I got back into swinging London town early on the 6th of February, Waitangi day, and it was a cool reception
with scattered rain and wind as I waited for Tim to pick me up from Acton town station and take me
back to Josie and Paul's place in Chiswick where I was to be dossing. Tim and his wife were house sitting
for Josie and Paul's house while they were away in Egypt, so I made myself at home and got sorted with
regards getting a mobile number and a few job applications out there while Tim went off to work.
Despite being a little jet-lagged, I managed to get out into the swing of things, and started catching up
with all those that I'd not seen in the two years (almost to the day) since Id last resided in Old Blighty.
As expected, lots of exciting and drunken adventures were had over the ensuing two or three weeks. One
sight during this time was the stopping of traffic by around 2,000 (my estimate) drunken kiwis to do a
haka in Parliament Square. Nice work chaps! That day however, I was just a spectator.
A couple of weeks after arriving I managed to catch up with Rob and some of his mates for the play of Steinbeck's
'Of Mice and Men' at the old Vic in Waterloo, and later on in the month went completly by accident to a
performance of the Aussie band, Powderfinger at the Hammersmith Apollo. Continuing the theme of Southern-
hemisphere entertainment, I also managed to get along to the Soccer friendly between Australia and South
Africa at Loftus Road. Around this time I started working for a law firm in the city called Freshfields
Bruckhaus Deringer.
As summer was now nearly upon us, it was time to don the whites and start the cricket season, and through
the contacts back at the NSCC in Sydney I managed to hook up with the Dogmersfield village side in Hampshire.
Their home ground is very picturesque and more importantly pints are very cheap. The summer had started well,
even though my initial performances on the field left a lot to be desired.
As I started to get to know a few people at work, I managed to get out to see The Complete History of
America- Abridged at the Criterion theatre with a group from work which proved to be as hillarious as their other work (Complete work of Shakespeare- Abridged) and as summer got closer it was time for the Black Caps to begin their tour of England and for me to don my new beige outfit and drink beers under the guise of supporting my national cricket side.
The test series was lost despite my support in London and Leeds. The latter was a fun trip north for the weekend where we got to see the amazing sights of the Western Terrace on Saturday at Headingly. Dress up day was well subscribed and there were Thunderbirds, the characters from Lord of the Rings, Flintstones, to name but a few. The ODI's were won in a clean sweep by the Black Caps and we supported them with a weekend trip Cardiff and Bristol where we watched wins over the West Indies and England in that order. On this occasion we were accompanied by young Matty Dempster who with Rob, Dave, Andy, Bruce went up for the whole weekend and were joined in Bristol by Paul and Robyn amongst others.
In between the cricket support Andy and I snuck off to the Isle of Wight for the annual music festival there and saw Groove Armada, Stereophonics, The Who, David Bowie, Manic Street Preachers and many others in a fantastic weekend. I also got to catch up with my old mates who I'd met in the Cook Islands a few months previously, Tom and Jen.
The summer continued and I finished off the cricket season with not too much to write home about and quit my job at Freshfields, starting up at the French bank BNP Paribas after a jaunt down to NZ for Nat's wedding.
As cricket finished and I was struggling to think of things to do during
the weekend, I went out to see the Kiwi band 'the feelers' at the Shepherds
Bush Empire and was surprised at the level of support recieved. It was in general
quite a good concert though, and certainly well received by the crowd.
Right at the tail end of summer, Keith (one of the first people I met in London) and Susan got
married in Cork, and Claire and I went over for the wedding. A great if somewhat drunken
weekend and as well as the old crowd it also gave me a chance to catch up with Daz and
Heidi who were loitering about in Daz's home town. It also gave me an insight into religion in
Ireland which was until now an entirely foriegn thing. Never have I seen the like!
Unfortunately, the contract that I had at BNP Paribas was cut short, about this time
and I found myself looking
for a job at the worst possible time of year. It was a shame, as I would have
liked to stay there - if
only they had been able to find some work for me to do!
Later in the year, I went to see Tim and Neil Finn at the Hammersmith Apollo. I did a few sums
after getting home and realised it was the 9th time Id seen one or both of them in concert. As
usual, they did not dissapoint.
