Eish! London 11 - 12 June

Thursday, 11 June
The tube strike continues. Gratefully I was back in High Barnet which was a MUCH shorter bus ride than Camden! Ridiculous.

To: Louise, Heather
Subject: RE: Update from me
Date: Thursday, 11 June, 2009, 20:17
Hello ladies

Glad all is going well in Durban.
Ha ha Tube Strike happened yesterday and I ended up taking FIVE HOURS to get to work FIVE!!! Grrrrr... Not funny... Everything is supposed to run to schedule here... I guess you get used to being chilled when it takes an hour to get anywhere, then you have to get back too :-( hence Little Miss Lea is not impressed and misses her car!

On a positive note, the weather has been GREAT and sunny - I've had to buy suntan lotion :-) At least I wasn’t waiting for a bus in the rain. The gardens are STUNNING. Big roses EVERYWHERE in the most amazing colours... Pinks, Maroons, Ruby Reds, Burnt Oranges, Yellows fading into pearls and pinks... like a rainbow of blossoms fading into innumerable colours all around me with beautiful perfumes to tickle the senses... ha ha and cause HAYFEVER!!! Boy am I suffering, like can I go broke on tissues? I guess I can't have it all.

Thankfully I've landed with my bum in the butter for these few weeks with a contract with a Transport Company. I'm with the training division that lets Primary school kids know about bus and tube safety. I'm working on Junior Citizen and Safety Schemes at the moment. The police organise a Big Park or House in their Borough and invite all the ambulance, fire brigade, social / community service providers etc to have a stand and inform the 10 / 11 year olds on personal safety things. My stand has a great big life replica of a tube or a bus and I have 8 - 12 minutes to explain all the do's and don'ts to the kids. It's great! I work in a park for a couple of hours a day and take home £100! SCHWEET! Apparently there are also in-school presentations, so I'm hoping to get onto that 'train' :-)

As far as my house share is concerned: The dog is getting to me; actually more the fact that his blankets are washed and tumble-dried in the human beings’ machines. Gross. I eventually said something to Ara about the congealed dog-food on the spoons and the dog bowls in the dishwasher! Yuck!

Sadly NT and Marie have now moved out and another guy is due to move in, straight off the plane from SA, sometime in the next couple of days apparently. Unfortunately Jay didn't tell me that the lease for the whole house is ending as of 31 July! I hope they’ve told this new guy. Ara has said the landlords are coming to negotiate a new lease, or individual leases. They reckon they'll probably move out if they don't get the rent lowered. With the recession some landlords have been lowering rentals, but apparently our landlord has been underhanded with all his tenants so far; they don’t even know if he’ll give them their deposit back. Apparently he didn’t give it back to the last three people to leave. Ara has been going through the house file putting all the legal stuff together for the meeting. Not a good situation; so my room-status is up in the air at the moment which is unsettling and continually at the back of my mind.

I went to Oxford a little while ago and it was FAB - great city, stayed with school friends too which was a lovely break away from the city and a bit of homesickness balm ... Unfortunately moving here with a rather minimal amount of Pounds has made doing any great travelling impossible for the moment, I need to pay rent and eat you see ;-) But I have tried to do as much as possible, Stonehenge was AWESOME!

I've started going to a Dance Studio where I'm going to be doing Salsa, Spanish and Street Dancing... It's one of those BIG old buildings with huge wooden floors and large mirrors and change rooms in the dungeon ... I love it!

He he Heather, there are LOADS of BEAUTIFUL men here. But no-one looks anyone in the eye and conversation doesn't happen much, unless you go to pubs I guess, but then they are drunk. I saw a gorgeous specimen on the tube the other day, I’m talking HOT… he didn’t “Speak-a da English” :-( London seems to have a very closed off culture as everyone is from somewhere else. Not like SA at all. It's really different. I’d say the English themselves are polite, but exclusive. Maybe I just haven’t been here long enough, or I’m biased. We’ll see.

I haven't managed to get onto stage or into auditions yet... so I'm joining an Amateur Dramatic Group (had a BRILLIANT play reading with them last week :-) and am going to get up on stage with them before I go ranting off to the big time... I reckon by taking at least some steps in the right direction, something will happen and doors will open eventually, at least I can say I've tried... I'm not going to take up any permanent job posts just yet and give myself the rest of the year to see what happens...
Otherwise, I’m missing my chiropractor and my physiotherapist! The things I took for granted!
Hope you are well and our ladies nights are going strong.
Big Hugs
Shannan

Friday, 12 June
Exciting lunch time text from Dawn, who I used to teach with in South Africa:
“Hi everyone, it’s an 80% chance we are having a daughter!! YAY! ”
That’s brilliant; Dawn is going to make such a great Mom. Wish I wasn’t so far away.

Then a little while later I received a text from Trish, the lady whom I spoke to about Freedom Prayer in Finchley Road:
“Hi Shannan – Freedom Prayer will be next TUESDAY 23rd – I’ve booked you in at 8.10 pm – can you confirm? Best wishes, Trish.”

I replied with a confirmation and put the time and date in my diary, thinking I couldn’t have too much to lose, and hoping that none of the skeletons in my closet would be in the visions of the group praying. That would be awful! Imagine what they would think of me? At least I know the things that are bothering me could be far worse, and if they do come up, then maybe they can help me deal with them… As Dale Carnegie once said: “If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

After all the transport nonsense and a touch of longing for home I just didn’t have the energy to get to Simon’s house. I stopped by the internet café and sent an email to the secretary apologising for not attending. Honestly, my heart wasn’t in it. I promised myself I would definitely be at the next one.