Well, we have been really busy the last few weeks. After arriving back in London for the start of the Summer (3rd and final) term, I had a couple of days wondering if I was in fact, going to get any work. Then all of a sudden I had a day in a lovely school in the borough of Greenwich - they had a job for the rest of the term, BUT, it took me near 1 1/2 hours to get there - not cool.
So the next day I went off to Islington for a three week placement in the primary a tiny MLD school. The class teacher is a kiwi, along with the deputy head and with an Aussie next door and an American down the hall, Brits were thin on the ground. I had a pretty good time there and it was very casual and friendly.
Just as that placement was coming to an end, the school asked me to go and take over their year 7/8 (intermediate) 'nurture' class in the secondary site for the rest of the term. So, I am working for the same school, but in a different class at a different site - in Angel. Although it is a secondary school, the 'nurture' class is run on a primary model, so I have the kids most of the day. In NZ, year 7 and 8 is still primary anyway. I've been there a week and so far, so good. One more week until half term, then only 7 weeks til the summer hols. I LIKE this 3 term year! You never have to do more than 7 weeks in a row.
Unfortunately, the Summer hols for me means no more money, unless I can sort out some Summer job.

Apart from work, we have been away a lot. We went to Bristol for the first May bank holiday. It was CHOICE. Bristol is really nice - who knew. I am going to let Richie tell you all about it.

My friend Ali (from Wangas) arrived from Kuwait to stay for a few days. She shopped til she dropped and managed to fit in some cultural activities too. Rachelle, Ali and I went to see Chicago in the West End, which was brilliant. Ali's visit was too short but I hope we will get over to Kuwait to see her sometime while we are on this side of the planet.

Last weekend we hired a car and along with my brother Alex, his girlfriend Hollaye, and my cousin Bruce, we drove to South Wales to the Gower Peninsula, for a weekend of camping for my cousin Alec's birthday. It was awesome to get to the countryside.

Easter in Wales,Wedding in Scotland

Hello, Sorry for the radio silence. Since moving into our flat at the end of March, we have been flat out! The internet was finally connected last week, so we are planning to update things more regularly from now on. Some things in this country take forever to organise. Like broadband and a phone line. Anyway, we now have both, so give us a call or chuck us an email!Technology is amazing...

I (Steph) finished up working for Castlebar school the week before Easter. I was quite sad to leave as after 7 weeks I had got to know the staff and the kids pretty well. I wasn't sad to say goodbye to an hour and 20 min commute though!

The first few days of the hols, I just hung about, did some gardening with Hannah, spent some time with my cuz Bruce and my Aunt Val. Bruce and I did some exploring of my local 'hood, and ended up walking along the Thames path all the way to Canary Wharf, just in time to meet Zander for a pint after work. Val and I went to the V & A museum to see the "Hats" exhibition, which was really interesting. I have a new mission to get my hands on some of Val's vintage clothing, stored in her attic....

On Good Friday we went with Rowan and her Aussie friend Jax to Wales. Rowan has a wee car. We went to stay in a 'luxury' caravan near St Davids, in Pembrokeshire. We were in the middle of nowhere, it was lovely! The weather was fantastic, really cold but really sunny (unusual for Wales we are told). We visited the island of Skomer, a bird sanctuary where you can get very close to PUFFINS. It was a bit like Sommes Island in Wellington Harbour. There were also thousands of rabbits on the island, introduced 700 years ago by the Normans, who farmed them. They have had a huge impact on the ecology of the island, meaning very little in the way of vegetation and millions of rabbit holes, which are used by the puffins and shearwaters for breeding.

We also visited the Cathedral and ruins of the Bishops palace in St Davids, and a CHOCOLATE FARM, as well as eating and drinking far too much.

We came back to London for one night, and then caught the train to Edinburgh for Catriona and Chris's wedding. (Steph worked with Cat at Kilbirnie school) We spent 4 days wandering the city, seeing where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, among more historic places... It is very beautiful there, although it was FREEZING and each day we wore about 50 layers. It was very misty and atmospheric, especially when we were doing the ghost walking tour and going up to the castle. We spent the morning before the wedding walking up Arthur's seat, where you get 360 degree views of the city and surrounds.

The wedding was fantastic, the bride was beautiful and all the blokes (The NZ contingent as well as the Scots) were in kilts. The reception was in a hotel overlooking the castle and the Princes St gardens.

