You Know You're In The Ghetto ...

Living back out west ... west again I've notice some ..... social differences.

This post lists the "differences" I've noticed or experienced while living back here.

You know you're in the ghetto when ....

• the lady in front of you is paying for her groceries with silver coins.
• you ask if they take Amex and the sales assistant responds with "what's that?"
• you feel over dressed when wearing trousers and shoes out in public.
• all the babies at the shopping centre are literally newborns.     

Don't get me wrong my ghetto side has also come out since moving back here. On Sunday I argued with the asian dollar store owner over the cost of pegs I wanted to buy. They were marked $2.50 but once I got to the counter owner claimed they were $3.50 and were marked incorrectly. I was doing my whole "According to Fair Trading you have to honour the price advertised, as its not my fault it was labelled wrong." FYI ... I didn't buy the pegs. 

At the shops I was going car horn crazy when I was blocked in by another car. The guy was picking up his disabled passenger .. "Ah don't karrre!!" 

I'm so ghetto ... fabulous!!

Eating Our Way Through London

I'm slowly getting through my holiday posts .. bare with me ... 

The only Saturday we had in London we headed over to Spitalfields Markets. For lunch we met up with another of my former colleague from CFS M and her husband D. They suggested meeting at a restaurant called Pizza East.

This place has a lively ambiance and could probably seat about 150 people, it was a vary big restaurant. Apparently this place also gets very busy and bookings are recommended to avoid disappointment.

Obviously the menu predominately had pizzas however they did have other options for those who want something else. Actually our friends didn’t order any pizza opting for a few sides instead. We had the pepperoni, mozzarella and chilli. It was wood fire baked so the dough was light none of that Pizza Hut crusts. The servings are generous definitely could share one pizza between two.

They also had a large selection of wines. M choose a bottle of red for us to share and it was so nice to drink that we had finished the bottle (and quite tipsy) before we knew it.

For dessert the waiter suggested we try their salted caramel tart. The restaurant has been recently reviewed positively for their tart on Timeout London so of course we had to try it and it did not disappoint.

After lunch Ian and I walked around the area some more. Unfortunately half the market was closed already or maybe wasn’t opened that day? Only a section seemed to be trading by the time we got there.

That evening we met up with E & S for dinner at Dishoom. This indian eatery also very popular with the locals and international guests, doesn’t take bookings so expect to wait in a queue if you get arrive during peak periods and surprisingly it is s a vegetarian restaurant. 

The restaurant served famous local Bombay indian street food so it was like a tapas style concept where you ordered several plates to share. I strongly recommend the fried okra … I love okra so having it an a form different to what I’m use to …. amazing!!

After dinner we headed over to a local pub for a few more beverages. I got to taste strawberry flavoured cider. Very sweet and refreshing perfect for a hot summer’s day. They really need to bring all the various cider flavours in Australia cause we have the weather and appetite for these kinds of beverages.

Where's your favourite place to eat in London?

Working From Home

Today and tomorrow I’m working from home. Long story short we thought we would be without a baby sitter this week but turns out my in laws arrive back from overseas earlier than we thought.

To allow me to actually do some work we’ve decided to let the little man stay with the in laws. So this means ..... I'm alone. 

I miss this feeling … have the whole house to myself ... getting some time to myself ... ahhh ....

Being one who likes to keep busy I do feel like I should multi task between working, doing the laundry and unpacking. I’m tossing up whether to go for a run now and do some groceries before 9am.

Or should I just sit in front of my laptop and multi task between checking work emails, online shopping, watching day time tv, blog and facebook since I don't have the luxury of not being disturbed all the time?

Hmm …. decisions ... 

Week in Review

Last week was a pretty busy week for me and my little house hold.

Work .... well its always busy in that space. However I feel like I’m winning more battles now - well last week in particular. Tasks and deliverables wise I’ve caught up on all the work that was pigeonholed for me to do while I was on holidays and I feel I'm on top of everything again.

