A long time

It has been a really long time since I have written on my blog and a lot has happened.
The last six months has been a real challenge for me and I have been through a lot of changes.
Andrew and I broke and I felt like I was completely lost and had no idea what I was going to do. It was really scary for me, but I made it through and I feel stronger. I have found a great place to live with great flatmates. We have our own little international house. We are from the UK, Zimbabwe and Australia. Very cool.
I have found a great guy who treats me so well and wants me to be happy. He makes things about me and wants to do what I want to do.
I have also been very unwell for many years. Something that I knew was going on but was willing to admit that I was unwell. I have suffered from depression from many years and after I broke up with Andrew things took a bad turn. I went to the doctor to try and get better for the first time . I am on anti-depressants and I have never felt better. I have been talking to people more, seeing the doctor on a regular basis and I have been trying really hard to make myself better. For the first time in a very long time I am happy and content. I am not saying this to get sympathy but to let people know that it is okay and not a terrible illness. I felt so bad for so long and now I feel so good. But it will be a life long thing, not something that I will suddenly be better. It has been hard work and something I will have to do everyday. But it is so worth the fight.
I am looking forward to 2008 and all it has to offer.
Merry Christmas everyone and happy New Year.

Busy bee

I have been incredible busy recently, though having fun which is great.
I am really looking forward to going home for a holiday in a couple of weeks. Though if everyone keeps asking if I will actually be coming to the UK then I will stay in Australia. Tempted to see if Marty goes through with his plan to swim to Australia to drag me back. Could be funny to see!
I still have quite a lot of work to do before I go home which will be hard, but looking forward to.
Been going through some changes at the moment including working on some personal stuff. It is partly to do with my break up with Andrew and dealing with some serious issues. It is going very well I have to say. I have made a few changes and I am feeling really good. Some big decisions and a big kick up the arse at work. But it is all good! A fresh start and I am looking forward to it.

Paintball

Yesterday the people I work with went paintballing. I have to say I had lots of fun. I also have to say that I am sore and hurt all over. Not only from being hit by paintballs but also from running, jumping and moving out of the way.
We played a few different games as a team building exercise. The CEO had all his own equipment, he turned up in camoflauge and had his own gun, which was a little more powerful than the rest of ours. I am glad he was on my team because anyone who got shot by him was in a lot of pain. You knew when someone was shot because you could hear random cries from the other end of the course. He was also a little scary yelling directions to people and he went a little kamikaze at the end of the day when we were wasting balls.
I would have to say after a very good day out I would be willing to try it again.

Hampton Court Palace

Today I went to Hampton Court Palace. It is the most amazing palace. It actually looks like a palace, not like Buckingham Palace. Besides the scaffolding it is quite amazing. The gardens are huge and there is a cool little maze as well. It is pretty small, but enough to get easily lost in. It seems like most Kings and Queens especially the Tudors and Stuarts had their own rooms in the Palace, there seemed to be about 3 different Queens apartments and Kings apartments, private dining rooms, drawing rooms, closets, we even found a toilet, with a velvet seat. I would not fancy trying to keep that thing clean.

There were a lot of rooms that were designed by queens, but not completed until after their deaths and then another queen got to enjoy them. There were a lot of tapestries with intricate designs and a lot paintings, most had very religious overtones and then there were also lots of naked women.

The whole place just made me want to be a queen, though the beds were really tiny. At least I would feel tall back then.

The Simpsons

One thing to say, Why pay for something you can see for free on tv....
Because it was one of the funniest movie's I have seen in a long time. It was as the usual tv show, but I have to say it was put together well with little odd bits through out, like suddenly the movie stopping and on the screen comes to be continued.... Make sure you stay for the credits.

Life as we know it

I have to say that London is treating me really well now. Actually I am not technically in London, I am in Surrey which is the county below London. It is really beautiful and I am close to the Thames. Not close enough to be affected by flooding, but close enough to get to easily.

Work is good, but stressful again. That is expected when you manage an area. I am losing a couple of my staff so am recruiting again, which is a pain.

I am going home for a couple of weeks at the end of October which will be nice. I will finally meet my nephew.

This weekend I am going to Daventry for the weekend. Some of the guys from work are doing a 24 hour kart race so I am going up as part of the suppport team. Which means cheering and feeding them.