We got back to London and Richie started back at work, while I wondered whether I would get anything for a couple of days. Not to worry, after 1 day of no news I was then offered two jobs. One in an ASD class in Greenwich, but unfortunately it took me an hour and a half to get there, so althougth the school seemed lovely, I won't be working there this term! The other one is in Finsbury Park, about 35 mins away. The class has 7 students, mostly ADHD, so it is pretty full on. At this stage it is for 2 weeks, possibly longer. It is a very small school, only 4 classes, and 24 students, but seems very relaxed and friendly which is nice.

Richie is going well and has settled into his job at SSL247. I made him go shopping today but tomorrow we are off to explore Epping Forest, provided we can get out of Wapping, as the London Marathon is on our doorstep tomorrow and the roads are all closed!

Work and Home Sorted

Hi All. It has been a while since I last posted. I have been busy looking for work and along with Steph and Rachelle looking for somewhere to live. These things are now sorted, we move into a house today (I've just received the keys) and I start work on Monday.

Our new flat is in Wapping, which is just to the east of Tower Hill. It is a nice second floor, fully furnished, two bedroom property - it will be quite comfortable. I shall take some piccies and post them shortly.

My new job is at a company called SSL247, which I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. They were one of the first places I interviewed at. Despite what I though to be a good interview that lead went cold. I noticed last week that that they were still advertising, so I contacted them and we organised a second "technical" interview Monday just bee. That went well and I was offered a position of "Senior Web Developer". That starts nextMonday. SSL247 sell secure certificates for secure websites, essentially the padlocks. I'll be be improving and maintaining their website.

Steph is well. She has quite a commute from our new flat and where we are currently staying to her current workplace at Castle Bar. We have being staying near Tower Bridge, 15 minutes walk from our new flat since Saturday. Her current job however ends in a week or two and Steph is looking for her next role closer to where we are. There are schools everywhere so there shouldn't be much of a problem. She has also found an agency that specialises in special needs teaching which works with schools in our area - looks helpful.

Tonight we are off to Steph's friend Hannah's place for a dinner party. Hannah was recently in New Zealand getting married.

The Working Life

Hi there loyal readers,

On Monday I had an interview for a job in a special needs school in Ealing, not far from where I used to live in Hanger Lane. I got the job so I am gainfully employed, at least for the next 3 weeks, and probably a little longer - until the Easter break in 5 weeks. The class teacher is ill, hence the uncertain time frame - they aren't sure when he'll be fit to return. I am the 7th reliever the class has had in the last 5 weeks, and the first one to last a week! So understandably the class is quite unsettled.

Its a class of 8 year 5/6 students (9/10 yr olds) who are pretty full on, but there are 2 fantastic teacher aides and the staff as a whole, and the 2 other senior teachers in particular, are very friendly and supportive. I am being really strict, and the kids are beginning to realise that I mean what I say and that I will be around for a while , so they can't get away with what they have been up to in the last few weeks, which is basically running riot in the hallways and playing on the computer, as far as I can make out! I have caused a few tears and drama-queen behaviour by saying 'no' a few times in the last week, but hopefully as they get used to me they will become more manageable. Probably just in time for their teacher to return and take over!

Anyway, its good to be working, but I was enjoying the extended holiday! Richie is still job hunting - he has decided to keep looking for a job in town, rather than accept the job out in Amersham, as it is quite a trek out of town.

This week we've been for curry in Brick Lane with my brother Alex (Zander) and his girlfriend Hollaye, I've been knitting in the pub with the knitting crew, and last night we hung out with my ex-NAS friends in Kensal Green. Strangely, one of the staff at the school I am working in also used to work at the NAS when I was there, so it was nice to see a familiar face.

We are about to meet Bruce to find out how Mt Snowdon was and see some exhibition at Somerset House, and then I feel pizza and a movie coming on......

Half Term

This week has been half term so there hasn't been any teaching work for me, which has been OK, as I have been sick! Nothing major, but good to be able to just lax out without thinking about all the work I should be doing. I have paid 30p for one lemon and am definitely on the mend, ready for a job interview tomorrow.

