On Saturday, we headed back to Putney to grab the last of our stuff from the house, as well as give our room a proper scrub down. Cleaning that little shower was hard work! The roof was just too high for me to reach easily, and the tiles were definitely not the easiest to scrub in the world. But it’s all done now, sparkling and clean and ready for the next tenant.

We also took the opportunity to have one last BBQ in the backyard, and what a BBQ it was! Pork and apple sausages, marinated chicken, asparagus and corn – delicious!

After lunch, we headed out with Julian to hide the travelling coin that we had found a few weeks ago. There are a heap of geocaches in Putney! The first cache we found was in Leader’s Gardens, a delightful little park right next to the river.

It was a tricky find – beautifully hidden underneath some logs! But it was a lovely setting, especially with all the trees turning yellow for autumn. We left the travelling coin there, and given that it’s in London, I wonder if an international someone might pick it up and take it further?

The second cache we sought out was quite a lot trickier to find! There were a few cryptic clues which we thought we had figured out, but after 20 minutes of searching, we came up empty handed. Oh well! That’s the first one we haven’t been able to find, in about 7 – not too bad a ratio!

Ever since moving to Putney, we’ve meant try out the pubs which are along the river, on the western side of Putney Bridge. With such beautiful weather this summer, we were hardly begging for opportunities, however we never seemed to make it down there. So on Sunday afternoon, Kristy and I finally decided to go down and check them out.

First up was the Star and Garter. On the upside, it’s a very cool, old looking building, which hides a very freshly done-up interior. They even have their own cheese room, and a massive wine list, which makes me suspect that they’re definitely aiming for an older crowd. Still, the sofa we sat on was extremely comfortable, and the overall atmosphere is very pleasant – a very easy place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

On the downside, they lose points for only having a few beers (three, maybe?) on tap. I decided to be bold and try Guinness for the first time; that’s a mistake that I’ll only make once!

Next, we skipped over to the Duke’s Head, which is clearly aiming for the more casual crowd. The pub is split over three levels, with a restaurant upstairs, the main pub on the middle level, and a basement bar down the bottom.

The real upside of this pub is it’s facing on to the river. There’s a handful of picnic tables at street level, and once they’re all taken, the guests just spill out all over the footpath. We were certainly in this category, and we enjoyed our perry whilst watching the funniest old puppy repeatedly fetch a stick from the river.

Both bars certainly have their charms, and each one would be great for different occasions. Overall though, we found their prices quite expensive, so I suspect that they’re really capitalising on their position. I’d be happy to pay either of them (for) another visit, but for my money, you just can’t beat the Jolly Gardeners!

No matter how hard I try to avoid it, it seems as though I always end up getting the 08:22 train from Putney to Waterloo (though I bail after two stops, at Clapham Junction) in the mornings. I strongly dislike this train! It’s always super-duper crowded, mainly because of the huge time lag between it and the train before it (08:13).

Getting on and off is a nightmare – you can’t really move of your own accord, but instead you just have to accept where the crowd is going to carry you. I remember one time being jammed in there so tight, that I could feel six different people touching me. Eeewww!

This morning was no exception – both Kristy and I were on the train of death, and it was just as crowded as ever. We got about half-way to Wandsworth Town station, then the train stopped.

Nothing happened.

After about five minutes, the guard came on and said, “Sorry for the slight delay passengers, we’re being held here because a passenger has been taken ill on a train ahead of us. We should be moving shortly.” A likely story! I’ve fallen for those promises before!

I was jammed between a guy who needed a shave and the door – though not quite as bad as Kristy, who was only inches away from a Chinese hair flicker! Predictably, the five minutes soon turned to 10, which then turned to 20… and finally, 26 uncomfortable minutes later (yes, I was timing!) the guard came on the speaker again.

“Sorry again for this slight delay passengers, but we should be moving shortly. If you have any questions, please feel free to come down and see me – I’m in the middle carriage of the train.”

Now I have two problems with this statement:

1. 26 minutes in a sardine can does not constitute a “slight” delay!
2. How on earth did he expect anyone to just breeze down the train for a visit? No-one could move!

