Eight days in New York City over Christmas / New Years…. amazing, and almost impossible to sum up in a blog entry.

Highlights – Central Park in the sun; Christmas dinner at the Ritz Carlton; riding in a yellow taxi; the view from Top of the Rock; the Christmas tree by the Rockefella Centre; a Japanese feast in midtown; pizza slices for $2 that were bigger than my head; Jane’s carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park;  trying on wedding rings in Tiffanys on Fifth Avenue; finding the Strand book store in the pouring rain; drinking hot cider while wandering around the Union Square markets; Staten Island ferry; drinking beer at the ice hockey in Madison Square Gardens.

Lowlights: Ash getting shingles and being unable to walk / being in extreme pain the entire holiday; spending New Years Eve in our hotel room rather than at the fancy jazz / cocktail bar in Flatiron we bought tickets for (due to above reasons); our hotel’s breakfast of stale bagels and cordial EVERY MORNING; the cooooold weather making it hard sometimes to walk to that extra spot of sightseeing; the boxing day sales madness turning women into crazy shopping maniacs.

We were exhausted arriving home from the holiday..! And happy to be back in London, which is always a nice feeling.

Anyway.

- friends and I spent a long weekend in Portnoo, Ireland, at the end of September. Such a fun, hilarious, gin-fuelled weekend. I have about 400 photos of the whole affair, but I think this one sums it up nicely:

- the day after we got back from Portnoo, I started my new job at The Royal London Hospital as a band six. The first few weeks of any new job are generally a weird mix of being super bored and extremely stressed out. I figured out my way around the wards just in time for our big move into a brand new state-of-the-art 17-floor hospital building, with three towers, connecting bridges and lifts that you have to programme from the outside with a key card as there are no buttons inside the lift. Needless to say, I no longer know my way around, along with 2000 other staff members and half of East London. However, it’s a good job and a lovely team.

- September also saw the end to my parents’ marriage. Divorce doesn’t appear to ever be something families can come through unscathed.

- We had Adam and his friend Sam stay for a weekend. Good times in Greenwich and a delicious curry in Brick Lane.

- Wedding planning is progressing nicely. We have a venue, a photographer, a guest-list, a make-up and hair person, nearly a celebrant, and two dress fittings booked in. Organised, yes!

And now, the run up to Christmas and New York. Can not wait.

It involved Fifteen, Jamie Oliver, a Monday night, a waiter called ?Pashkar, a tiramisu pudding and a Tiffany’s platinum + solitaire diamond on my finger. Perfection. And we even have a date in mind already. Everyone please keep March 2013 wide open!

We were meant to be awoken by a very loud tannoy at 6.30am, announcing breakfast. However, I set my alarm for 6am so that I could get a headstart on the breakfast buffet. No time to waste when one has a breakfast buffet to enjoy. And it was amazing…. unlimited hashbrowns, coffee, juice, bacon, beans, toast, plus all the European breads/cheese/yoghurts. After stuffing ourselves, we were then allowed to disembark and hop on another train, which took us from the Hook of Holland to Amsterdam in about an hour. Once we arrived in Amsterdam, we had a 20 minute walk to our houseboat on Prinsengracht Canal. We arrived by about 10.30am, absolutely shattered after nearly 18 hours of travelling. Way more fun than Easyjet, though.

Our houseboat was like all my Sylvanian Family daydreams come true. The photos don’t do it justice. After meeting Ad, the owner, to get the keys, we settled ourselves in. We spent the first proper day in Amsterdam alternating between sitting on the deck, sitting on the couch, sitting on the window sill… relaxing in the 24 degree + sunshine, feeding swans, being attacked by swans, drinking Heineken’s, visiting the local supermarket no less than three separate times, waving at the thousands of boats as they took photographs of us on their way along the canal. I wonder how many holiday snaps we feature in… It was actually quite disconcerting to have big tourist barges go past with cameras aimed and ready. Most people waved as well.

