In a nutshell, my life has been a major rollercoaster ride over the past few months, complete with major highs and devastating lows. The good news is I’m steadily climbing again. And hoping it levels out for a while.
Details are below to bring you up to speed.
Belfast girls weekend away
12th – 13th April
Kimmie asked at some point in March if I was keen on a weekend away in Belfast. I said no, not particularly. She said flights were £10 each way. We booked, and sure enough, eventually we went (with Christina, another friend of ours) for a girls weekend away.
Belfast is a genuinely interesting place. Not the prettiest of cities, or even the most happening - the Belfast Wheel (a super dodgy version of the London Eye, minus the Thames and the view) seemed to be a leading tourist attraction – but honestly really interesting. We did a Black Taxi Tour (the OTHER main touristy thing to do) with an awesome driver, who explained all of the conflict history to us whilst driving us around the Protestant vs. Catholic parts of town and showing us all the war murals. I had no idea that there was still a Berlin Wall-like structure dividing the city in two – granted, a gate is opened during the day to allow access but at night the two parts of the city are separated by 6m(ish) high walls for safety. AND apparently the cemetery has a wall built underground, separating the Protestants from the Catholics even in death. Full on stuff.
Our awesome taxi driver also told us where to go out for dinner / drinks, etc. and we ended up having a brilliant night out with the scantily-clad locals, feeling extremely over-dressed (literally).
Given the meagre at best results returned by both Google and Ask.com to the apparently unusual query of ‘Belfast + tourist attractions’, we had pre-booked a day trip in the Northern Irish countryside for the following day – to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (bring it on) and the slightly more interesting sounding Giant’s Causeway. The rope bridge was a rope bridge, but it was fortunately a rope bridge in a gorgeous Northern Irish coastal location with views across the water to Scotland. 
Worth the trip for a few pretty pics and some sunshine on our faces if nothing else.The Giant’s Causeway was super cool – it’s an all natural geological wonder, explained in my un-geologically-educated terms as lots of perfectly hexagon-shaped rock formations by the beach. See pics. They’ll do a better job explaining than I will. Again, worth the trip for the sunshine, company, ice cream, and cool pics of perfectly hexagon-shaped rock formations by the beach (how many people can say they have those??).
Overall despite low expectations, we made our own fun and had a brilliant time. And I genuinely recommend a visit to Belfast for anyone interested in the historical side of things. Really interesting.
A few days later…
I broke up with Pete FYI (all good, totally the right thing).
A few hours later… - Operation Water Feature
I woke at 2am to the sound of dripping.
To keep a very entertaining and potentially very lengthy story brief - a few drops from my ceiling (NB I'm in the middle floor of the house and the bathroom is NOT directly above my room) turned into a steady stream of hot, dirty black water leaking through my ceiling. An hour and a half later - after we realised it wasn’t getting better and moved all my stuff out in about 5 minutes flat - the ceiling collapsed.
Turns out the central heating had died that evening, and had taken the hot water with it... apparently all the hot water went into some emergency reservoir tank thing, the (broken) pipes leading into which are in the ceiling above my room. 80 litres of hot water came through my ceiling, and eventually flooded through my floor into the living room below. Lots of fun. Karma??
For the next month…
I was homeless. Well, roomless. Sleeping on the couch, sleeping in Ben’s room (when he went to Oz for a week), sleeping in Andrew’s room (when he went away for the weekend), sleeping in Rich’s room (when he was at his girlfriends house), sleeping in Ella’s room (when no other room was available and I refused to sleep on the couch due to the newfound presence of a rat on the ground floor). Fun and games.
Cinque Terre long weekend away to meet Mike
3rd – 5th May
Mike had left Rotterdam to begin his European adventure.
I had nothing to do for the first long weekend in May.
I take full credit for suggesting a weekend away to the gorgeous Cinque Terre (five small cliff-top towns on the north-west coast of Italy near Genoa / Pisa).
We met up on the Saturday afternoon in the beautiful little town of Manarola. Upon arrival, Mike had already met up with Lee (his good friend) and Victoria & Noah (Lee’s lovely lady & gorgeous son, respectively) and taken them to the nearest bar, in true Mike style. I was greeted with a beer before I was allowed up to the hostel to drop off my bags.
That afternoon Mike and I walked from Manarola to Riomaggiore, the next and final town in the Cinque Terre (the idea is that you walk between each of the towns along the beautiful coastal paths during your stay – Manarola is fourth in the sequence). That stretch of the walk is meant to be one of the most scenic and it was truly amazing, especially as we walked back watching the sun set, having enjoyed a glass of the local Cinque Terre vino overlooking the sea. Very nice.
