I've waited ten years....

to see the Indigo Girls in concert. And I finally got my chance on the 15th of February :-)

Sadly, the week had started fairly badly. After a magnificent birthday weekend, with lots of fun adventures and happy London times, I was struck down with a throat infection. At the same time, Lucy was unlucky enough to be hit with a bad flu virus. So, we got to share our first experiences of the British health system...

In summary....

Each person in Britain needs an NHS number to access the services of a doctor. You can only get a number in person at a surgery. You must use the first available surgery closest to where you live and you must take whatever doctor they assign you. Doctor's appointments are only bookable a week in advance, and surgeries only deal with certain problems on certain days, and outside these times you cannot see a doctor for a particular complaint, as they will not be covered under insurance.

I could go on, but writing anymore is like reliving the whole horrid thing, so I will add no more except to say that my surgery has an open-door policy. In this case 'open-door' means all doors in the building must be kept open so people can see I am not mugging/stabbing/killing the doctor. Ah, Lewisham....

So, after all that was said and done I ended up with strict instructions to rest, and Lucy got a barrel-ful of antibiotics. We were just about coming right in time for the concert (which is the actual point of this post!).

Lucy and I joined a bunch of die-hard IG fans and headed out to the Shepherd's Bush Empire. We arrived in plenty of time to find good seats, and I was really excited by the time the lights dimmed.

The opening act was Catherine Feeny, a guitarist who has lovely music and good lyrics. Unfortunately, each song in her set had one or the other, but not both, and I ended up with my fingers in my ears for the last agonising minutes.

It couldn't have been more of a contrast when Emily and Amy took the stage. I played groupie and charged up front for a decent photo:



The crowd was energetic from the first chord of the first song, and stayed that way all night. It was surreal to be singing along with 1500 others who like the music as much as I do. Emily and Amy took advantage of this to encourage audience participation, and seemed to get a real kick out of having their words sung back to them. Emily said this was one of the reasons they liked playing in London, as 'English accents sound really..... nice'.

Apart from the audience helping out, all else they needed was a woman called Mary who played the accordian. She was really good and really tiny. Here is what they all looked like from further back:



The Indigo Girls have been performing for thirty years, so I was astonished how new they made their music sound, and especially appreciated a 'remix' they did of their song Chickenman. I've never really understood this song, and here are some lyrics which might prove my point:

'I went looking for a car / Found myself beneath the stars
I went looking for a girl / Found a man and his world
Chickenman chickenman / Chickenman hold my hand
Chickenman chickenman / Chickenman hold my hand'

But, the two of them did whatever acoustic folk guitars can do remix-wise and mashed this up with one of their much newer songs about having a personal epiphany whilst getting drunk on a mountaintop (hey, we've all been there!). The whole wonderful folk meets high-energy rock, with lightening speed chord changes and insane travels up and down over three octaves lasted seven intense minutes. They are close to being the best seven minutes of my life.

After two hours and two encores Emily and Amy made some very fond and sincere farewells to the crowd, and it was over.

We headed back out to Shepherd's Bush, had another dash across the dodgy Common and trotted down into the Tube. Someone noticed the poster below and the kiwis amongst us felt we needed a pic:



Unfortunately, the next day I woke up in London same as usual. But, having finally had the opportunity to see my favourite musicians live, I am happy to be here.

Happy birthday to me! (As of the 9th, that is...)

Hurrah! I like birthdays.

As I am in the Northern Hemisphere, I wasn't suprised to find it raining when I woke up. Sadly, this breaks the record for me never having bad weather on any birthday I remember... But, it was almost snowing so that was a good trade off.

I spent a very leisurely morning opening my presents, and was utterly spoiled. I note a distinctive NZ feel to my gifts, and was particularly touched by the following contemporary pottery from my parents:


However, it didn't make me cry. Not even for a second. No matter what you may have heard.

Being a very grown-up 29, I had decided to celebrate my day by 'doing' the slides at the Tate Modern. The slides are an installation by a German guy called Carsten Holler and propose some very cool ideas... Essentially, how does our perception change when we are in motion? And, what would London be like if we travelled by slides instead of car, bus and Tube? You can read more about the exhibition here.

Luckily, the idea of throwing one's self down a five-storey high plastic chute appealed to enough other grown-ups to make for quite a fun night...

I thought it best to have a few drinks first, especially as the Tate has a very glamorous bar overlooking the river. Preliminary drinkies also seemed the perfect opportunity to introduce some of the London friends I have known in NZ to some of the friends I have made since I got here, and to introduce Lucy to all of them. Needless to say, everyone found everyone just lovely.

I thought it best to capture the moment with the fancy timer thing on my camera, but I am not quite sure what went wrong. Maybe, given we were in the Tate, my camera felt it neccesary to provide me with my own bit of Modern Photographic Art?:


And here's our view:


Anyway, the ten of us sat drinking wine and looking out over the Thames to a beautifully lit up Millenium Bridge and St Pauls Cathedral for a good three hours. It really was divine, and amazing how quickly time flew. Shortly enough, it was time to slip off to the slides.

They look fantastic lit up in the dark and cavernous lobby:


Posters line the approach to the slide warning riders that 'the experience is physical', so I wasn't sure what to expect. Fortunately, it was fun and fast but entirely manageable. It was so good I found myself sweet-talking the attendant into letting me have extra rides, including the last one before the museum shut for the evening.

Being well past ten o'clock by then, our hungry group eagerly wandered along Southbank for pizza and more wine in another restaurant with gorgeous views. Yummy all round.

From there, the die-hard party girls (yep, that even included me!) headed to G-A-Y in Soho. We put up with half an hour of terrible Belinda Carlisle remixes, a £10 bill for checking our coats and rather disgusting men groping the more naive amongst us in exchange for three hours of utterly excellent retro music. Did someone say Mel 'n Kim? Woo hoo!

The flatties and I stumbled in at half past four. Excellent!

Snow!

Hi all. I know I have been rather silent lately, and my apologies. Since my fun time in Stratford I have been staying put in London, and sharing the sights with Lovely Lucy.

One or two cool things have happened recently (including my birthday!), and I think they just about justify a blog post. Small regular posts seem to be better than writing nothing in between my bigger adventures. So, just sit back and read as I write a post all about weather...

You may remember the view of our back lawn in summer:



Well, here it is in a recent snowfall:



I would hardly call it picturesque, but those few flakes were enough to close public transport down for the day in quite a few places.

Of course, nothing stops my flatmate Tiffany from smoking - She sits outside in all weathers, puffing away below my window:


Between puffs, Tiff was able to take a few snapshots of Lucy and I frolicking about. Lucy hadn't been in snow before, so this was a very unexpected 'London first'. Anyway, note the excellent teamwork and matching washing-up gloves...:


And the finished product:



Casper the Snowman lasted four whole days. This was just enough time for me to find another adventure, but more on that later....