After I had been staying at Josie and Pauls place for the best part of a year, I found a flat in
Swiss Cottage with Andy, and moved into Northwest London for the first time. It was a bit sad
when I realised that I could move everything that I owned in two trips. This prompted me to
start buying things, amongst other things for the new flat I bought a new Xbox and a 28" tv
to play it on.
As Christmas approached, I caught Faithless down at the Brixton Academy with Jason and left
the concert wondering if God really is a DJ. Earlier in the night, Id been to an Xmas party
at Ali and Steve's place and procured a box of Snifers which totally surprised the random kiwis
around me at the concert when I offered them one!
2005 saw me start slowly, with no job and not much going on in terms of being able to find one.
I went out to see the West End version of the Broadway musical 'The Producers' which was great,
and for Andy's birthday the Cirque du Soleil which was even better!
Like the previous year when I had just arrived back, we once again went out to see the Waitangi
Day pub crawl and was once again impressed with the turnout and ability of the punters to
stop traffic in parliament square to do a haka.
From left to right: Traffic stops as the crowd disperse after the haka, the huge mass of
people at the event, posing for a photo after a few quite pints on a boat on the Thames
I used my continual unemployment to get out and about and catch up with Jason in Leamington Spa
and Karen in Litchfield. Fun days and nights out were had in both places, though money was starting
to run out. I started doing some writing with the aim of getting stories about the recent trip
to Mexico and the States published. Also around this time I managed to get to the Chemical
Brothers who were touring on the back of their new album 'Push the Button' down at Brixton again.
After five months of unemployment, I eventually got a contract for the Department of Health and
the day I started that, also played my first game of netball for my new team 'Ravens' just
down the road from home. It became apparent that I was very unfit, and lacking a few of the
skills required for the rest of the season. I was however,
dermined to fix this. Later that week, I got a note from Richard, captain of two touch teams in the
Regents Park league, and we got a couple of practices in before the games started in a couple of
weeks time.
For the second year running Andy and I went on down to the Isle of Wight for the music festival there - this time joined by Darren and there we met up with Robyn and Paul and caught up with Tom and Jen again amongst a crowd of many. The weather was once again fantastic and we saw..
With the end of the winter sports season looming, Andy's mate Tim managed to procure corporate
box seating for the Powergen Cup (similar in format to the FA cup) final at Twickenham and we
watched the underdogs, Leeds Tykes play Bath and win
convincingly as well as two other less significant games. We managed to have a fun and very cheap
day out.
I had a fab time at the Isle of Wight festival for the second year in a row with
Andy, Daz, Robyn, Paul, Nick the swerve Mooney, Tom and Jen (and all the others ).
Later in the year I also managed (along with James, Debbie and Phil) to get to the Lovebox
festival hosted by Groove Armada in Victoria Park. A great day out despite the fact that
the sound wasn't quite upto the standard that I had hoped for.
The touch seaon proved relatively successful and we managed to come away with a runners-up
place in the mixed spring season comp and a first in the summer season for the Pheasant Pluckers,
adding to the first in the Southwark Weds comp that my other team the Butlins Redcoats
managed to procure.
After summer started to run out, so did my contract at the Department of Health,
so I took a deep breath held on tight to my bank balance, and for the first time
in 9 years took the plunge into a permi role at a company called Tikit.
It certainly was a shock to the system.
The All Blacks popped over for a grand slam in the autumn also, so I met up with Matt &
family in Dublin and Aaron, Andy et al to watch games in Cardiff and Dublin.
The latter was watched in the pub after the north stand caught fire the night before the
game which scuppered our plans of going to the ground in the hope of getting a ticket
from scalpers, whilst in the post-match celebrations of the former, we managed to meet
one BG Willams with whom we shared a few moments and a photo op.
As the year was coming to an end I managed to get out and see Tracey Chapman and Bob Dylan
and also a young aussie singer/songwriter, Nathan Kaye - who was a refreshing change to
listen to and who plays a mean didj.
Just before year end, I did manage to get an offer accepted on a flat in South East london in the locality of
Forest Hill -so spent the next little while going through the long winded process of
house purchase that is the norm in England. It wasnt going to be until April 2006 that I got to move into the
new place though.