My next trip I am planning to go to Rome which will be nice. Just have to figure how much I can see in one weekend. Any advice, appreciated.

Change

It may be something in the air, but things are changing a lot for me at the moment. I am not the person I was when I came to the UK. I have become a lot tougher. It is hard to see the changes I have gone through and realise that the people around me haven't.
I have a couple of tough decisions I need to make in the next couple of weeks that are really going to test my strength. Please think about me during this time and that I make the right choices.

Hot Fuzz

I have to say, and I can't say I have said this in awhile, this would have to be right at the top of my favourite movies of all time. This has everything. Comedy, horror, action, drama, even an almost romance. I haven't laughed like this in awhile. It is a spoof movie as well so it is a bot of a take off from things like bad boys, point break, matrix. It is really well written and executed. The only slight down fall was the blood and guts. The death scenes are pretty gruesome and if you have weak stomach I suggest closing your eyes. You can usually tell when it is coming. I walked out of this movie felling like I had seen something new that wasn't just the formulaic crap that Hollywood is adept at turning out.
This is a British film about a cop who is too good in London and is sent to a little country town very out of the way. Though it turns out the town has a secret that the new cop wants to understand. It is a great escape movie without needing to think a whole lot. The person you think it is isn't necessarily the bad guy, though Timothy Dalton is pure evil in this movie. There are a lot of big names in theis movie. I give this movie a 9 out of 10. Mostly because I am yet to see a movie that is my absolute favourite.
Hot FUzz highly recommended.

Sunshine

We watched a movie called Sunshine this week.
The premise is that the sun is dying. A ship was sent to detonate a bomb to activate the sun. Something goes wrong and they don't make it. So another ship is sent to do the same thing. It doesn't really tell you when in time it actually is and there are no shots of Earth. The whole film is based on the second ship that is sent.
The effects are fantastic and I felt that the movie was well crafted. It looked spectacular. There are no major stars in the movie which I thought was good. I was a little disappointed by the ending, but could understand how it came to that.
I do recommend seeing this movie, as, at least the Australians will appreciate the final scene of the movie.
The movie was directed by the sam guy who did Trainspotting and The Beach. It wasn't as good as Trainspotting, but a lot better than The Beach.

I'm back and ready to go

Well, I have finally made it to London and I have to say that it is the best city I have ever been to, or lived in. There is much to do it isn't funny and everything is so close, a short bus trip. Viva the Oyster card.
Working at our London venue is very different to the Manchester one. To start with here it is an outdoor track and subject to the weather, and yes we are still open and races still happen when it rains. I hate the rain. The suits are a mess and I am forever cleaning up after everyone that comes through. But on a beautiful day like we have been having recently it is absolutely fantastic. We also have all the group managers and the owner of the company on site. This means we are under a lot more pressure to perform. The venue is also very crappy and old. Though at the moment we are doing a lot of renovation work to make it a lot nicer. It will be really good once it is all finished.
You will be happy to know I haven't picked up any strange accents yet, though the south london accent is pretty strong and a couple of times I have come out with some oddities.
We have been sightseeing in all sorts of areas of London and have managed to see quite a bit. The best thing is we go into to town look at one thing and we end up coming across lots of other places as well. The other day after seeing Buckingham Palace we started walking and came across no. 10 Downing st. You can't acutally get anywhere near the house because there is a big locked gate with about 4 armed police officers in front of it. Which is a pity because I wanted to get a photo.
London is a little more expensive but we are doing pretty well with saving and hoping to go to Rome or Paris in the next couple of months. I am aiming for Paris, but we will have to see.

When will I be famous

This week has been a week of famous people to come through the doors of Daytona Manchester. Although I did not recognise any of them at least one is world wide famous.
On the weekend we had Jason Orange from Take That come in to race for someone's stag do. This made for a lot of excitement around thevenue. Though to be honest, and I will apologise to the Take That fans now, he wasn't that good looking. In fact he was very unattractive and really needs to shave the beard or whatever it is he has going on on his chin. I was quite disappointed. Now if Robbie had come in, that would have been a different story.
Today we had the members of The Feeling and The Fray come in to race. They are in Manchester on tour and came in to celebrate the end of the tour. You may not have heard of them, but the lead singer of The Feeling is married to Sophie Ellis-Baxter, whom you may have heard of. In fact he put her down as his emergency contact.
As you can tell we are pretty sad at Daytona, living each day hoping that another celebraty will walk through our doors to make us feel that much better about ourselves. Yeah, whatever.

