In January the Silver Ferns were touring England and were playing England at the O2 on the 19th. Naturally we had to get tickets. It was actually quite a nail-biting game, with England leading for much of the game until Casey Williams and Maria Tutaia came off the bench in the second half to rally the troops. Irene wasn't on her best form, but the Ferns came through in the end to seal the 47-40 victory. I managed to say a few words and get a photo with Irene at the end of the game which I was pretty chuffed about.
Another highlight of January was Hamlet at the National Theatre. It had had rave reviews, and we saw why with Rory Kinnear giving the most amazing performance as Hamlet. The scenes where Hamlet is pretending to be mad were something else. It was a bit easier for those of us who knew the story roughly though - Rob found himself dropping off in parts. Understandable with a 3 hour long play.
With February came Waitangi Day and the obligatory journey out to Westminster with our face covered in New Zealand tattoos.
At this stage Matt and Anne had just been to Egypt and Anne had come down with a dodgey tummy while they were there, so they came out and met us a little later. It was a fun day, we started at a pub (well, outside a pub) in high St Kensington and spent much of the time checking out everybody's outfits. There was a bunch of Billy-Ts, a mob of sheep, kiwi fruits, buzzy bees - a ton of good ol' kiwi ingenuity and imagination on show!
We made our way to Parliment Square slowly, hoping against hope that we'd catch the haka this year. It didn't happen. Some of us were wondering if there really is a haka...
Then we went to the Elk Bar and had a drink before ending the night at GBK, which is rapidly becoming a tradition it seems...Feb the 14th, Valentine's day and Anne and Matt's last day in London. We decided to go to a football match - between Chelsea and Fulham, so we could check that box. It was surprisingly better than us girls thought it would be, but we were all gutted that there were no goals scored. And Simon's favourite player, Fernando Torres, put in a decidedly average effort.
The next day Matt and Anne left for the US, en route to NZ. Tears were shed as we said goodbye again, but with the knowledge we would meet up again soon when we travelled to NZ.That night Rob and I went on the Jack The Ripper Tour along with Georgia and co., and Simon and co. It was good, with some interesting facts, but we only went to a couple of places that the murders actually occurred at. Some of the things we got told: Prostitutes would spend all the money they earned on alcohol so often wouldn't have enough to spend on somewhere to stay. One of the cheap options was to buy a place on a rope in a dormitory, where they would have to fall asleep standing with only the rope to hold them up. Also there were quite a few eyewitness acounts of Jack speaking to the women that ended up murdered - he was of medium height, dark hair, well-dressed, and always carrying a brown package under his arm.
After the tour we went to the Ten Bells - reputedly where Mary Kelly and Jack the Ripper used to hang out.
On February the 22nd, around 1am, Rob woke me up and told me there had been another earthquake in New Zealand, with at least one person dead... A death toll that as I write is at 182, with the possibility of more bodies to recover. That day was a sombre one for our flat - Rob and I, Simon and Anita are all from Christchurch. The others in the flat shared the sadness. Rob found out early in the morning that his mum was OK, and I found out around 8am that my family were OK also. It would have been even later, as telephone, power and the mobile networks were all down, but my sister got a stroke of luck and managed to get through to Dad when the phone lines were up for about ten minutes. Then she posted the good news on Facebook (thank god for Facebook by the way, how many people managed to get news of loved ones through that medium!)
Mum and Dad ended up being without power and water for around three weeks. They spent a lot of time staying with Mum's sister Lorraine. The house is OK although there are a few cracks and misaligned doors. Our cats were OK too at Wanda's house, they seemed to cope fine.
We went to an Earthquake Vigil a week later, at Westminster Cathedral. It was lovely - Hayley Westenra sung the National Anthem, and there were some moving letters read out.
We were able to take our minds off things that weekend. Georgia, being very in the know about these things, had asked us weeks earlier if we wanted to go to Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales, a play. I was very excited about this, and so we went along on Saturday the 26th. It was a well done play, although I remembered most of the punchlines from having read the stories before. Some of the stories had been changed around a little to make it more stage-friendly. William and Mary was done really well.
We ended the month looking forward to the beginning of spring and hopefully some better luck, but we were to go through another huge event in a week, a lot closer to home this time...
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