So, we went to the football again yesterday.  That’s twice in one year – and for me, that’s true sporting commitment.

Yesterday’s game was on a far more local scale than the Reading vs Ipswich Town match we went to earlier in the year.  It was a bus ride away rather than several hours on the train, it was standing under an umbrella rather than having a seat in the away stand, it was AFC Wimbledon vs Hampton and Richmond, in the Blue Square South league (apparently about six ranks down from the Premiere League).

But Wimbledon still had it’s mascot – a uniformed Womble, who banged rubbish bin lids to stir up the crowds.  And for supporters of both teams, there were hats and scarfs in club colours, and chants, and stewards and programmes and security guards.  And there were hundreds of people there, watching teams that I’d never heard about before, in a league that I wouldn’t have previously considered worth following, and a sense of local suport, of dedication to watching, even in rain and cold, that I couldn’t help but admire.

Tash

Florence’s Ostello Archi Rossi was one of the best hostels we stayed in during our 2006 European adventures.  So it was really no surprise that we ended up back there on our most recent Italy trip.

Archi Rossi has all the things you would expect from a hostel: dorm rooms, internet computers, breakfast provided.  But at Archi Rossi, the internet is free (and indeed, our five bed room came with it’s own internet-enabled PC); the dorms are large and clean; and the breakfast can be selected from fairly extensive menu.  The location – just a couple of blocks away from the Santa Maria Novella train station.

But when it comes down to it, what’s really memorable about Ostello Archi Rossi are the walls.  The hostel management have embraced the traveller’s need to leave some trace of themselves (see the Via dell’Amore in the Cinque Terre, for example).  Hence, over the years, and as hundreds of travellers have passed through, the walls have become covered with graffiti.

And so the messages that Matt and I wrote in October 2006 were still there two years later.  And we added another, and Mum did too.

Note: ’stupidagini’ is the Italian word for ‘rubbish’ (probably more the exclamation of disbelief than the synonym for litter).  However, it was more the sound of the word which made it Matt’s nickname throughout our time in Italy.

Tash

It hasn’t been a good week for my finger and it hasn’t been a good week for my laptop either.  On Wednesday morning, I dropped a glass of water on it; this evening it won’t connect to the internet.  It’s as if the fates are conspiring to prevent a successful NaBloPoMo.

Luckily Matt’s laptop, which has travelled with us from Australia to New Zealand to the UK, continues to work and I’m using it to post this entry now.  Will add more from my computer later, should the internet issues resolve.

Tash

It’s November, so I guess I was due for my annual trip to the Royal London Hospital A&E.

Last November, I manged to fall down the stairs outside of London Bridge Station, sprained my ankle and had to negotiate the public transport system on crutches for about a month afterwards.

This November – today in fact – I was back at the Whitechapel Road clinic, due to continued pain from Saturday’s TV stand injury.

The Royal London Hospital A&E just seems too small for the number of visitors it gets.  There are only 12 seats in the wating room, and the consultation areas are separated by what can onl be described as shower curtains.  They’re even printed with droplets of water.

I must’ve arrived at the clinic at about 2.45pm today.  Checking in, going through the streaming process, getting an x-ray, seeing a nurse and a whole lot of waiting took me through to just after 5.00pm.  The medical staff were great though, and the good news is there’s no broken bones.

The less good news is, instead of heading up to Manchester again for work, I’m facing a weekend in a sling.  And that means typing with one hand, which makes blogging painfully (pun intended) slow, so I’m going to stop here.

Tash

The West End of London has a lot to recommend it: the theatre district, the great shopping, the buskers in Covent Garden, the myriad pubs and bars.  But, on the whole, I’m not a fan of the West End between the hours of 5pm and midnight.  Why?  Because it’s busy.

Busy, of course, is not unusual in London.  Everywhere’s busy.  The tubes are packed, there are long lines to get into tourist attractions such as the Tower.  The West End, in my opinion, is beyond that.

It’s narrow footpaths and hundreds of tourists, and everyone in a rush, pushing to get past – or otherwise it’s people who don’t fit in the pubs, not letting you pass at all.  It’s taxis that don’t stop for you and no traffic lights.  It’s newspapers and vendors on the street, and noise and billboards, and neon lights.

Also, in the midst of this, and this is a bit of a side note, there’s a frustrating lack of ATMs.  In New Zealand I’m used to ‘hole in the wall’ machines on almost every city block.  Here, they’re really only outside banks, in stations, or – if you’re prepared to pay for the privilege – in a few convenience stores.

I was in Covent Garden for a networking event tonight, almost got run over, couldn’t find an ATM.  But the speaker was fantastic, and it was great to meet a few other marketeers.  Of course, then I did have to come home via Earls Court.

Don’t get me started on Earls Court.

(But I ♥ London, all the same).

Tash

Yesterday, Matt and I managed to get a simultaneous day of annual leave – or most of a day at least.  I still had to be in Goodge Street for a meeting at 4:30, followed by a networking event which stretched until 11pm.

But anyway, during the day, we took advantage of the Monday holiday and headed into central London and the National Portrait Gallery.  What differentiates the Portrait Gallery from a standard art gallery is its strong links with history.  Along the walls, and throughout the rooms, you basically find a “who’s who” of public life in Britain over the past 400 or so years.