I've been able to gained the business confidence in the system more - which is half the struggle in this project. I’ve ran some demos of a similar version of they system they would be getting and provided an opportunity for them to speak out on concerns they had on how it will change their world. Running the demos provided a platform for me to stand out in this project not only from a system knowledge perspective but an opportunity to network.

I’ve caught up with friends a few times this week, which is very rare for a mum pressed with time these days. On Thursday night stayed out in town to have dinner at this popular Thai restaurant for A’s birthday dinner. Although her birthday was actually earlier this month a girly get together was long over due. I think last time we were all together was before we all went on our overseas trips ... that must be pretty long ago considering we all traveled at different times for a period of 3-8 weeks apart.

On Saturday was J’s farewell BBQ before she heads off to Asia for some travelling and then Canada to try working overseas. I know she’s been talking about doing this for several years now so I'm glad that she’s making it happen. 

On Sunday was M’s bridal shower. Theme was burlesques and her bridesmaid did an awesome job in keeping in theme not just in costume but creating a beautiful space at the home of where the shower was held at. There was obviously some thought put into the menu, the decorations, the cutlery and even the game prizes.

What tired me out the most was the big move on the weekend. On Friday we had removalists move our stuff from storage to our property and thorough Friday and Saturday we continued to move any of the items we had left over from my parents place. The pack and moving I think is the easiest part the unpacking is the painful bit. Finding a place (or lack of) to store the stuff we had accumulated. I did a cull of things before I packed cause I didn’t want to bring it to the new place unless I was going to keep it and while I was unpacking I decided to do another cull and again there was even more stuff to be thrown or donated.

During the unpacking we soon realised we didn’t have a lot of things we thought we did. I either offloaded it to my sister who moved out of home same time as I moved in or we must have gotten rid of it last time we packed for example I can’t find our kitchen scissors?

Not only is the effort tedious but also not that easy when you have a 15 month old baby who either wants to hang around your ankles and interfere with what you’re doing cause he’s intrigue. Or need to check up on every time he walks off into a corner and has gotten quiet cause he’s found something, usually something dangerous to play with.

What goes through my mind as I'm unpacking is I know this isn’t the last time ... that’s the annoying part. Knowing you got to do this again, don’t know when - but its gonna happen.

I started analysing that notion and reviewed how many times I’ve moved since being married and how long of a period between each move:

·      December 2009 – moved into CN

·      17 months later (June 2011) moved to SH

·      16 months later (October 2012) moved to RH

As much as we’re actually creating this place to be more of a “home” for us, (cause we own the place we’re living in for once) I dread pulling it apart for when we do eventually move out again.

On the plus side I love having free range to put what where, personalising our space and spending money organising and beautifying our home. When we were living in CN we lived in such a shoe box that we hardly purchased any furniture in fear it wouldn't all fit. Now that we have a bigger place we can finally purchase some of those big ticket we’ve held off.

Where am I suppose to put all this stuff??

Do you hate moving? When was the last time you moved and what advice can you give to minimise the pain of unpacking?

OOTD - Recycle & Reuse

What I love about cleaning out your wardrobes is finding items you forgot you even had, items you can't believe you even bought and an opportunity to sneakily throwing away that ugly (faded) purple shirt your husband always wears.

During my audit I found a pair of dark denim jeans. The quality of the jeans were quiet good - unlike the jegging material you see these days and they looked like they've only been worn a handful of times.

 

Initially I thought I would donate them to charity however being inspired by a fellow blogger, I decided to revamp them instead. I cut off the legs and turned them into shorts .. perfect for the heat wave we're experiencing lately. 

 

What do you think? 

I so could so never model. I look like I'm pissed off in my "natural pose"

Finally Some Sun in London

We had lunch at Automat with E on our third day in London. Prior to getting here Ian and I took the tube to Piccadilly Circus to take some touristy photos.

We then walked from here to Green Park station where we were meeting E. What I love about London is everything is actually walking distance but there is still a tube station somewhere within 300m of wherever you may be.

From the station we headed to a brasserie called Automat. Apparently this place is very popular due to its quality tasting American food. The overall ambiance also had that American diner feel too but not the cheesy 70’s diner but more like an older period say 1940’s. When we arrived we were the first one’s there and by the time we left the place was full so obviously it’s a very popular spot.