We have decide to wait until Richie has a job before I look for something permanent, especially as teaching jobs starting in Sept (beginning of school year) won't be advertised until after Easter. The problem with both of us job hunting is that we could easily end up with jobs on opposite sides of London, which would be no fun from a commuting perspective. So once we know where we'll be living, I can concentrate in looking in that area. It seems that there is plenty of daily supply for mainstream teaching, and the special needs is more long term/interview based so I shall have to see how the next couple of weeks goes and perhaps do a mixture of the two to get some moolah flowing in.

We never made it to the Natural History Museum the other day - the queue to get in was massive - and we thought better to wait til after the half term to see the dinosaurs! We ended up going to the V and A, seeing some cool plaster casts of ancient treasures (somehow it is more amazing that they managed to make plaster casts of these huge columns etc than if they were the real columns stolen from Rome) and architecture exhibits.

Yesterday was so sunny and warm - Spring is definitely coming! We took the bus to Hyde Park and wandered along the Serpentine. Loads of people out picnicing, skating, horseriding, boating on the lake. It was so lovely and the sky was so blue. We mooched about, looked at the Albert memorial, the Wellington Arch and Buckingham Palace. We wanted to spend the entire day outside to make the most of the sunshine. Not that the weather has been that bad since the snow ended, but looking at the photos of beautiful blueness in NZ just before we left - it has been quite grey here in comparison. The spring bulbs are well on their way so there will be daffs around soon, and then summer is just around the corner! The squirrels were out in force at Hyde Park - I know the grey ones are evil invaders- but still, they are cute.....

My cousin Bruce is a total legend - or maybe he is just crazy - he has gone off camping this weekend to Mt Snowdon. I hope the forecast snow didn't arrive!

The Great Job Hunt

Life is now getting into a routine of job-hunting in the morning and sightseeing in the afternoon with a liberal amount of meeting up with Steph's friends from when she was last here.

I've found a few good job boards, www.reed.co.uk and www.cv-library.co.uk which are proving quite a few leads. CV Library is particularly good, I get a call every day or two out of the blue from some agent with some opportunity.

This morning it was regarding a job with a company that had uplifted their entire development team from somewhere in New Zealand and relocated them to Amersham, which is at the western end of the Metropolitan Line. From what I understand they are developing technology to deploy banking services to the developing world - bank branch in a shipping container sort of thing.

Yesterday, just after 2pm, we had just finished lunch on the Southbank with Flair, a friend of Steph's, and got a callback about a job. They were keen to interview me so we set up an interview at 4pm. I rushed to an internet cafe to have a last minute look over the companies website (www.lshift.net). The interview went fairly well. It's a small company run by developers, so not much management overhead, and lots of opportunity to take responsibility for projects. Will find out in a few days if I get thought to the next stage.

Agents can be a bit funny over here. One told me he had a telephone interview set up for last Monday. He hadn't sent any information about the company through on Friday, so I asked for their name and website so I could at least have a look at that, it turns out their website was down and I didn't get a company name. I didn't get any calls on Monday and haven't heard back from him. I called up another agent who wanted me to get together quite a bit of information so he could decide whether to put me forward. It sounded a bit like a job another agent was putting me forward for so I asked whether it was for this company, he would "neither confirm or deny", because he gets a lot of calls from other agents pretending to be candidates to find jobs to advertise. I guess it's a dog eat dog world in the high stakes game of IT recruitment.

This afternoon we are off to the National History Museum to meet up with some of Steph's family. They have dinosaurs and other cool things there.

Sightseeing

As well as the great job hunt, we have been managing to do a few of the sights (the free ones only at this point!) and we have taken in such delights as Greenwich park (where there was still snow, a week after the big snowfall), the Science Museum and a little of the Natural History Museum (we were chased out of there by all the school children on trips). We went to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery (where I gatecrashed a school trip and listened to the guide talk about Van Gogh's Sunflowers). and have generally wandered around London, meeting up with friends and taking in some of the sights.

On Saturday we went to Borough Market, had the yummiest vege-halloumi burger and ate lots of cheese from the taster boards. Saw the most amazing array of mushrooms aswell. Alex bought a rabbit (to stew, not the fluffy alive kind), which he then had to carry around all day. We've spent the weekend relaxing, checking out the local pub and seeing people. This week holds more of the same, still have loads of people to see, and of course check out more of London's sights. So far the place is treating us well, its cold outside but the daffodils are starting to appear and the houses are warm and cosy - bliss!