LONDON, TAKE ONE...

Thanks to all those strangely-named people who have been writing to our blog. You sound like you are lovely and well balanced, and we wish you all the best in your future careers.

GUYS! WE ARE IN LONDON! Hilarious! It's all upside down... or the right way up, depending on who and where you are. The weather (of course that's the first thing you want to hear about!) is even behaving itself, in that it is cold (considering we've come from 30 degree days) and grey (in contrast to both Australia and the sky above the clouds in the plane) and rather damp (although there's been no thunderstorm yet).

Now, I (Rachel) am going to rant a little bit, then Dan will have a go.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LONDON:
1. It looks just like one of those miniture villages, where they have a train that goes round and round, and funny little hedges, and stuff like that.
2. The streets don't really make sense. Melbourne is so easy to understand. Bring on the grids, I say.
3. THE HOUSES ARE WEIRD! THEY DON'T HAVE VERANDAHS!!! I only figured out this morning why they looked strange. Also, they are ALL three storeys high. What is with that? What's wrong with a normal two-storey terrace house, I ask you?
4. The flowers in spring are BEAUTIFUL! They are everywhere being tulipy and daffodilly and bluebelly and snowdroppy and PRETTY-y. I keep having moments where I see a 'glade' of flowers in a 'wood' (hilarious - bits of forest in the city!) and I have to SQUEE and tell Dan how English it all is!
5. MILK! It comes in bottles! At the doorstep! With a milkman! I'M SO EXCITED!!! I have taken a picture of the cute little milk-basket at the front door of Dan's parent's place, and we'll put it up so you can see for yourselves the quaintness of it all!
6. (And this is maybe interesting to me and people who work in a post office) They weigh ALL outgoing international letters... even if it's just in a normal business-sized envelope. And, yes, that means that we have sent a letter... not telling to who yet. You'll all get your turn.
7. Dan's family and friends are ALL LOVELY! Just like I knew they would be... except that Mike... gosh!!!

Anyway, I haven't seen much of London - none of the city centre - just Finchley and East Finchley and Golders Green and some place that is called Guinea Pig Garden Suburbs... sort of. So there'll be more later.

OK, my (Dan's) turn now.
Howdy all. It's been a very strange experience for me - being back here after all this time, to find that so much has changed, but at the same time, stayed exactly the same.

Last night, we had a gathering of freinds, some of whom I hadn't seen for nearly 3 years. It seems that they're all getting married (well, one is) and buying houses (well, 4 are) and finishing their PhDs (again, only one). But seeing them all again it was like nothing had changed, and that it had been 3 days, instead of years, since I had last seen them.

Oh, and Rachel Bowen - I hope you don't mind, but we had a screening last night of, amongst other films, The Cleaver. You'll be pleased to hear that it went down a treat.

I've taken Rachel to see all the major London landmarks that matter. Today we saw the Phoenix - the cinema in which Bernard goes to see Armapocalypse, in Black Books.

Jetlag hasn't been too much of a problem (I heartily recommend an overnight stopover if you're planning on making the journey up north), but I have been getting tired around mid afternoon, so I might rest my eyelids a bit soon, to stop the computer screen from doing the throbby thing it's doing.

So that's it from us for now. Take care of yourselves.

Watch this space...