We ordered the famous macaroni and cheese with truffle to share. I had the lamb rack, Ian had the smoked brisket roll and E had the fish. My rack actually 3 lamp chops but it was cooked perfectly. Ian’s brisket looked very appealing with the pulled pork and melted cheese oozing out of it. I was tempted to have the same thing but was feeling a little over meat after dinner at Meat Liquor the night prior. 

After lunch E gave us his walking tour of London. We walked through Green Park up to Buckingham Palace, half way down the mall, looped around Westminster Abby, House of Parliament and Big Ben.

Then we cross the bridge heading towards The London Eye. Originally we were going to ride massive ferries wheel but the queues were extra long that day (we figured because it was sunny) with waiting times up to an hour and a half so we decided to just leave it for another day.

We crossed the Hungerford Bridge and walked up to Trafalgar Square. Due to the Para Olympics this usually open public space was blocked off at certain parts to control the crowd flow. They set up large screens; food stands and seating areas so that public can watch and enjoy the olympic games coverage.

This was the first of many key tourist monuments that had something blocking its view. For some reason throughout our holiday at various cities many major tourist sites were going through some form of renovation or construction blocking half the view with scaffolding. At first it was annoying … towards the end of our trip we just found our luck to be hilarious.

From Trafalgar Square we walked to Covent Garden. Did a spot of shopping and then met up with my old colleague from BT, AM. She moved back to London, her home town about 12 months ago. After several pints of cider and catching up on all the goss we headed to Chinatown for some asian food.

I mean or should I say “oriental food”. FYI: in London Indian’s are considered Asian and what we call Asians here are called oriental there.

They say that the food in London is terrible, I disagree. We had some of the tastiest meals in London and most of them were cheap eats. However when it comes to asian food, London seems to miss the mark. They say its due to the geographic – London is too far from the asian/oriental spices. Their menus seem to have all the stock standard asian dishes, it looks like it but, it just doesn’t taste that great.

Walking around is a great way to see many of the sights in London, once you know your bearings. Its actually doable on foot to get to one area to another. It's always a great way to get off the beaten track and see parts of London you weren't expecting to see.

Ikea Ideas

Today we headed to Ikea to get some ideas for the home. On Friday we purchased our massive flat screen tv. Ninong M's place of employment was having a staff sale and we were able to grab a brand new tv at half the retail price.

Going to Ikea can be hit a miss. I think if you become over whelmed by the options available, the amount of people in there, the frustration of unable to get any help, you walk out of there feeling annoyed at even wasting your time.

If you have a plan of attack regarding what you need to get and just head straight to those sections. Avoid any eye contact with cute lamps or fancy storage compartment ideas - you'll save yourself time and guilt realising you purchased something you didn't really need.

We knew we needed an entertainment unit, wall shelf ideas and a storage unit we could double as an ottoman. When we were living in CN we could never find an ottoman long enough for our 2m dining table. I figured since we're short on space and going with the whole maximising as much storage as possible, I came up with the ideas to use a storage unit as an ottoman. It will only get used as an ottoman when we do have guests over and every other time if can be tucked to the side of the room as a unit. Something like this ...

But not as wide ... and no glass on top. We would probably add cousins on top of the unit when it is used as an ottoman so its comfy and it has to have wheels so people can wheel in and out of the dining table when it is used as a ottoman.

We found the entertainment unit we want to get.

 

I think we will opt for the white gloss colour (as seen under the red one)

There is also a matching wall shelf with this range (as seen above the tv) which we probably will get too

Other wall shelf ideas options and ideas I saw. I'm thinking I want to have another long shelf that goes across the living room. I also want to put one in each of the bedrooms. Ian's not liking the idea of putting too many wall shelf's but in my opinion its either shelfs or bulky pieces of furniture to compensate for storage.

There's a massive kids area in Ikea. Our little man is too small to be left alone in there but he did notice the other kids. He watched in awe especially the ball pit area, again he kept saying "baaww".

Next time little man