Mmmm...

    Kingsmill Thick Square White bread
       ado Avocado Avocado Avocado
       mato Tomato Tomato Tomato T
       Cheese Cheese Cheese Cheese
       ach Spinach Spinach Spinach 
       Ham Ham Ham Ham Ham Ham Ham 
       ranberry Cranberry Cranberr 
    Kingsmill Thick Square White bread

I have learned many things from Nick and Hayley, but the one I celebrate today is how to make a proper sandwich. Mmmm...

The good, the bad, and the rugby...

Yesterday I was so angry I could barely speak. I came home, cooked dinner, read the paper, and it wasn't until after 10pm that Bronwyn and I went for a walk and I was able to expand beyond, “I had a bad day” and “I don't want to talk about it.” I am moving beyond the white hot phase, but I wish to merely say that I'm OK, that I have had an experience at work that is galvanising me to action, and that I believe in the long run this will result in a positive outcome. For me, at least. More as and when appropriate.

On Saturday I had a great time cheering for England as they won the World Cup. (Bronwyn told me later she was secretly hoping Australia would win.) It is the first time in 37 years that England have been world champions in any sport, so as you can imagine people were pretty excited around here! I've in fact been saying that I thought England were going to be pretty difficult to beat ever since seeing their form when they beat New Zealand a couple of months ago. I'd just hoped it'd be us loosing to them in the final, not Australia! Well, in any case as part of the celebrations they've organised an international friendly match between the New Zealand Barbarians and the England XV to be held at Twickenham here in London on Saturday December 20th. The tickets went on sale today at 9am, via the TicketMaster web site and I guess via telephone or other means as well. I logged in at work at 9:22am after finishing a presentation I was giving from 8:30. After some difficulties due to overloading and many of the tickets having already sold, I managed to secure tickets for Bronwyn and I to go to the game, as well as one additional ticket for a friend. The tickets were pricey, though as a colleague pointed out less than they had paid to attend the World Cup quarter finals in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago... It seems when the All Blacks play in New Zealand it is virtually impossible to get tickets anyway, unless you're a member of a rugby club, so I've figured here's our opportunity to see some of the stars. We'll be rugging up warm for a night game in late December in London though! We're really looking forward to it.

It was Bronwyn's birthday on Sunday. We enjoyed spending the day together. After going to church in the morning we went into the city, where Bronwyn had decided she'd like to visit the Tate Modern gallery. There was a new installation there in the cavernous entranceway, where a giant illuminated sun towers over people below, while dry ice machines create clouds. You can lie on the floor and see yourself as a tiny speck reflected in the distant mirrors on the ceiling above. Quite fun. We enjoyed visiting other parts of the collection too. Returning home we went out for a nice dinner at a restaurant in Wimbledon village, followed by homemade cake back home supplied by and with housemates Nick and Hayley. A good day well enjoyed.

Lines

Happy Birthday Adrienne!

Warmest birthday greetings today to Adrienne, a close friend whom we miss dearly. How wonderful it would have been to have been able to visit with you today...

Scuffs, cuffs, and the links between them...

I'm disturbed by the bombings in Istanbul, and the realisation that whatever the west is doing in attempting to reduce terror attacks, it is nowhere near “winning”. I've got no answers, but it is sinking deeper that “war” on terror is no more appropriate than a war on Iraq. (Brings to mind an interesting artilcle in a recent issue of Monitor on Psychology about the origins of hate.) If I had been a bit more thoughtful, I'd like to think I might have been out last night at Trafalgar Square with those protesting during President Bush's visit here to London this week. (He left today.) Instead I was at an event farewelling a colleague who had been a locum at my work for the last three months. There is so much turnover here in our services. In one of the rehabilitation teams I work in, I'll be the second longest-serving therapist in a couple of months, when our longest serving staff member (a locum!) leaves. It's crazy. Yet dynamic. I'm really enjoying having some good mates in my workmates at the moment anyway so that is a plus.

Bronwyn's had some good success lately at school though remains busy. Earlier this week I was able to go along and attend their end of year prizegiving (for the last academic year, which finished in July). Bronwyn's ensemble played a couple of pieces, including her arrangement of a Christopher Norton piece, which she re-arranged for the particular instrumentalists to hand. It went well. This was somewhat in contrast to last week's talent quest that I had also attended. Then, the event itself went fine, but the riot outside afterwards was less enjoyed and calling the police is not the way you want to end an evening. It appears that with limited seating counterfeit tickets were sold, tripling the number of tickets in circulation. Bronwyn was shaken when pushed out of the way by two girls during the incident. Another demonstration of the challenges facing her at this school.

In hospitals, some of the professions wear uniforms and the uniforms are colour coded. Nurses uniforms are various shades of blue, and the blue gets darker and darker as they get more senior. Physios wear blue trousers with white polo shirts that have blue trim. Speech Therapists and Psychologists wear mufti (though it's ties for me here now; unwritten though unshakable tradition...) But to get to the point, the Occupational Therapists uniform is green. Now green is a nice colour, in itself. Somehow though, it just doesn't work as a uniform colour. All admit the green OT trousers are just not flattering. Well, this week I was musing with an OT colleague at lunch, and suggesting that they should change the OT uniform to black, as black never goes out of style. As I was saying this though, I started to wonder when thinking about some of my colleagues whether black was already psychology uniform. Well, I don't wear a whole lot of black but when I found myself clothes shopping later that night I bought myself an outstanding black work shirt, to fit in with our new uniform! It was only when I got home however that I found the shirt required cuff links, something I've never had. Turns out cuff links are on the totally cool list at the minute, but details like that tend to pass me by for a while. However, tonight I finally went out and invested in my first pair of cuff links, so I could wear the shirt next week. I've been pleased to discover here that in some of the standard stores in Wimbledon, they stock a reasonable range of tall fitting business shirts. I've bought them from this store before, and was assured that this black shirt was a tall fitting shirt. Finally trying the shirt on tonight though, I'm crestfallen to discover I was misled by the apparently helpful sales assistant. The sleeves are unsuitably short. I'm pretty certain now they don't make a tall-fitting shirt in this fabric. So I'm left disappointed, but with new cuff links! A replacement shirt is in the works. Time to finally visit High and Mighty I feel.