The following day Team Cinque Terre (Noah included) walked (or in Noah’s case, got carried) from Manarola to the next town in the opposite direction, Corniglia, where we enjoyed a lovely breakfast in a gorgeous café in the town square, working on our tans in the sunshine.Adequately fed and watered, Mike, Lee and I left Victoria and the little one in Corniglia as the path ahead got steeper and more treacherous (not really). We pushed on for the next 45 minutes or so to Vernazza, which was my favourite of the 5 Terre. Absolutely gorgeous town, with a beautiful beach / port area that I needless to say took millions of photos of. Victoria & Noah trained it over to meet us for lunch - by the time they’d arrived we had already sampled (and thoroughly enjoyed) a glass of the local Cinque Terre white, and with them proceeded to sample (and thoroughly enjoy) a slice each of the world’s biggest & best Italian pizza. Followed by Crema
Cinque Terre-flavoured gelato. When in Rome…From there Victoria & Noah bade us farewell and returned to Manarola as us three hardcore hikers braved the elements (35ish degree heat, it’s a tough life!) to walk the final and most difficult, uphill stretch to Monterosso – the fifth and final town where another glass of Cinque Terre vino awaited our arrival.
The evening’s festivities included a big fat meal to overcompensate for the day’s strenuous exercise, and a bottle of Cinque Terre vino for the table (sensing a theme here?? That stuff is amazing!) to complete the evening.
The following day I (sadly) had to leave relatively early to catch my flight back to London. Words really don’t do this area justice so again, pics are up on facebook for anyone interested. Very highly recommended (and not just for the wine!).
A month and a day after my ceiling collapsed…
I got my (newly renovated) room back. Two days before my birthday.
The Festival of Jas (18th May and the following week)
Anyone who knows me well will have expected nothing less than a festival, and I delivered. I had an absolutely fantastic few days, with spirits heightened even further by the fact I had a home again.
Norwegian Fjords long weekend away
24th – 26th May
This was a bit of a random one. We’d been searching online for cheap flights for the long weekend, with San Sebastian or perhaps the south of Spain in mind… then someone (Nuals?) came across cheap flights to Stavanger and all of a sudden the Norwegian fjords were a go.
And what a go-er they were. That part of the world is absolutely stunning. Needless to say I’ve done a lot of travel since I’ve been here (as well as beforehand), and the Norwegian fjords go down as one of my favourite places of any I’ve ever visited. Seriously.
Team Norway (Nuals, Tilley, our friend Ange and I) flew into Stavanger late on the Friday night, although it felt as though it was about 4pm… we were a few weeks ahead of the midnight sun so it never really got dark. Quite cool! We called it a night upon arrival at our hotel – resting up in preparation for the big weekend ahead.
Saturday morning we made our way down to the lovely waterfront area, and got ourselves on the first ferry to Tau… the first stop en route to the hostel we’d booked in the middle of nowhere in Fjord-land. The ferry ride itself was spectacular, bettered only by the fresh prawns we’d bought from the fish man at Stavanger pier, which we proceeded to demolish en route… yum.
From Tau we had to get a bus for half an hour or so into the Norwegian countryside before reaching our destination – Preikestolhytta, our hostel. It was absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never been so excited by accommodation at any point in my life.
Preikestolhytta is located right on a gorgeous lake (with amazing views from each bedroom) and at the base of the hiking trail that leads to the world-famous Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) lookout which goes down as one of the best views and most amazing places I’ve ever seen in my life. The hostel itself used to be a hiker’s lodge so is literally in the middle of nowhere. Very cool.
After expending some much-needed energy jumping up and down with excitement, Nuals and I said our farewells to Tilley and Ange and took off up the hiking trail. Five minutes later, already exhausted, we considered coming back!
Nevertheless we trekked on, and when we reached the top every pant, curse and bead of sweat was worth it a million times over. The view was AMAZING. If a picture says a thousand words
I’ll stop right here and advise you to check out the pics on facebook… that view is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, it literally took my breath away. Both Nuals and I were speechless for a good half hour while we tried to capture every angle of the view possible, should we ever forget what it looked like (highly unlikely). Absolutely stunning / awe-inspiring / truly beautiful.We finally tore ourselves away to walk back to the hostel in time for dinner, and tried our hardest to dull down our description of the amazing past few hours to poor Ange in particular, who had been desperate to hike the trail with us however had damaged her foot royally the week before playing softball (incl. fractures and torn ligaments) and was hobbling around on crutches. We promised to take her on a ferry ride down the fjord the following day so she could still see it, albeit from a different angle.
True to our word, the following day we all caught a local ferry to the end of the Lysefjord (the fjord we’d seen from Preikestolen the day before) and back, appreciating the gorgeous scenery that (almost) matched what we’d seen from above.
Our third and final day was spent tearing ourselves away from Preikestolhytta (it took a while) and travelling back to explore Stavanger itself before our flight home that evening. It’s quite a cute little city / big town – the centre has gorgeous cobbled streets that we explored, enjoying the sunshine and checking out a few cute shops. A lovely day to end an amazing weekend, and we were all very sad to leave when the time came to get on the plane.
Not that we could have afforded to stay any longer really, we were all on the verge of declaring bankruptcy after only 3 days… it was worth it though. AMAZING again. Go there!!!
Monday, 2nd June
Life took a turn for the worse.
