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Tuesday, 25 August 2009 - River Severn

This is the River Severn as seen looking north from Bewdley. A couple weeks ago when I was biking around here a passer-by mentioned the path along the river continues to the next village some 7kms upstream. I thought I'd go check it out!

The path started off through suburbia, passed a few cottages, and then became a nice bouncy dirt track - good fun!

Nice!

Although there were no signs saying so (not that I pay a lot of attention to them anyway) I don't think this was meant for cyclists, as it went from narrow to very narrow to practically just bush hehe.

Then it went from bush to mud - lots of mud. Once again I had to sneak the bike past reception when I got back to the hotel hahaha!

Looking upstream towards Victoria Bridge, over which the Severn Valley Railway crosses.		This horse was having a spaz attack in the middle of a field hehe. When he was done he wandered over to me and gave me the stare down until I left.

After a lot of mud and getting scratched up by a lot of bushes and stung by a lot of nettle, I made it to the little village of Arley - home to bugger all.				And as there was nothing there, I left again, and headed back to Bewdley along the other side of the river.

As I mentioned on Sunday, this is my fourth and final week here with work, and I've gotta say the thing I've enjoyed most has to be the evenings spent wandering or biking around in the middle of nowhere in the golden sunsets. I couldn't live here (I'd get bored) but it sure makes a bloody nice change to London!				While checking out the views across the river I very nearly biked straight into this bloody great hole in the middle of the path hahaha! Random.

I got back to Bewdley after sunset and raided the local fish and chip shop. I wasn't in the mood for a couple faggots tonight, with or without chips ;)				Mmmm, greasy!

Wednesday, 26 August 2009 - Three years on...
Today marks my three-year anniversary of living in the United Kingdom. I'm not sure what surprises me more - the fact I've lasted three years here or the fact I've decided to stay for a further two.

This time last year I had not long left Edinburgh for London, thanks largely to a temporary transfer with my job at the time. I'd been with that company almost three years, and while being greatly beneficial for the most part, it was fast going from bad to worse: work wasn't coming through the door, client projects were being delayed or cancelled, my client at the time were pricks, and tempers were starting to flare. However, I was living a 30-minute train ride north of London in St Albans in a bloody nice company-owned flat virtually expense-free with my rent, bills, and even food paid for by work hehe, so I shouldn't complain too much. Unfortunately with that job though, I was being forced into a direction career-wise that I had no interest in pursuing, and they eventually asked me to return to Edinburgh after I'd already made the decision to stay in London (I felt as though I'd ticked the Edinburgh Box and it was time to tick the London one - I did request a permanent transfer but they refused). This was early November, and by that stage my girlfriend Katie (whom I'd met in Edinburgh earlier in the year) had no luck finding decent employment in Edinburgh and so had recently moved down with me to try her luck in London. My decision not to return to Edinburgh effectively forced me out of that job at a time when the country was fast getting itself deep in recession and unemployment was rising. Furthermore, as Katie and I were living in their flat, it forced us out of a home as well. Needless to say, all things considered, it was a tough decision to make.

To make a long story short (as those of you who follow this site already know the outcome), I found a new job within a fortnight of handing in my resignation - one that has proved to be perfect in pretty much every way so far from a long-term career perspective. After a couple dramas, Katie and I eventually found a flat in northwest London which has also proved to be perfect in pretty much every way (save for the fact we still have to tolerate flatmates, but hey). Katie also found work in a field that was right up her alley and so for a while there everything was looking pretty peachy, but it wasn't to last. While I was now pretty well set up in London, Katie had the issue of a UK entry visa hanging over her head. At this point she was only on a working-holiday visa, the working element of which was due to expire in April. If she wanted to continue working in the UK, she would have to go home and apply for an upgraded visa - a Highly Skilled Migrant (HSM) if anyone is interested. The HSM visa is points-based, with so many points being awarded for such thing as age, education, earning potential and so forth. In order to acquire enough points, Katie needed to earn a butt-load before the April deadline in order to prove her earning potential, and as a result she effectively worked two full-time jobs for a number of months like a trooper. I made an unannounced 6-day trip home for Mum's 50th birthday at the end of March, shortly after which Katie returned home also to lodge her visa application. We expected she would be away for around a couple months at most, but while there some unforeseen health issues came to the fore which required an operation, so after leaving in early April she has only just now made it back last week (complete with a fresh new visa stuck in her passport)! However, by a stroke of luck and a lot of skill on her part, she managed to secure another awesome-sounding job here in London during her last couple weeks at home, and has just started this week. So, once again, things are starting to look pretty peachy, but in the three years I've been here the UK has never failed to throw a curve ball when I least expect it.

Anyway, as I said before, I whipped home for a surprise visit for Mum's 50th birthday back in March. Her actual present is an all-expenses-paid trip around Europe for four weeks, courtesy of me (aren't I a good son!). My brother, Jared, turned the big 20 in July, and so for that (and his 21st next year), I'm shouting him along too (I'm a fucking good brother too! ;) Neither of them has ever seen this side of the globe, and I know for Mum especially it will be the trip of a lifetime. They are touching down in London next week, and next weekend we're all off for three weeks of gallivanting around the continent, doing mostly the same trip that Mo and I did exactly three years ago just after I arrived in Edinburgh.

