Adventures in London: Issue 221

I am going on 10 days of not having a working boiler :-( To celebrate my half birthday I got the lovely present of a working boiler (turned out only for the night) and a great dinner with POWERS! It was so good to see her and show her the new flat. We decided to go out and explore the new area trying a cute little restaurant called 'Small & Beautiful'. It was great to catch up with Powers, hadn't seen her since her big news that little Baby O was on its way!! She looked so wonderful and I am so very excited for her. She and Michael are going to make such amazing parents. I have not meant two people more excited to become parents than Michael and Rebecca. Cannot wait to meet the little Baby O. Cannot believe this is the second baby in the group. How did this happen... I am still a baby and people are having them. One day it will be me (or so I can continue to wish)

Unfortunately the working boiler situation did not last long and it quickly went back to 'ERROR FLASHING' mode. Even more unfortunate was that the weather over the weekend dropped and the flat was freezing. In efforts to warm up, I took myself to go see an 'Indian' version of Much Ado About Nothing. I couldn't find anyone to go with and I really wanted to see the show so I went. I am rather happy I did. It was a rather cool show. They kept to the Shakespearean words, but threw in a few 'Bollywood-isms'. I did learn one thing...London theatres are not the place to go to warm up. They are bloody cold. It may not have helped to warm the toes, but it did warm the spirits. Following the show and the purchase of a electric heater I met up with Natalie for dinner at Akari. I have been wanting to go to this place for years, from the outside it looks like an ordinary pub, but from the inside it is the most amazing Japanese and Sushi restaurant. The combinations that they have are out of this world and definitely worth a try!! I highly recommend this place and will find any excuse to go back :-)

On Sunday, there was the 'Diwali on the Square' celebration in Trafalgar Square. I have been wanting to go to this event ever since I moved here. I had heard great things about the event, but I have never been in town as I have either been in NY celebrating Sir Kadin's birthday or in India. This year I was around!! Sadly, given the freezing weather outside the last thing I could imagine doing was to stand in the freezing cold only to return to a freezing cold apartment. I was in literal tears on Sunday with the cold. I probably looked like a nutter walking around the flat with a ski cap and bundled up...had to sleep like that too!! Really hope I get my boiler working soon. Don't know how much of this I can take. It is sad that I am getting accustomed to the tea-kettle shower. Have a whole system worked out in the morning. Takes a good 9 kettles to have a nice 'bath'. 

Well on that warming note, I am off. Hope you are well and warm :)

Miss you and love you more

xx

T 

Adventures in London: Issue 220

Tuesday kicked off the first day of Navaratri, a nine day celebration to worship the Divine Mother Durga, the power behind the work of creation, preservation, and destruction of the world. Ths festival we celebrate the nine forms of Devi (goddess)/ Shakti (energy or power). For the next 10 days...celebrate in garba, laughter and non-veg food. "It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything" - TD! 

There is not a lot to share about this week. Got locked out of the flat (great way to kick things off) Other than that majority of my time and energy has gone into setting up the flat. Moving flats is a ball ache, need to make sure you have changed your address for all your accounts and well as set up accounts for Sky, phone, electric, council tax, gas, etc. The happy part was getting the flat to look more and more like a home. 

I made a lot of progress on that front, but this move has highlighted that I have MUCH to buy. Moving flat is certainly an expensive quest. There are so many things that I got rid of that need to be re-purchased now...JOY. That weekend, a friend in need called. Probably not what they wanted to do, but we ended up spending  Saturday in IKEA shopping for the new flat. It was a ridiculously odd afternoon. It was comfortable yet all kinds of awkward at the same time. Don't know how to quite explain it. Bought a LOT of stuff for the flat ranging from a rug, to a spoon set, to a coffee table, to a bed-side table. Got a bunch of candles and decorative items for the flat too. It does feel odd that I am decorating my new flat with someone that I used to live with.... odd

I am really enjoying the new flat. I am sad yet excited about the place. The landlord is really nice and has been extremely helpful with various questions. Unfortunately not even 6 days into living at the flat and I had my first 'appliance default'...seems like the boiler has gone down. The engineers tried to come out, but were unable to fix the boiler...so 6 days into the flat and no heating nor hot water. Let's hope this gets resolved soon as taking showers as been an interesting ordeal of boiler water and pouring it into the tub. NOT FUN! At least it is not cold outside :-) At least I have X-Factor to keep me company 