I got a phone call saying Ange (who I’d been in Norway with a week earlier) was in hospital in a coma. I was told to prepare for the worst. I spent the day & night in an intensive care ward praying to a God I’m not even sure exists.
Tuesday, 3rd June
Ange passed away.
I won’t go into details here (online privacy, etc. etc.) but I think I’ve filled most of you in on what happened… a pretty devastating turn of events and certainly something that changed my perspective on what’s important in life, that’s for sure.
For the next few weeks…
If my life’s been a rollercoaster recently, this was when I hit the bottom. Luckily I had amazing friends over here who were going through exactly the same emotions I was, so we helped each other through it.
Canterbury & Kent weekend away
14th – 15th June
In the hope that getting out of London would help (and because Kimmie had a friend in town), a group of us organised a weekend away in the English countryside. Very randomly. We were at a pub on a
Tuesday night and decided to hire a people-mover to go explore Kent that coming weekend because apparently there were some tunnels (?) there worth seeing. As you do.In the end there were 7 of us that went, and we had a ball. We spent Saturday sightseeing around Canterbury – one of Nuals’ friends lives there so played the part of tour-guide magnificently – and Sunday lunging (in joke) our way around Leeds Castle, which incidentally is nowhere near Leeds. For the record I have no idea what tunnels we were supposed to see, but we didn’t see any!
That, combined with numerous pub stop-overs, a visit to the rocky ‘beach’ at 3:30am on Sunday morning, and crooning to ‘Bleeding Love’ and ‘Hey There Delilah’ at all times in which our people-mover wheels were in motion, made for a very entertaining weekend away. Just what the doctor ordered.
Royal Ascot – 21st June
Another posh day at the races, drinking Pimm’s and stalking the Queen. I didn’t bet anything, clearly I didn’t win anything but I had a great time anyway – I think the entire population of Australians in London was there.
I won’t go into much detail other than to say it was great to have an excuse to dress up (I went all out with a proper fascinator the size of my head this year) and have a fun day out with all our friends. Always a good laugh.
Espinho (Portugal) beach weekend away
28th – 29th June
Kimmie and I had booked this a few weeks prior, when we just needed to get out of London for a few days and forget about everything. It worked!
Unfortunately Kimmie had torn a ligament in her ankle the week prior (!) and was on crutches the entire time (we hadn’t been able to change our flights), but that just ended up meaning more beach time which wasn’t a bad thing at all. Espinho is a tiny little Portuguese village just outside of Porto on the north coast. It’s literally a few quiet, dusty streets full of locals (hardly any tourists in sight) and a long sandy beach. That’s pretty much it. We loved it. Given the circumstances, once settled we barely moved from the sand, and after two days of relaxation had decent tans to show for our hard work. We enjoyed local coffee (amazing), local seafood and local wine... what more could we ask for?? It was a very stress-free weekend away.Two days later… 1st July
The big move.
For various reasons I decided to move house and have a fresh start in London. After house-hunting for all of a week and a half (and for a 3 or 4 bedroom house of all things - didn’t think I’d be doing that until I had the standard husband, dog and 3.2 kids) I moved in with Christina (the friend of a friend who came to Belfast & Kent, etc.) in a gorgeous 3 bed house in Clapham Junction.
Randomly the house is literally a street away from Kimmie and about 5 mins from most of my London-based friends, and it’s awesome. We both absolutely love it. It feels so unbelievably homely (I guess as there was no-one already living here when we moved in, it’s entirely ours) and we love having people come round or crash so all of you need to get off your butts and come visit!!
The original plan was to find a guy to take the third room (we figured three girls might get a bit hormonal :) but in the process of helping me move, Nuals decided she loved the place and two days later she and Tilley moved in! So much fun, it’s been the most happening house for the past few months, literally like an ongoing episode of Friends.
Unfortunately Nuals & Tilley are now fast approaching their return to Sydney so Christina and I have been interviewing guys for the past week or two (a process very similar to what I imagine speed-dating to be like, highly entertaining!) and have found a really lovely guy to move in when they go. Incidentally his name is Pete and he’s English!! (no, not the same Pete but still random!)
Not looking forward to our happy family being disbanded when Nuals & Tilley leave, but it will be interesting to test out the new dynamic once Pete moves in in a couple of weeks. So it’s all happening on the house front as well.
And that’s pretty much it (!).
Since the move, life’s continued to be busy (as always) including various catch-ups with friends, our housewarming (amongst other parties), the O2 wireless festival in Hyde Park (jumping up and down to Powderfinger with the million other Aussies paying tribute in London’s liquid sunshine), the Kylie concert, etc., etc. but such is London life. ‘Busy’ is its middle name.
Given the above will take 3 weeks to read already I’ll leave it there for now, and update again in due course with the latest on my visa / working situation (my battle against the English authorities continues… still!!!) and upcoming travel plans… nothing like a bit of suspense!
Hope you’re all well, miss you all HEAPS so keep in touch and let me know what you’re all up to. Speak soon!
xxx
Jas
