Exciting news at the flat!

Ambulance round the corner

The fire station right opposite our windows Our windows are the bottom row, our bedroom is the first window and Louises is the second.

This weekend a building site who are excavating to put a new apartment complex in thought they had uncovered a WWII device that had not been detonated- but it was not! However, these are the pictures of the police cars etc that were there incase it did go off.

Sunday 22nd July - Regents Park

This is the Church stage before it starts The BBC Building All Souls Church - it survived the war Great Portland Road The Princes Trust Buildings - alongside Regents Park A Dutch church alongside Regents Park Today we went to Church then walked from Tottenham Cout Road, along Oxford and Regent Stree, up Portland Road, then alongside Regents Park to Camden Town and back to the tube. The photos are off the different things we saw on the walk. It was really nice and we had some sun! Yeah! It hasn't been very sunny here at the moment it ranges from 20 - 25 degrees at the moment and is raining and often windy which lowers the temperature. But today was nice and sunny so we enjoyed our walk after church.

Lazy Day - Saturday 21st July

Josh in Bed. Standing on the Footbridge, West India Quay is in the background.

We had a sleepy day and got up to watch the All Blacks play - we won!!! Yeah!! Then went back to bed for the day. In the evening we went out for dinner to West India Quay, which is about 15min walk from where we are staying.

Saturday 14th - London Bridge

Last Saturday we went for a walk around London Bridge along the Thames. Around Southwark there was an exhitbition with guitars that had been signed by different musicians. It was a half sunny day, which was nice for here in London.

Lunch in Hertfordshire

Josh, Rob, Helen, Juilet, Claire, Rebecca, Sarah, Steve and Rach

Today we went out to Juilet and Robs place for lunch it was really nice and we saw Helen, Claire, Rach and Steve. We had a bbq which was quite good considering the weather. It got a little rainy half way through and we had to come inside but the rain stoped and we could venture outside again and Josh played little Josh at Football.

Frankfurt Germany

On Josh’s first day he went on a walking tour of Frankfurt and these are some of the sights. Josh found 1.3 litres of beer! The Stock Exchange The bull was outside the stock exchange and signifies a bold trader. Views of Frankfurt from the top of one of the German banks – notice all the rain in the photos!

In Germany it is a labour law that every employee must be able to see daylight so some buildings such as this one had a 'hole' all down the middle filled with glass! The vines with the Rhine river in the background. Josh and his colleagues outside the vineyard. On one of the evening they went wine tasting. This is one of the oldest cellars in the region as survived the war. Avril Lavigne Concert that he watched from the roof of work's Frankfurt office Josh has been in Frankfurt for work for the last week, he left on Sunday 8th July and returned Friday the 13th. He was at a work training conference. In the evenings he had spare time to see some of Frankfurt.

Hampstead Heath

Kenwood House at Hampstead Heath

Today we went out to Hamstead to have a look around and to visit Hampstead Heath, which we had heard was a lovely park. So we caught the tube to Hampstead and talk a walk up the road to the Heath. Around the heath are supposed to be interesting historical places - Kenwood House - an art gallery with lovely tea room and beautiful gardens, and other old buildings with memorabilia to John Keats, the Freud museam and so on. It was a lovely sunny day - for a change as it has been raining all week here - well for the last 2-3 weeks!! So, off we head, we see the heath and walk through the grounds - absoultly beautiful and feels like New Zealand, it's all bush with ferns and tress etch! Very nice! However, after we have been walking for about 40min I wonder where these building are - so i ask and get some directions and off we go for about another 30min. Then still not seeing the buildings and my shoes are starting to hurt my feet. I had come prepared and already had plasters on both my heels and on the toes and had spares with me. So we stop and ask someone else for directions, well apparently we had been walking in totally the wrong direction and might i add by this stage were only interested in going to Kenwood House and primarly because of the cafe. We are told that Kenwood house is on the ohter side of the heath! I could not even begin to describe just how large this park really is! So 2 hours out from arriving and asking 3 more people for directions we make it to Kenwood house! My feet are killing me even with the spare plaster on i have developed a lovely blister that has managed to pop and get infected all in the space of 2 hours! Next time - we take a map!!!! The first thing we did was sit down and have coffee and salad for lunch and lay in the sun - very nice and the gardens were very beautiful. We had a wonder around the art gallery i was promised rembrant however i did not see any! Not that i would recognize his work but i was reading the captions! Due to gross fatigue and feet i wanted to chop off we did not get to see anymore of the historical buildings nor did we feel like walking through anymore lovely gardens! So we walked back to the tube or should i say hobbled to bus stop to take us 10min down the road as i felt i couldn't move an inch! Somebody should have said you go there for walks - i would have taken my sneakers!!!! Anyway, it looks very nice and we have a map for our next visit out there to see the rest of the historical places!!! And of course we forgot the camera so the one photo is again off my camera - but better than nothing! We came back and Josh had his haircut as he is off to Frankfurt on Sunday (today) for a work seminar that lasts all week, he will be back on Friday. Lucky thing! He has the camera this time so hopefully he remembers to take some photos and when he gets back i'll put them on the blog.

Photographs

A photo of Tilly from when we were staying at Rach and Steves - she so cute!

Photo from the top of the double decker bus I take to work - one of 3 forms of transport as I walk then tube then train then bus the walk! - It takes an hour!! Anyway the photo is over Lower Clapton. Pictures of the London eye from the boat/pub - see note above next picutres The other weekend I wrote about how we all went to the pub to watch the All Blacks vs South Africa and how Josh couldn't get in well these are pictures of a boat we had a drink at afterwards - a floating pub! As you can see David is being very rude!! One saturday the road was filled with over a thousand rollar bladers doing some sort of rally thing! Definatly made the crowed stop and stare. A few weekends ago Josh and I spent Saturday walking around Embankment and Southwark, these are the photos from the french cafe we had lunch at. I have downloaded some photos from my telephone and have put them on the blot - that is why the quality is not very good.