The year began a bit slowly, most of my time taken up with the huge paper war that is involved
in the purchase of a property in the UK. A pretty quiet time then, over the early part
of the year while my lawyers and all the assoicated property leaches drained money from
my bank account.
I started playing rugby for a team called Racal Decca based in Tolworth, Surrey as the season reached it's
mid-point. I found that it was a lot more physical than I remembered from the last time
I'd played nine years previously. The club was very welcoming and despite getting injured
more often than not, I really enjoyed the games. It was handy working in a permanent role as one of the
perks of the job was medical insurance. This meant that I could go into tackles without having
to think of my income if I damaged something. The one thing that is an advantage of being a permi
over a contractor!
During this time I tried to keep up my running and had entered in the 'I will run a year' promotion that
Nike used to encourage people to go on runs throughout the year as well as attending the
odd track session put on by the Serpentine running club (which I didnt actually get around to joining!).
I managed to complete 4 out of the five runs after
the initial 10km run in October, though after one particular game of rugby where I broke a
couple of ribs and sustained a mild concussion I couldnt manage the 5km race the next morning. At the end of the
year, I did receive a comemorative t-shirt in the post which was good. The other highlight of this
series was getting Paula Radcliffe to sign my running shirt. It didnt seem to help me run any faster though.
Netball too was going well, the Ravens won the mixed league for Monday nights and
Liz from our team took out MVP of the league at
St Johns Wood and we bade farewell to Trudy and Andrew who had started the team as they
both had knee operations.
As spring approached, it was time to get back into touch again and with rejigged
line-ups I rejoined the Phesant Pluckers and Belly Dancers on Thursday and the Butlins Red Coats
on Wednesday as we took on all comers. Unfortunately none of these teams did particularly
well, and it was another team that I joined on the second week of the season at Southwark - the
Multinats, that ended up winning their league.
Summer fared similarly for my social sports, we ended up winning the mixed at Regent's Park but losing
the final of the netball as we couldn't get a team together. In between times we did manage to come up with a win in the 'world cup' netball tournament, and I managed to get the league MVP prize for the season, just holding off Liz for the prize. I had to stop the track running, as it was just taking too much out of my body, but when touch for the season finished the training runs began for the Nike 10km and I managed to regularly get under 20 mins for the 5km training runs. The theme for the event this year was 'North v South' in reference to the rivalry between the halves of London divided by the Thames. I ended doing a decidedly average time once again for the actual race as a result of a couple too many beers the night before.
Work was becomming a real pain and everyone who had anything to do with
me got sick to death of me complaining about my job. I decided to start
writing a book to take my mind off it - and began going through all the
diaries (some featured on this site) I'd kept of my travels on the
around the world trip that I did in 2002.
Rugby started again around this time, and was back down at Decca trying
out the new position of fly-half or first five-eighth as I had known it
growing up in New Zealand. I had some initial success, but kept getting
hampered by injury and in only the second game, sustained a back injury
that kept me out of the game for quite a few weeks.
To ease the financial burdon of my mortgage, Rory - from the Multinats
touch team moved in as my lodger in the Autumn. He immediately endeared
himself to me as a trustworty tenant by spilling a full glass of red
wine on the new carpet I'd only three weeks earlier had laid and not
bothering to clean it up properly.
Having Rory around though, did allow me to go ahead and purchase a few
things that I would not have otherwise been able to afford as quickly
and we were soon basking in the luxuary of a shower curtain and after a
while the boxes in the windows of the bedrooms were replaced with actual
curtains!
As winter arrived, I received notice that finally - on my third attempt
- I had managed to obtain a ballot place in the 2007 London marathon, so
began the slow but steady process of building up the kilometers in
training as the days got shorter and the nights got colder and darker.
Rugby eventually did start going along okay too, and I celebrated the
end of the year with most of the lads from the team down at Tot's in
Wimbledon and we saw the New Years in a suitably inebriated style.
The rugby season continued along well enough, and I survived a few
stitches above my left eye to continue enjoying life down at Decca in
Tolworth. I had to cut my season short though, as the training for the
marathon took priority and I was not going to risk injury for the big
day.