London

Last weekend we went to London for the day to look at apartments. It was an incredibly long day. We caught a bus at midnight on the Friday night and then came back in the early evening on the Saturday. Managed to get a little sleep but not a whole lot. We looked at a place and we travelled around the tube for most of the day. I have to say though the tube system is fantastic. I don't really understand why so many people have issues with it. We visited the place where Andrew grew up. He was blowing out at how much it had changed since he was a kid. We saw a few famous places like Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the London Eye. I loved it. It had a classic old feel to it rather than Manchester with its 70s feel. I can't wait to move down there. We will be going down again next weekend to look at some more places.
Some great news is that Andrew has got a job working with Croydon City Council. He is really happy and will be earning almost twice what he is now. I could almost be a kept women.

Snow

It is snowing all over the UK. Schools are closed, roads are shut. The white wintery stuff has arrived. Oh that is except for where we live. Thats right. The snow seems to have travelled up the country and parted like the red sea at Manchester and completly missed us. I am incredibly disappointed.
On Thursday we expected the snow. In the morning on my ride to work it lightly snowed the whole way, it was quite pretty. By the time I got to work the snow had stopped. It snowed a little throughout the day, then nothing. The next day the weather returned to typical Manchester weather and rained. So while the rest of the country enjoys the white stuff, all we get is the wet stuff.
I find it highly unfair!

Crash

I have finally seen this movie and I have to say I was blown away by it. It was a movie that I could actually sympathise with the charaters and see how people don't necessarily realise they are being racist. Ryan Phillipe's character was the easiest to like, so the ending came as a complete surprise. I didn't like Thandie Newton's character, she was whiny and supeficial, I couldn't place her at all. But overall the movie was really well written and the characters built in such a way that you can really understand how they came to be, they weren't 2d like a lot of characters in Hollywood movies and tv shows for that matter these days.
We watched this around the time that all this controversy about Celebrity Big Brother and racism. To be honest Jade deserved the punishment that she has received, though I believe that some people have taken it too far. The fact that this show built Jade up to who she is now, to then a few years later cause her absolute down fall is highly ironic. It also makes you think about what kind of society are we that we can turn this sort of person into an overnight success without knowing anything about her. One of many cases where celebrity has ruined a life.

The Wicker Man

Here in the UK it is often the case when you buy a newspaper that you receive a free dvd. Actually you get all sorts of free stuff like cds our books. We have collected quite a lot of stuff. One of the dvds we received was The Wicker Man, not the Nicholas Cage one, but the original.
I would have to say that this would be near the top of my list for all time great movies. THere was suspense, intrigue and an ending that completely through me.
A policeman is brought to an island off the coast of Scotland after receiving a letter to say that a young girl has gone missing. When he gets to the island no one knows who she is. There is no record of her anywhere. Though as he digs deeper he begins to see the true nature of the island and what may have happened to this young girl.
I thought this movie was going to be a horror movie, but it wasn't. The characters are well defined and storyline has been well written and the whole thing has been put together perfectly. I highly recommend you watching the original of this movie. I am hoping to watch the re-make with Nicholas Cage and see how the Americans twist this classic story.

Harry Potter

I have decided to call this year, Harry Potter Year. Not only does movie number 5 get released, but the final book is released as well. I am sure there is a lot of speculation going on in Oz as it is here about if Harry Potter will die. My prediction is that Harry Potter will die. I believe he is a Horcrux and in order for Voldermort to be killed, all the horcrux's must be destroyed. I also predict that Neville Longbottom will be the one to kill Harry and then kill Voldermort. I can't remember which book it was, I think the end of book 5. Dumbledore tells Harry about the prophecy regarding a boy born on July 7th and his being the down fall of Voldermort. Voldermort assumed it would be Harry Potter and that is why he went after him. But Dumbledore tells Harry that another child was born on that day, that child was Neville Longbottom. There is a reason that we know this and I believe that Neville will kill Harry. I don't think Voldermort will kill Harry because he knows that if Harry dies, he will die too. I am assuming that Voldermort will realise what Harry is (I mean they do have some sort of wierd connection now). I know what you are all thinking, naive not so bright Neville Longbottom, but that is the point, no one could suspect. I don't believe that Neville will be malicious about it. I think it will be more they both know it needs to be done and Harry is prepared for it.