Day two, Ash and I stopped by the organic food market before walking down the canal to Anne Frank’s house. As one of the many pre-teen girls who read her diary (at least 20+ times, in my case), it was absolutely surreal to go behind the bookcase and up the narrow staircase into the annex. It actually brought a tear to my eye!! Anywhere jampacked with tourists loses its authenticity somewhat, but even that and the queueing outside for 1 hour (including Italian tourists with NO idea about personal space) didn’t take the shine off it. Really amazing. We then went for a big walk across the city before meeting Josie and Humphrey back at the houseboat, where Ash and Michael’s school friend Mark sooned pulled up alongside in his motorboat. We hopped on board with wine and pepperamis, and were treated to a free tour along the canals and out into the harbour. I think most Amsterdamians have access to a boat of some kind, and *everyone* was out in the canals making the most of the sunshine. There were a few near misses, plus rapid hiding of Heinekens when police boats went by (!), but it was fantastic. Mark dropped us home for a shower/rest (all this holiday business can be tiring) then in the evening, we met him and his girlfriend again for dinner and a walk around the city. Amsterdam’s cuisine is a strange mix of Dutch heavy meals with Indonesian-type highlights. Go the colonies… Anyway, we had a quick look through the red light district, which was pretty strange. The girls looked bored and pretty in a fluorescent, slutty kind of way, and it would have been much nicer without the hordes of drunken young guys leering through the glass at them (but I guess that’s the point..). We sang Humphrey happy birthday around a big bottle of Chimay beer, somewhere just outside of the red light district, before a loooong walk home.

Day three, Ash and I went to the Heineken factory. The Lonely Planet promised we could pat the draft horses, but I only got to look at them through a glass wall. After a few too many midday beers, we slowly walked home back through the canals. None of us were too keen on the idea of leaving Amsterdam. It’s such an amazing city… Everyone is so friendly and relaxed… it’s one of those cities where life happens on and around the water, or on the back of a bicycle… nothing happens too quickly. I would *love* to live there.  But we got on the plane back to London, and arrived home by about 1am, just in time to get some sleep before my first day at Barts and the London!!

- baby Hunter was born. He’s super cute. We’ve had three Skype dates already. He sneezes, cries, smiles, and makes grunting noises.

- Ash went to Portugal for a boys weekend with Rhys and Humphrey. They had a nice time, I think. Ash brought me home some hot sauce.

- our friends Melissa and Matt got married. They had the ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall, and the reception at Bluebird Cafe. It was a beautiful wedding, and we met some new people. I have since been to a dance aerobics class with one of the girls I met at the hens do/wedding – after a few wines and realising we went to the same gym, it seemed a good idea. I now think doing a dance aerobics class with someone you have only met twice before is too intimate. I struggle to move my arms and legs at the same time in a coordinated dance-y fashion. The aerobics class culminated in her moving across the other side of the room from me, ostensibly to find some more space in which to jump about enthusiastically. I think she actually just wanted to distance herself from the embarrassing spectacle that was me trying to learn a dance routine to ‘Fame’ on the hop.

- I’ve resigned myself to the fact that dance isn’t my thing, and I am thinking about entering the Brighton Half Marathon in February.

- I am resuming horse-riding! Thank god. A riding school in Mudchute, who has had me on their waiting list for 18 months, got in touch and said there is a space free in their ‘Novice’ class. I can ride a horse for sure, but because I mostly taught myself as I went along, I have missed a lot of basics. I think going back and making sure I am doing simple things properly would be a good idea!! But I hope the class isn’t too boring – overweight middle-aged women learning to post at a trot for six weeks in a row will be painful (and expensive). We’ll see. If they bring me out a fat slow cob to ride, like the other riding school did, I may pack it in.

- it’s Autumn. I LOVE Autumn. And strangely, after the coldest “summer” since 1993, we are now enjoying endless warm sunny days with crisp evenings. London does Autumn well – the trees in the common look amazing. I’m eyeing up winter boots and a new parka.

- we are off to Amsterdam at the end of next week. We’re going with Josie and Humphrey – it’s Humphrey’s birthday. We’re catching a ferry to Holland, and staying on a house boat. I want to see Anne Frank’s house.