The day of the Marathon came after only just arriving back in the
country from the West Indies - though with the tapering, it hadn't
really affected my training schedule too much. It was an unseasonably
hot day in London, and because my boiler died I stayed the night before
at Theresa's place and we went out to the start at Blackheath together.
I was expecting a time of around 3:30, and was hitting all my expected
targets as the race progressed. Suddenly at around 17.5 miles, my knee
was no longer working and I had to stop. Things were going all wrong! I
managed to start again but had to hobble for most of the last 5kms as my
knee just refused to work properly. It was gutting, but as I slowly made
my way down the post-finishing chute after passing under the finsh line
I saw there were a lot of people worse off than me!
There was no problem with recovery after the marathon, and I played
netball for my old team 'Ravens' at the new venue of Pimlico School only
3 days later. We had virtually a scratch team, with only Liz and Silvia
remaining from the last time I'd taken the court.
The weekend after the marathon, I was off to Newcastle with Decca for
our rugby tour. I'd never been to that part of the world, and although
not quite up to match fitness with all the marathon training, I was
looking forward to the opportunity to get on the pitch again and see
some of the North East.
I started playing touch again around this time and it ate up all my
remaining hours during the week, but because all the men's spots had
already been taken for Regents Park, I played only one team on a
Thursday and reaquainted myself with the Multinats on Wedsnesdays.
I missed my first game in five touch seasons to go to Glastonbury, where
I met Darren and Heidi who had flown over from Cork, and we had a
weekend in the mud of the wettest festival in the event's history along
with Sharon and Trent. It was a great weekend though and we enjoyed the
headliners which included The
Killers, The Kooks, Kasabian, Kaiser
Chiefs, Chemical Brothers, Arctic Monkeys and other acts such as The
Automatic, Lilly Allen and Andy Cato. The only real bad thing aside from
the weather to happen that weekend was that I lost my phone on the bus
on the way home.
The next week, my bike that Id lent to Silvia for her triathlon training
was stolen from her work so I was wondering if these kind of things
really do happen in threes what the third thing might be. Thankfully
that was it - and I busied myself in researching the market for a
replacement.
At the end of season rugby dinner I managed to get the award for 'Best
Back' and that was a great honour from the team as I'd really not played
as many games as I'd wanted to over the season.
Around this time I decided that the travelling to the girl I'd been
seeing for the past few months, Theresa's, was just a bit too far and as
her flat was splitting up, invited her to move in and as a result Rory
moved out.
My mate from Dunedin days, Chris who now lives in the States was getting
married to Belgium girl, Katleen, so we snuck over to his wedding on the
Eurostar. The drive from Brussels was less than good though, and it took
us an hour and a half to get out of town!
Summer sports changed the makeup of my entire week. Our netball team
didnt get into the Monday night league, so we shifted to Wednesdays.
This spelt the end of my association with the Multinats in Surrey Quays.
The summer touch season did find a spot for the Belly Dancers', so I had
the two teams on Thursday to manage again.
At the end of the summer I missed my second game of touch in six
seasons, but for the best reason - to go to Cork in Ireland for Daz and
Heidi's wedding. What a fantastic occasion that was. I spent five happy
days going out each night for a different excuse of imbibing as much
alcohol as possible and the weather and people were fantastic. As the
last of the wedding group sat at the pub on the last day before our
flights, I remember wanting to stay and bask in the glow of a fantastic
celebration of two great friend's union.
The test series was lost despite my support in London and Leeds. The latter was a fun trip north for the weekend where we got to see the amazing sights of the Western Terrace on Saturday at Headingly. Dress up day was well subscribed and there were Thunderbirds, the characters from Lord of the Rings, Flintstones, to name but a few. The ODI's were won in a clean sweep by the Black Caps and we supported them with a weekend trip Cardiff and Bristol where we watched wins over the West Indies and England in that order. On this occasion we were accompanied by young Matty Dempster who with Rob, Dave, Andy, Bruce went up for the whole weekend and were joined in Bristol by Paul and Robyn amongst others.
With the end of the winter sports season looming, Andy's mate Tim managed to procure corporate
box seating for the Powergen Cup (similar in format to the FA cup) final at Twickenham and we
watched the underdogs, Leeds Tykes play Bath and win
convincingly as well as two other less significant games. We managed to have a fun and very cheap
day out.