So back here in the NZ groove. Family life continues, and even work has restarted!
So what was good about the UK?
- The weather, much to many Kiwis ignorance. It was unseaonally mild in the autumn, but made it delightful. Beautiful trees and skies.
- Museums. Having not been inside them for while of ever, the likes of the V&A and Tate are great.
- London sights. Being effeectively a tourist was a great experience, especially the evening I walked along the Thames on the south bank past Lambeth Palace, St Ts, and the Palace of Westminister. On other days walking past the Houses of P, and watching the tv broadcasters do ther thing on the green. Cool.
- Friends. Seeing people and being treated so well.
- Quiz nights done the pub and occasionally being allowed “off the bench”. (You are only as good as your last answer). Training to get the gut off.
- Driving on a motorway
- Being the the sun and not being burnt instantly
- Sadly, for such a style guru-M&S.
- Ireland
- Being able to drink bitter( but not in combination with curry on a Friday night)
So what was not so good?
- Congestion, London in a car on the wrong day, or on a motorway when everyone else is.
- NHS bureacracy. The paper pushing obsessives whio think a collection of paper, and being asked for the same thing more than once helps. This is all linked in with the obsession with avoiding risk, but by using procedures that do not, but give the veneeer of “doing something”.
- Fear of Johnny Foreigner. Or is it simply fear of “Janek”. Everyone seems to have a “problem with the Poles” story, even those who in other circumstances would present themselves as liberal minded and protector of the weak. Polish appears to mean Eastern European. Everyone moans, though forgets it is those same people serving them in all the pubs they go into. This whole thing is not helped by the tone and marketing of gutter middle class newspapers.
Not much else. Great place even though everyone will tel you the place is going to the dogs. Though admittedly, Brentford are.