- Tuesday is my last day at St George’s Hospital. We had my leaving do last night – pizza, then karaoke in Angel and drinks along the high road. So much fun. I love my team – I’m really going to miss them (bar one). I start at the Royal London next Monday – hopefully my new team will be as lovely.

- Ash has started his new job with Ashland, and he is just waiting on delivery of his brand new Peugeot 508. I’m officially allowed to drive it. Oh yes.

- I’m off to Ireland again for a weekend at a friend’s house in November.

- New York is booked and paid for. Woohoo!

- We have Ryan and Stacey back! But for a limited time only, before they return to their long-lost lives in New Zealand.

- Ash had his last day of work with Chem Aqua, and after a week of boys’ time in Faro, Portugal, will be starting afresh with Ashland. He is still pondering which car he will buy with his £28,500 car allowance.

- We are going to NEW YORK FOR CHRISTMAS OMGGGG!!! Fair to say I’m reasonably excited about this. We’re flying in on Christmas Eve, then flying home on the 1st January 2012. We haven’t booked our accommodation yet, but the internet is scaring me with its price ranges. It’s probably going to be our most expensive holiday yet, but I can not wait.

I haven’t got much more to say about the riots, except they were both scary and laughable; both pathetic and intimidating. London has calmed down now, but Clapham Junction still looks like a bomb hit it. We watched it from our lounge window on the Tuesday night – up until 3am wondering if the people loitering outside our front door were going to start any trouble, watching the armoured vehicles clearing people off along the streets. I got sent home from work early on Wednesday because there were rumours going around the hospital that Tooting was the next place to be hit. A friend and I walked home from St George’s through Tooting and into Balham – other than numerous police and shopowners standing guard outside their shops, there was no trouble to be seen. Strange times!!

The infamous Herald article (I wasn’t at my most eloquent…)… I have since been re-quoted by people on Twitter. Wonderful (!)

New Zealanders Samantha Holmes and Ashley Lowry spent the evening barricaded in their Clapham Junction home as police dispersed rioters on the street outside.

Ms Holmes said the looters broke into shops down the road and stole electronic gear in the early evening.

They were confronted by officers who were intent on protecting a police station in the area, she said.

“If we looked out our window we could see riot police blocking off the street trying to contain it.”

Ms Holmes said she felt most at threat when a mob gathered outside her house around 9:30pm.

She said the looters no longer cared about the shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan that sparked the riots.

“It’s now just an excuse to steal stuff. They’re just going from place to place stealing things.”

She said one of her friends was attacked by rioters last night while working as a photographer around the scenes of violence in London.

“But we’re well locked in so we’re good.”

Highlights of Dover Castle included the coincidental knights display that just happened to be on, trying to sit on a very steep hill (funnier that it sounds), the secret war tunnels and the fact that it was extremely sunny. We also came to realise how difficult it is to see the white cliffs of Dover while standing on the white cliffs of Dover. Managed to catch a glimpse from the motorway, though.

Highlights of Romney Marsh included fish and chips, mushy peas and cider on Romney Beach, our lovely campground cafe, where we had a well-earned full English breakfast on Sunday morning, buying a whole carrier bag of lollies from the local shop, badminton piggy in the middle, and the delicious extremes of freezing our butts off all night until we were forced to flee from our tents at 7am due to intense overheating. Also, it was fun that no one brought a torch and we went to bed at 9.45pm because there wasn’t much to do once it got dark!!!

Highlights of Camber Sands included the nice sand, the sunshine, and being on an actual beach, as well as marvelling at how much *stuff* British people seem to bring to the beach with them. A towel is not enough. You need at least three sun-tents, a windbreak, four different types of blow-up balls, tennis racquets, boogie boards, two dogs, some chairs, maybe a picnic table if you’re fancy, a chiller, some umbrellas, some spades and buckets, a few things to read and about a week’s worth of food. The one thing you don’t need is sunblock…

Highlights of Rye – all of it! A very cute little seaside town, the landing point of William the Conqueror on his way over from Normandy. Ice creams, antique shops and cobbled streets.