May and June 2010

We had no trips planned for a while after Bruges, but plenty of concerts and things. We had Flight of the Conchords booked for the weekend after we got back. The boys were brilliant, and did us proud. There were a lot of New Zealand accents in the crowd. The next weekend we went to see Enron, The Musical, a very odd but very good Westend show based on, well, Enron of course. The next day (Sunday, 23 May) was the London Sevens, and one of the hottest days of the year. We went dressed up as Where's Wally - as part of the tradition of everyone that goes dresses up.
New Zealand got third and Australia won.

Our next concert was Jonsi - an Icelandic singer that is one of Rob's favourites. He put on a great show. The weekend after that we went to Polo in the Park - a tournament held at Hurlingham Park which is just over the bridge from us. It is one of those English events that you buy strawberries and cream and champagne at for exorbitant amounts, and ladies wear high heels and get pissed in the Pimms tent (we didn't). They also had trick riders do displays which were amazing. They did things like hanging upside down off the saddle to grab a hat while the horse is galloping, and standing with each leg on a different horse while the horses are galloping, and then racing each other...

The weekend after that we decided to go for a day trip to Oxford - University city.

We were greeted by a spectacular Morris Dancing extravaganza. Oxford is amazing in the detail. The builders obviously went mad with their creative sides, and everywhere there are little gargoyles and statues stuck into niches and up on cornices.

We went and looked around quite a few of the colleges, like Christchurch College and Lincoln College (obviously), and Magdelene College, and took loads of photos - a real architect's dream. We did a walking tour and got some interesting background. Most of the students weren't around because it was holidays, but these boys were obviously doing some maintenance.

We had to do the obligatory punting trip, which was really lovely, nice and peaceful and there were a few end of term parties going on on the banks which was amusing, especially when the drunk students wanted to try punting.

Another of the sculptures that took our fancy.

The weekend after, we decided to go and have a look at Greenwich. We took a boat from Waterloo Pier (you can take a boat from Putney but we decided it would take too long). It is great as you get to see things from a different perspective - like Tower Bridge.
At Greenwich they had a summer festival. We watched a great Indian dancing troupe first - they must have been good as they got the whole crowd up dancing - including us! An aerial group did some impressive somersaults and acrobatics while hanging off off ropes, and there was an awesome mechanical dragon that went for a walk around the gardens, breathing smoke and fluttering its eyelids.

After we'd got our fill of the acts we climbed the hill up to Greenwich Observatory and straddled the Meridian.

We learnt all about Latitude and Longitude, and the history of Greenwich - it was quite interesting actually. You get an amazing view of London from up the hill, although it was a little misty that day.

Our next event was a couple of weeks later. We had tickets for Pearl Jam in Hyde Park. I was chuffed as we had just missed out on Pearl Jam in Christchurch. In the end it wasn't as good as we hoped. Ben Harper was supporting and seemed to be slightly unhappy to be there, and was a bit boring. Pearl Jam was great but not as mind blowing as we expected. A few days later we went to Kings of Leon. It was good, but I got a bit unhappy at everyone throwing their full and open beer bottles in the air, and got smacked on the head a few times.


The best was yet to come though, as next month we were going to the Oxegen festival in Ireland...