scotty2hatty's London Adventure

[outragous76]

Good luck in London

Id encourage anyone to spend time living in London just for the experience, especially in the early part of a career.

I did 6 years personally, but very much feel like Id done my stint when  I left, and not much chance of me ever returning (to the South generally).

But GLGL, will def read this

[kinboshi]

Welcome to London Scotty. Look forward to reading the diary.

Vinny is Boris Johnson.

[OverTheBorder]

Friday 4th of January

The landlord, knowing the terrible situation, offered us a full refund on the deposit and rent. But it wasn't really as easy as that as that was my net worth really and not only would it take a few days for the cash to go into my account, I'd need to find another place to stay.

I left Carly in the flat, still upset, and headed on the bus to Brent Cross to speak to my manager and call HR. As a side note, a flat £1.40 fare on the buses seems very fair. When I got to the store there was actually a HR rep there dealing with another issue. I explained my situation and hoped they could sort me out with some temporary accomodation. They couldn't. They said I had adequate time to sort out accomodation and there was nothing they could do. A little insensitive I though but so be it. The store manager said they could maybe help me out with a small loan for a B&B for a few nights. That wasn't really going to help.

I left there a little depressed and upset myself but when I got back the gas situation had been sorted and we were back in business with heating and hot water. The flat was no longer 'immediately dangerous'. In fact, there was no danger. Danger free.

A call to the landlord and I had set him some deadlines for the works to be completed or we'd be taking up the option of the refund. He was nice enough and made me the adequate promises.

Highlight of the day was seeing these two characters at the Finsbury Park Station with a dog:

Click to see full-size image.

They still making a living out of the game? Barny wasn't looking too fresh.

Later that day, Carly's mother left and we went back to the flat to get ready for a night at Wimbledon Dogs as organised by my mates from Uni as a Welcome to London thing. None of them knew the slightest thing about greyhound racing and I was tasked with getting the winners.

Click to see full-size image.

Every race had a short-priced jolly it seems so I tried to find things at prices for everyone to take them on with. This wasn't successful. The jollies mostly won and in the races they never, I couldn't find the winner. Great night, 0/11 for me as 8/11 favourites obliged. Had a great time though and was good to meet up with some good mates.

This was my first ever time at a dog track, despite being a huge enthusiast, and loved it, although the atmosphere was quite muted. I look forward to Derby nights there.

Sigh, I have that red t-shirt!

I moved to London for 5 years, so looking forward to reading another view of the big move!

[david3103]

Welcome to London, in every sense!

Not many greyhound tracks here now, though......

By strange chance, if you will be working at Brent Cross, that was the site of the very first dog track I ever visited - Hendon. It would have sat sort of half under the A406 Flyover, & towards Brent Cross.

Good luck with your London adventure.

Thanks tikay.

Well, there is only the one track in Scotland, Shawfield, which by all accounts is terrible and I've actually never been. I guess I should have made an effort for the Scottish Derby which seemed to be the only time there was decent, non-handicapped racing.

I've been to Wimbledon already since I've moved, which I'll document later.

Keep an eye out there for a dog called Bedandbreakfast. Not because he's any good, but because I own him with a couple of mates

Enjoy it down here. There is simply so much going on, all the time. It's great.

It ran when I was there on Saturday, think it got nowhere, but one of the girls I was with backed it based on the name. That's something.

Haha, the name is pretty niche.

His whelp date is the 01/10/10, or 011010 which in binary is the number 26. If you score 26 in darts it used to be (is?) called "2 and 6, Bed & Breakfast".

As I say. Pretty niche!

There are only 10 types of people in this world,
those that understand binary, and those that don't

[Marky147]

Good read so far and looking forward to following, glad that things seem to be working out and best of luck m8!

[Eso Kral]

Welcome to London Scotty. Look forward to reading the diary.

Vinny is Boris Johnson.

No but he is defo thinking of all the branches of Nando's in London that he has not visited for free!!

GL with the Diary though Scotty and count me in when you fancy a visit to Romford Dogs.

[celtic]

Fuck sale boys. I was waiting til page 3 to get the 'buy me dinner please' post in.

[Simon Galloway]

Hotel looked good!  BoL in the Old Smoke.

[Alverton]

Good Luck Scotty, all the best. 

Fwiw you already have a diary http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=58833.msg1696996;boardseen#new   

[scotty2hatty]

Good Luck Scotty, all the best. 

Fwiw you already have a diary http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=58833.msg1696996;boardseen#new   

Haha, I'll get the quiz restarted asap.

[Tonji]

Good luck in your new job & settling in London town. Have fun.

[BorntoBubble]

Good luck in london i plan to make this trip i think i will be around 23-25 when i do and plan to move back up north before 30 with my millions!

[Royal Flush]

Enjoyable so far, will keep a keen eye on

As for the Boatmans, both regularly seen punting about in London.

In for the group outing at Romford as well

[scotty2hatty]

No internet in flat until February so updates are rather sporadic.

Saturday 5th of January

Carly finished work at 4pm so I decided to meet her from work so we could go do a few things in the hope of cheering her up somewhat. I'd decided to take her for a walk around Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park as I'd heard good things and to be honest it just sounded a fun thing to do.



It's finished for the year now but if it there next year I would definitely recommend it. Perhaps before Xmas, it'll definitely get you in the mood. Is this a yearly thing?

I think most city centres throughout the UK have a tiny version of WW most years, they certainly did in Birmingham when I was there in December with a few wooden huts offering foods from around the world etc. They are nothing compared to this. Took us a good couple of hours just to walk around the park. We stopped a couple of times to try out some fun rides. The rides were a bigger than your standard fairground rides and it certainly made us both feel a little happier.

All of the food and drink outlets looked amazing with all sorts of different foods from around the World. No Scottish options though, wtf??? I settled on some paella and Spanish stew and whilst tasty enough wasn't the best I had and I was wishing I had went for some sort of exotic kangaroo burger or the like. Carly wasn't too hungry but grabbed some waffles with chocolate sauce which seem to be on offer all over the place in London. The only time I'd had waffles previously was as part of an evening meal when I was about 12!

We had a great time at Winter Wonderland and decided that a trip to the cinema would be a nice way to top off the evening. I expected the cinema to be expensive but knew that O2 were offering half price tickets on their Priority Moments app - except you couldn't use them on a Saturday. Sucks. £26 later we were settled into our seats in the Marble Arch branch of the Odeon to see Jack Reacher. We'd nipped into the Sainsbury's around the corner in preparation for some juice and snacks. Sainsbury's seems to be the supermarket of choice in London, they are super rare back home. Plus they are a little pricey I feel.

Jack Reacher was much better than expected. It scores 7.2 on IMDB and I'd agree with that, maybe pushing as far as 7.5. Tom Cruise isn't everyone's cup of tea but he was good in this and I enjoyed the comedy that his character brought.

So we headed home a little happier than we had been in the morning. To be honest, I was fine anyway but Carly was upset and I was hoping that the landlord would come good on his promise to come up with his tradesman to fix the important parts of the flat tomorrow (the Sunday).

[celtic]

Fav Nandos order?

Do you like black pudding suppers?