Just once, when a train stops unexpectedly, I’d love to hear the guard come on within one minute, and just be honest! “Sorry for the delay passengers, we’re being held at a red signal, but I’m not sure why, or how much longer we’ll be here for. I’ll try to get an update from the dispatcher, and get back to you shortly.”

Would that be so hard?! Grrrr!!

The grass in our backyard has pretty much laid dormant for the whole time we’ve been here… until now! The rain and sunlight that we’ve been getting since March seems to have been just what the grass-doctor ordered. By the time we got back from Australia, it was practically a jungle back there!

Of course, mowing the lawn isn’t quite the national past-time for Londoners that it is for (most) Australians. And, given that we’re in a rental house, and we didn’t find “shiney new lawnmower” at the top of the inventory list, Julian had to just make do.

Hard to believe, but pushing such a short lawnmower is not exactly comfortable. Plus, the resistance on the wheels is extremely tight (it’s one of those spinning the wheels turns the blade which cuts the lawn jobbies) that it’s near impossible to get the thing moving – so much so, that perhaps this could become the “next-big-thing” offered by gyms for patrons to lose weight.

Still, it was surprisingly effective – our grass is back down to a more respectable height. Now, if only we could find a mini whipper-snipper for the edges…

It’s been lovely weather this weekend in London – very cold, but nice, clear days. Given that we could actually see the sun, we tried to get out as much as we could to make the most of it.

Yesterday we decided to have a bit of a “treasure hunt” day around the city; though why we called it that I don’t know, as there was no treasure to hunt for, and to be honest, we weren’t even hunting for anything, except maybe a bargain. Our first stop was Covent Garden, where we headed to the London Transport Museum, and one of my favourite stores – Oakley. I resisted the temptation to buy a whole bunch of new things that I really don’t need, but only just!

Covent Garden was filled with it’s usual army of street entertainers, as well as the usual crowd clapping and cheering them on. Before we went into Oakley, there was a guy standing out the front blowing up a rubber glove; by the time we came out, he was standing on stilts, juggling knives, wearing only his underpants. It was about -1 degree Celsius. I must admit, I really don’t know how you transition from rubber gloves to knives and underpants, so I partially regret missing my opportunity to find out.

We walked from there to Chinatown for lunch. Having recently celebrated Chinese New Year, or perhaps because they heard we were coming and wanted to impress us, Shaftsbury Avenue had hundreds of Chinese lanterns hanging up. They looked very impressive against the bright blue sky!

We ate at a funky little restaurant that Jules and Shelley had been to before. They had those funny little tables that are at floor level, but have a bit “pit” underneath the table for your feet – so the net effect makes it look like you’re sitting on the floor and you have no legs.

It was a novel concept, and their food was none-too-shabby; unfortunately the service left a little to be desired, such that by the time they brought round the bill, my back was well over it.

Brad and Jackie happened to be at our local pub when we got home, so we popped in for an ale and a meal with them before heading to Cafe Kick for some table football, which Nick had organised. It was awesome – a huge turn out of people, and lots of games played! Overall I got hosed, the people at the cafe are generally far better than I am, but it’s such a fun game that I still had a great time.

We barely managed to scrape onto the last train home at 12:18 AM from Waterloo, which meant a late start to the morning. A few phone calls later and it was suddenly 11 AM! Kristy and I headed to Carluccios for brunch on the river.

Somehow I’ve managed to go until Sunday afternoon without doing any real chores, so I’m guessing that’s what will be occupying the rest of my day. But, with dinner tonight at Todd and Shannon’s as our reward, it’ll be worth it!

Competition update: It appears the competition is far harder than I expected, so I’ll make it a bit easier. Don’t worry about guessing who went over/under budget, just try to guess who bought what. Current entries are still ok unless the people that made the guesses want to change them. Please leave your guesses against the original story!

Currently we have multiple people tied for first, with one correct purchase out of four (though not always the same item)! If no-one can guess all four by Sunday this week, then I’ll award the prize to the highest guesser (if there’s one person out in front by then).