You wear black when you're in mourning...

Since we last saw you, we've lost something quite important. We've looked all over the flat for it, down at O'Neil's where we saw it the other day, and I've even looked in my filing cabinet at work. We're now sure it's lost. We're feeling pretty blah about it really. You may be feeling the same way. You often will when you loose a World Cup. Part of me wonders if it is worse to be here in London right now than in New Zealand... there are more South Africans here for a start, not to mention the Australians. But I guess that it is probably far worse in New Zealand in actuality, as we turn upon each other... I believed them, you know. When poor performances three years ago were explained away with, “We're building up to the World Cup...", I believed them. When we were beaten by England a while back I was disturbed by their form and by the way they seemed to understand the game better than us now, but when we beat Australia by about 30 points recently, I thought perhaps we knew what we were doing. Well, it's all over now for another four years. As for me, I'm building up to the next World Cup.

We'd watched the fated match round at Sonja's new flat, right here in South Wimbledon so now within (a 25 minute) walking distance of our place. Sonja surprised us during the match when she announced that she'd decided the day before to go to Thailand for two weeks, that afternoon! She'd managed to sort out leave and tickets, and was due at the airport at what seemed like an optimistic 2pm. All that remained was packing, going to work to finish some reports, picking up the tickets, and getting to the airport. Well, it turned out to be 4pm and somehow she did it, with an email from Thailand confirming now she'd made it safely. Routing via Helsinki, Sonja even managed somehow to get a business class upgrade on both legs of the flight. Ah to be young and impulsive. Have a great time in Thailand Sonja.

Bon Voyage Maree

After the rugby I spent the day yesterday helping Sonja move to her new flat. Bronwyn stayed home and did some online Christmas shopping, as well as her inevitable dose of work to prepare for the school week ahead. She's continuing to need to do a substantial amount of school work at home each evening and a fair proportion of the weekend, and is feeling the pressure.

Last night however we headed out to the Puzzle Bar on Fulham Palace Road. The event was a farewell for one of Duncan's old school classmates, Maree. We didn't even know she was in London until another school classmate Steve forwarded on invite to her farewell party. Maree has been here for a while and is now heading back to New Zealand in a week or so. It was great to see her again. Also at the party were a number of other people who'd gone to my school. I'd seen Steve most recently, about 4 years ago, and some of the others I hadn't seen for 8 years or more. It was good to make some re-connections. The prize goes to Carolyn for impecible timing, as she arrived in London just 3 days ago... It was nice to see them all!

Burn baby burn...

It was “Bonfire Night” this week and London was on fire. The locals here were surprised to hear that we knew about Mr. Guy Fawkes and even more to hear we celebrated his efforts (or the foiling of his efforts?) in New Zealand. We were invited around to a person's house from church for fireworks on Tuesday (the night before the actual day), along with about 30 other people. We were quite surprised at the size of the munitions you can purchase here off the street. They're not cheap, but they're not small either. I lined this photo up to capture a couple of the kids silhouetted in front of one of the much tamer fireworks, a small Roman Candle about 6 foot high. Just as I opened the shutter however, it exploded in a sheet of flame that leapt up about 60 feet! You wouldn't have wanted to think it had gone out! The following night we were at home, Bronwyn needing to work, but went out for a walk to see what was happening locally. For a couple of hours the entire area rolled with the thunder of almost continuous explosions, high payloads combining with the population density to give the impression of being in a war zone.

Last night we went to see Matrix Revolutions, the final episode in the trilogy. I'd found the second movie quite disappointing, as I blogged in May. The final instalment was I guess an improvement on the second, though the mediocre reviews are justified. The original movie introduced mind-stretching concepts and special effects that revolutionised filmmaking. The latter movies have been impressive displays of more complex special effects, certainly, but failed in either way to live up to the first. Neither of the sequels in themselves would have generated the popular theological-philosophical debate that arose after the first movie. No doubt they will all be rolled out again anyway.

We tried not to stay up too late after the movie last night, knowing that this morning the All Blacks were playing South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. We headed down to the Walkabout, an Australian pub here in Wimbledon, for the 7:30am kickoff. The place supposedly has a capacity of 600. It seemed like twice that, and we were dismayed to find the place was 85% South Africans. 15 minutes into the first half we relocated to O'Neill's two doors down to join some friends, still pretty full but with a more comfortable spot and a better mix of Kiwis. The photo tells it all... Pictured here with fellow Kiwi Sonja, the South Africans also with us didn't feel like joining the after-match photo for some reason. They seemed a bit confused, as they seemed to be supporting South Africa yet had said, “May the best team win”. A fairly passion-less game that didn't look like a World Cup quarterfinal. We'd better get our game together before we play Australia next week.

One final note: I'm pleased to announce that unlike the New Zealand and Australian Rugby Unions, I am able to successfully negotiate a subhosting agreement. As a result, my older brother Tim and his wife Megan have joined the babbage.tv fold, with their site babbage.tv/timandmegan. More a photojournal than a blog, it's an opportunity for an occasional window into their lives... Go take a look.