As for my decision to spend two more years here (as opposed to just one which was the plan until recently), well there's a few reasons for that: additional time for further career development since it's going so well at the moment, additional time to see the parts of Europe I'm yet to see and may otherwise not have time to, additional time to earn the Pound with which to pay off my mortgage on a property back home, additional time to blah blah blah - basically there are a number of reasons, but two more years will be about all I think I'll be able to handle of this place, after which the plan is still very much to relocate to Canada for a couple years :)

Thursday, 27 August 2009 - Final night in the wop-wops

Tonight is my last in this area with work. Katie spent the last few nights of last week up here with me, and we went for a drive (more like a hoon actually) 30kms out of Kidderminster/Bewdley to Ironbridge. It was a bit too dark at the time to get any decent photos, but it's a bloody nice little spot (and drive) so I had another hoon back tonight to get some shots.
Ironbridge is another settlement on the River Severn (which I seem to have seen a lot of over the last month). It's home to just a couple thousand, and apparently has a recurring problem of flooding from the river, as do many other river-side towns in the area.

Aside from the boy-racers who scream back and forth along the main street, the place is pretty quiet.				Katie and I got some grub at a local pub here last week, and I went for a pint of Cornish Knocker hehe.

I've seen his artwork, and I wouldn't want my head looking like that.		Don't like your name? Go buy another one! I think I'll stick with Aaron :)

Other random photos - fucking nice huh! The actual Iron Bridge of Ironbridge is below-left.

The sky had been overcast all day, but in the middle of my hoon back to the hotel the sun made an appearance for all of about five minutes before it set - just enough time for me pull off the highway down the first road I could find and snap it.

Rather than head back to the highway I opted to follow this country lane I was on. I eventually came to a little four-way intersection with a strong smell of cow shit in the air - ahhh the country! This is a full 360-degree panorama with the sunset in the middle off the in the distance.

Hooray for GPS!		I was on roads like this for about ten minutes, and during that time I came across no houses, no cars, no pedestrians, no animals, nothing.		Oh I did manage to find one cottage though - that was pretty exciting. I've absolutely loved my four weeks in this area, but I sure couldn't live here - I'd be bored shitless!

Friday, 28 August 2009 - Cambridge, in five minutes

I had quite a bit of time to kill this afternoon in between leaving work in Kidderminster and returning the hire car to London, so I took a rather long detour to Cambridge. Cambridge is 80kms north of London, has a population of about 130,000, of which some 20% are students (Cambridge is home to the University of Cambridge - one of the world's premier universities).

Unfortunately, by the time I got here I had to leave again, but it's quite pretty from what I saw of it. Punting on the river, just like back home in Christchurch :)		I love these things - accidents waiting to happen. The bollard goes down for buses...		...but not for anything else. I've seen videos of idiots trying to tailgate buses through these things only to plough straight into them as they raise again hahaha! This chick was so close to doing the exact same thing but stopped at the last second - piss! I would've got it all on camera too!

Sunday & Monday, 30 & 31 August 2009 - Notting Hill Carnival

The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event held at the end of every August that has them flocking in the hundreds of thousands to London's Notting Hill (which happens to be within walking distance of my flat :)

The carnival has quite an interesting history (more info here), but in a nutshell it's been going strong since the mid 1960s, and has a very Caribbean theme to it (with many Caribbean folk having lived in and around Notting Hill for yonks).

The carnival follows a circular route through Notting Hill, and there is no shortage of weird and wonderful and bloody random sights. The dude on the right there was parading the trolley he'd just stolen from the supermarket.

Parades aside there is music everywhere - fucking loud too with the bass reverberating throughout the neighbourhood! This was one of several trucks on the circuit that was covered in speakers from end to end hehe - awesome! :)		I wouldn't mind a set of these in my lounge.		Boogie on down!

Parades everywhere, music everywhere, and food - food absolutely everywhere!		All of the food stalls did a great job of smoking up the neighbourhood, but damn did it smell good!		And with all that food on offer, you just never know when you might need a toothbrush! ;)

A lot of idiots bought themselves a whistle and spent all day blowing them which fast got bloody annoying.		Any idea what that pink balloon animal is meant to be? It just looks like an enormous wanger.

Portobello Road which is usually covered in the weekly market had the weekend off, but was still full of the usual weirdoes.		Black fella, grass skirt, policeman's hat, and a snake - clearly he felt that combination was worth some money.		Hahaha! Like I said, weirdoes :)

The fuzz were out in their thousands, and many a shop-front was boarded up. Last year's carnival was marred by rioting at the very end of the carnival involving large numbers of youths (why can't you damn kids just behave?!) and injuries to police. Some 500 of the little punks were arrested. Here is a YouTube video of some of the action on Ladbroke Grove (this is quite a long walk from my flat). There are heaps of other videos on YouTube of this as well. It's 7pm Monday night as I write this and will still be light for another couple hours, so all calm just now. However, I am pretty tempted to go for a wander later with my camera at the ready (as I do).

More parade shots.

Hehehe.		Cup of tea!		This was 4pm today down Harrow Road. I don't know where that foot-bridge goes but it seems everybody was wanting to get there, and the queues spilt out onto the road blocking traffic for a good 15 minutes until the cops cleared everyone off hehe. This was shot from a bus I was on at the time (hence the reflections). So yes it's been total chaos around here this weekend - love it :)

Tuesday, 1 September 2009 - Aftermath

I said I was pretty tempted to get out and see the aftermath of the Notting Hill Carnival, so I did ;) The garbage trucks are out in force, and good luck to them hehe - this is but one street of hundreds looking like this!		I saw a lot of crazy shit but wasn't really in a position to get any photos without drawing the kind of attention to myself I'd prefer to avoid. This is Ladbroke Grove where some of the rioting broke out this time last year. No riots here this year, just a couple stabbings (hence the police cordon in the background). You gotta love this place.

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