One of my favourite new restaurants in London is the Friends Oriental Food Hall, just down the road from Putney train station. They have a very Wagamama inspired menu, only their meals are cheaper and come in even larger portions.

My favourite dishes so far are the Beef Ho Fun, Yaki Soba, and the Yaki Udon, but there’s a lot more dishes that I’m yet to try.

We ate there on Sunday at lunch time, and when we arrived we were the only ones in the restaurant. The staff must have thought playing some moderately loud music would provide the buzzing atmosphere that the missing patrons could not, as the volume increased shortly after we sat down. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind, however their tunes of choice were Christmas carols. On the 4th of January. Seems a little bizarre to me.

We declared Sunday the 21st to be Christmas in Putney, since Kristy and I were flying out to Germany only a few days later. The first order of the day – after banana pancakes, of course – was opening our secret santa presents!

Santa did amazingly well at picking something awesome for us all; he didn’t do quite so well at keeping his identity secret – except from Julian, that is. Secret Santa presents were followed by more presents, and soon I was holding two new PS3 games just begging to be played!

Christmas isn’t Christmas without oodles of food, so we all took our places in the kitchen (well, mine was on the couch, finishing Dead Space – one of the best games I’ve ever played). Kristy felt it was important for us to be a little bit traditional, and to this effect she had ordered a Christmas ham for us all to share in.

It turned out to be a little smaller than we had expected, but it still tasted good, and with the quantity of other food that we had, we weren’t left wanting. Our afternoon sped by quickly with a movie, a game of Carcassonne, more eating, and all round general relaxing. It was such a lovely pre-Christmas Christmas!

In fact, it was such a convincing Christmas celebration, that I found it rather strange to turn up to work on Monday to find that everyone else hadn’t celebrated the day before! It was such an odd feeling!

A few more photos online in the Putney Christmas 2008 gallery.

I came home a few weeks ago to find a box sitting in the lounge room. Since I get all my packages delivered to work, I ignored it for a few days, until finally on the weekend I looked at the label wondering why on earth someone had left an unopened package in the lounge room. Turns out it was addressed to me!

Well, colour me befuddled! I had no idea what mysterious contents the box held, so I stood and pondered for a moment or two. Naturally, curiosity quickly got the better of me, so into the box I plopped, and pulled out not one but two packages – Carcassonne, and its expansion pack!

Turns out it was a rather thoughtful gift from Natalie and her bandy of Cookes, who said that they thought it “may be fun to play with our flatmates”. Fun it is! It’s such a simple, yet well thought out game – easy to learn, but difficult to win. And, it’s made by the same guy that made Settlers, so there was a good chance I’d be loving it.

The game essentially involves placing random tiles down to build up a map, and using your little men to create farmers, thieves, knights, and monks – each of which is worth a different number of points. There’s an element of luck involved due to the drawing of the tiles, but the real trick is to know when to play your little men, as you have a limited number to use, and you don’t get them back until their segment is complete.

Like I said, it’s simple, and it’s great! I’d recommend this game to anyone. We’ve already played it a number of times, but we haven’t tried the expansion pack yet. I’m sure we will very soon though!

Thank you so much Cookes!

Kristy recently pointed out to me a website which calls for people’s opinions about overcrowding on overground rail routes. Having now been an overground commuter for a number of months, I felt I was in a good position to share my experiences with them.

Here’s a copy of the e-mail I submitted. Continue reading →

A number of weeks ago, Kristy organised for our household to get a compost bin. Yes, we’re all hippies, and we’re concerned for the environment, so we’re going to do our part by composting that which can be composted.

We were somewhat surprised when we saw how huge the compost bin is. “How big?” I hear you ask – well, see for yourself.

No, that isn’t a dwarf version of Julian that we flew in for the photo; that’s actually Julian! Standing on his toes, no less! Now, you’re also probably wondering what the line of ribbon in the foreground is for, right? Well, you can’t use a compost bin without a proper opening ceremony now, can you?

If only we could compost the ribbon.