In the UK you can actually place bets on who will kill Harry. I am quite tempted to put a bet on. Just in case I am right.

Anyway, that is my prediction, I can't wait to find out what does happen.

The Usual Suspects

Last night we watched the Usual Suspects. I have never seen this movie before and when I originally heard about it I didn't think much of it.


I have to say that I thought it was a great movie. It was succicnt and very well written. There are a lot of killings, but the storyline gets you hooked and you can look past all that. The best part was so little swearing. If a movie like this was made now, they would be swearing the whole way through it. The twist at the end is well played. You don't entirely see it coming but it slowly dawns on you in the final interaction with the coppers.

I thought Kevin Spacey's performance was brillance. I have never been a huge fan of his, but after this I have to say that I am a lot more impressed by him.

If you haven't seen this movie I highly recommend it. I feel that movies these days seem to lack something. They are either remakes, sequels or childrens movies. If something is "original" it is still taking from other movies. It is a little disappointing to see movies go this way with only a hope that movies can get better without all the dribble.

Daytona Christmas

For everyone at Daytona Christmas is the busiest time for us becasue everyone else is having their Christmas parties. So we celebrate in the New Year.
Our Christmas party was held on the 5th, a couple of days ago. It was going to be held at the Milton Keynes site, but something happened so we ended up having it at Manchester. We were all looking forward to going somewhere else, but things happen.
All the staff raced and we added everyone's points together to determine which venue was the best. Turns out it is the Sandown Park venue, but Manchester kicked butt in the Pitstop challenge, so it wasn't all bad. The actual race was one by one of the Manchester marshalls so that waspretty good. There are a lot of funny stories and incidents that have come out of the day but there isn't much point in me telling you because you pretty much had to be there.
After the racing we all went back to the hotel to get ready to go out for dinner. We went to a place called Opus which is in the centre of town. It was a Christmas party so we did get crackers. There was Banrock Station wine on the table which I thought was fantastic, I got to continue my Banrock theme which was great.
To eat I had salmon to start, then lemon chicken and finished with apple and pear crumble. The food was amazing and I keep thinking about the salmon.
Once the feasting had finished we moved into a private room for dancing and singing. Thats right, there was karaoke. I managed to get up and sing Down Under. I had to rub it in about the cricket, though not so many cricket fans at Daytona. It was a great evening with lots of dancing and drinking. Everyone was pretty well behaved and there were no fights or embarrasing moments.
We got back to the hotel about 3 in the morning, some continued to party while the rest of us went to bed. Unfortunately for some of the Manchester staff, we had to work the next day, bummer.
Overall it was a great Christmas do. I look forward to the next one.

Christmas and New Year

We had a really nice Christmas. It was only the two of us so it was pretty quiet. We did have a full on Christmas meal though. We went all out. It started with prwan cocktails. For main we had a roast turkey and vegetables. We had a Banrock Station theme with our wines which was very nice, I highly recommed them for everyone. Dessert was Christmas pudding with cream.
Presents included perfume, aftershave, an Australian Rugby League Jersey (will come in very handy for Australia Day), jewellery, books, calendar and clothes. It was great to speak to my family and also hear my nephew for the first time. I got a little emotional when I heard him, but managed to keep it together. I haven't felt too homesick which has been good. I have been getting a dose of Home and Away as well as Neighbours.
Andrew found out he passed his uni subject for this semester as well so that was some extra great news for us.
New Years Eve was a quiet one for us as well. We started early but drank one bottle of beer an hour so we didn't really get very drunk. We did drink a bottle of Champagne at 12 though. At 12 fireworks started going off all over the place so we went outside to have a look and there were people all over the place yelling happy New Year. As people were driving passed they were beeping their horns and waving out the window. It was a nice way of celebrating. We are thinking that next New Year we might spend it in New York. We haven't completely decided but it would be pretty cool to do that.