Miss you all

xx

T

Adventures in London: Issue 219

Moving when you are feeling 100% is hard enough, moving flats when you have a cold is pure torture. My new flat wasn't ready yet (was negotiating the last final details and the landlord was doing some rennovations) so I went to stay at a friend's for the week. In hindsight, it was a really nice to have that week with KV. It was a chilled, no pressure, no check-in kinda week and just what I needed to get my head on straight. The only bit of excitement that we had was me coming back to the flat to be greeted by a homeless guy sleeping in her doorway. I didn't want to wake (or go near the guy), so we called the police. It was an interesting couple of hours waiting for them to arrive...in summary we had a guy with a bag, foxes, random pavement chit chat, mistaken prostitutes, honker's ale. You cannot make this stuff up.

Saturday was moving day. The day almost went without a hitch. I had the day planned out by the minute and could not afford any deviations. Plan was to pick up the keys, drop off the bags and then head to the old flat to finish packing before the Man with a Van came to move me. Even scheduled time to swing by the storage unit. I was slightly nervous when there was a hiccup on the first leg. The flat was not ready yet!!! The Gas Inspector had not come yet, so the keys could not be released. I couldn't afford things to go wrong, so arranged for the keys to be delivered at the old flat. Thankfully, packing the rest of the old flat did not take the full allotted time so finished just in the nick of time when the Van Man came. It was all surreal. I still couldn't believe that I was leaving N4, I was leaving such great memories behind. When did this all happen? Where was I when this all happened. I got a bit emotional leaving the place. It was going to be my last time ever in that flat. There was no going back now. 

After what seemed like a lifetime, the move was over. The boxes were unloaded (I was sure to make sure everything was packed and unpacked from the car, wasn't going to loose anything in the move). And like that I was alone in the new place surrounded by a sea of boxes. 

Goes without saying that the rest of the weekend went into unpacking and setting up the flat. Similar to 40 Park, and 13 Houghton I was rather quick to unpack and set the flat up. I cannot stand having boxes everywhere. Everything needs to be put in its place. I am sure like every other flat I have lived in, there will be that one box that next gets unpacked as there is no place for it. Let's see what that box will be in this flat :-)

On that great moving story, I am off. Miss you all

xx

T

Adventures in London: Issue 218

Things have been insane lately, to the point that I have no idea what is reality and what is a dream (or nightmare as it seems to be the case of late).  The flat that I had put an offer in for fell through (very annoyingly as I really like that place, but they were trying to take the mick with the fees and then renege on the advertisement of offering the flat furnished). Time was running out for me to find a flat, so to say this was less than ideal was an understatement.

That with all the other stresses going on lately, I 'snapped' on Wednesday. I cannot explain why, but a bunch of us went for a drink and never came back. We have done long lunches before, but this was different. We all had just snapped and the more pints we had the more we forgot about all the pressure, stresses and drama going on. It was not a right thing to do, but it was right for right then. I regret it as my behaviors and actions that night had massive repercussions. I lost something that night that I held near and dear to my heart!! What is done is done, I cannot take it back...all I can do is draw a line under it and ensure it never happens again.

This week wasn't all bad news, on Friday not only did I find a new flat (and put in an offer), but we got great news on our Global Pitch. Mindshare retained the Unilever business in Wester Europe, US and parts of Asia!! It was a great win and great news to kick off the weekend. Granted the global data piece (aka the team I am on) was still TBD, but you've gotta celebrate the wins you get. With this piece of news, over 1000+ Mindshare employees worldwide started the weekend knowing that their jobs were safe. Massive when you look at it like that :) To celebrate the Mindshare bar had a special celebration event!! It was a great evening to celebrate all the sacrifices, stressing, late nights, and lack of scope :-)

That weekend marked my last weekend in N4 :(
It has been a pleasure calling you home for the last 18 months. To all the people and friends I have met, I hope our paths cross again and this is not our finale. Will miss N4 dearly and truly! Thank you xx

That weekend whilst packing I had the sincere delight of catching up 'face-to-face' with my dear friend Pat. It was the first time I got to see him since he moved to Thailand. It was great to see him and catch up. May have been odd at first to be over Skype, but once we got it working, it was like old times. I could have spent the entire evening chatting with him. It was so great to see his face, to laugh and more importantly to feel positive when all so many things lately were not!

On that semi-happy note, I am going to go. Hope you all are well. Miss you all dearly!

xx

T