Given our current obsession with the Tudors, it’s perhaps unsurprising that we spent most of our time in the first eight rooms.  In these rooms, you can find paintings of all the usual cast: Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Sir Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, Queen Mary I, Queen Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey and Catherine of Aragon.  And perhaps not surprisingly, none of them look quite as good in paint as they do in our favourite television series.

Also on the second floor, we found some amazing paintings of parliament in session, where almost all the members have been identified.  There were also some well known portraits scientists, artists and writers, including one of Shakespeare (the first painting that the gallery obtained) and another of Jane Austen.

And in about three hours, that’s as far as we got.  We rushed through the Stuarts and the Civil War, and didn’t make it to the Victorians or anything later than that.  It was more than enough to just wander from one wall to another, and listen to the stories on our audio guides (£2 to hire from the front desk, entry into the permanent collection was free).  It was enough to just look at those Tudors and imagine them sitting for those portraits, and marvel once again, at the nearness of history in this country.

Tash

Winter definitely arrived in London over the weekend.  On Sunday morning, when I woke up, there it was snowing.  Snowing!  Okay, so it was only a light dusting and it’d all melted by midday, but there’s nothing like getting back under the duvet and watching snowflakes drift down outside the window.  It gives me hope that we will get our white Christmas in Scotland next month.

Anyway, I wrapped up warm, with a coat and scarf, and headed out to Sainsburys for food.  I wasn’t really intending on buying a smoothie, but when I saw this one, wearning it’s very own woollen hat, I couldn’t resist. Apparently, it’s all part of Innocent’s Big Knit campaign.  People round the country knit hats for the smoothie bottles, and 50p from each one sold goes to Age Concern – with the aim of keeping older people warm over the winter months.

Not quite sure what I’m going to do with the hat now I’m done with the smoothie.  Though it is about the right size to keep my injured fingers warm. Knowing how many gloves and scarves I lost on tubes and trains last winter, I’m going to keep it as a back up, just in case.

Tash

This post is inspired by Saturday’s fushmush, where Jess posted pictures of her pins, squashed pennies, Euro coins and Christmas decorations and posed the question, ‘what do you collect when you travel?’

The first answer here is, of course, ideas for blog posts/diary entries/travel articles/future novels.  I often take notes in a journal, write on maps, or take photographs to prompt my memory when I’m back home (wherever that home might be).

Then there’s the postcards.  I buy a lot of postcards – perhaps 2-3 for every new place we visit.  Most get sent, but I’ve probably still got 20 or so postcards in our stationery drawer, some dating back to our honeymoon over two years ago.

But our most tangible souvenirs are probably the magnets.  Again, we started collecting these on our honeymoon.  The first one was bought at Singapore airport, when we were only 12 hours away from New Zealand and continued to collect them ever since.  We’ve got too many for our half-size fridge but, so far, we’re managing to display them all on two sides of our hot water unit.

The rule originally was one magnet per city we stayed in overnight.  Travelling around the Greek Islands, we soon learnt to distinguish between the magnets made especially for a city and those which gave the ‘flavour’ of the place (windmills, beaches) with the name written in felt-tip pen.  In the photo above, you can see our magnets from Europe: the Vatican guard from Rome; gondola from Venice; beer opener from Munich.  I think the only place in Europe we didn’t get a magnet from was Genoa in Italy.  Genoa wasn’t a particularly touristy place – we couldn’t find an internet cafe either.

As time’s passed, and we’ve spent more time travelling around the UK, we haven’t stuck so strictly to the overnight stay rule.  So we’ve got a magnets from the Cadbury Chocolate Factory and the Prime Meridian of the World alongside the ones from Cambridge, Whitby and Oxford.  We’ve also picked up magnets from some of the West End plays we’ve seen, such as Wicked and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. One of my favourites is the small metal Globe Theatre magnet on the left here – a reminder of our summer as stewards at the theatre.

They’re not, on the whole, expensive magnets.  Some, such as the Dracula magnet from Whitby, are incredibly tacky.  But I like that we’ve taken the time to choose each one, and I like the stories they have, and the fact that they’re small and fairly unbreakable and they they can come with us in suitcases wherever we move to next.

That was way more than I intended to type tonight. My fingers hurt!

Tash

My silly wife has crushed her fingers under a TV stand and is now looking over my shoulders helplessly as I “type” for her.

HahahaHAHA!

When will she learn. 

Signed, Mat the Husband of Doom

PS – this blogjack has been censored.  Censored!  I was meaner before I got beat up by her good hand. 

This is the inside of our door.

I feel it deserves its own blog entry for two reasons.  The first relates to the round thing at the top of this not-so-carefully taken photograph.  That’s our doorbell.  Our landlord described it as a green doorbell, which basically means that we have to wind it up by hand.  If it loses its internal tension, it also loses its sound.

The second, is that flap halfway down.  That’s how our mail arrives.  I don’t think I’ve seen a letter box over here.  The mail comes through the flap in the door, and usually it’s bills or junk mail (as seen here).

While it’s quite nice to come home in the evening to a pile of letters on the doormat, the obvious disadvantage of this system is that the flap is too small for large book-shaped parcels from various internet retailers.  Sometimes these get left outside, sometimes they get left at the nearest post office, and sometimes – depending on the depot – they’re returned to the head office halfway across the city.

At Christmas we tie ribbon around our doorbell, but since it is November, it is not Christmas just yet.

Tash