Sickness strikes

Isn't that a dramatic title for this post?

You know, I haven't been sick for a long, long time now - so it's quite a shock to have this sore throat and achey body - thinking I was going to die at first was possibly a slight over-reaction.

I stayed with Amanda and Jayson at their place in Sevenoaks, Kent, last week. The weekend before last was a great time of not doing much at all and recuperating. I played the part of the lazy housewife for the next week - doing office work, trip planning and trip research writing on my laptop whilst neglecting to feed the children or clean the pets' mess up. Luckily, there were no children or pets living with us at the time. A good choice of time for Amanda and Jayson to have me stay with them, really.

I popped into London on Tuesday night and enjoyed my slightly-lost-but-heading-in-the-general-right-direction walk from London Bridge station to Brick Lane. I walked past monument for the first time - which is KICK ARSE - such a hidden treasure. I've probably transferred tube stops there a half dozen times or something. I walked past the gherkin and some cool old churches, past Petticoat Lane when it wasn't raining and windy (that was eventful, the last time), but those great old markets that are posh and full of 'suits'...got slightly lost, and then met my mate, Richard, at Vibe Bar at the Old Truman Brewery.

It was super sweet meeting up with Richard, who i first kinda met in Siem Reap, Cambodia, at the hostel I was staying at, then i properly became friends with when I rocked up to a random dorm room at a hostel on Phi Phi Island, Thailand - and there he was ago. It was such a nice coincidence, we decided to get a beer. That beer (actually, maybe we just had a juice first of all) steamrolled into another beer with some girls we just met, and then suddenly there was 12 of us getting dinner together, drinking and then dancing like penguins on the beach whilst jumping through fire rings. Ahh, Richard got sick from something at dinner, so he missed out on the penguin dancing etc....and I'm pretty sure he didn't really enjoy the drinks after dinner either.

Back in London, present day, and Richard IS enjoying his beer as we chat about what's been happening in our lives since south-east Asia. Brick Lane - fun - curry - not bad! We went to The Macbeth in Shoreditch and got our heads blasted off by electronica heavy bands, Sleigh Bells from NYC closing out the very fun night out in London.

I just spent a long time on that one little anecdote, hey? Well, after getting a whole bunch of travel in, for me it felt really nice to not travel, do something on just one day of the week - and that definitely made the experience richer. Like when you don't have a beer all week - that first one on Friday night tastes so much sweeter.

SATURDAY, i hit up London again - and what's this - it was hot??? No, of course not - it doesn't get hot in London, but for Londoners, relatively speaking - it was a scorcher! I still wore jeans and had no worries doing so. I met my old buddy, Giulia near London Bridge and we went and had a simple picnic lunch at Hampstead Heath and caught up. I went and met Craig (who I met at a super-fun-times youth hostel in St Petersburg) and his old-uni mates at another part of Hampstead Heath - the place is huge and it took us an hour of mainly-me getting lost to meet up. I had a great time at picnic (round two) and drinksies (rounds 1 through 5). Have I just been super lucky to meet such great English folk so far...or is Britain just a super friendly place? I lean towards "they're jolly good". Finished the evening with Amanda and her friends at a bar near Mayfair. Had a laff, pretty much lost my voice and headed with Amanda back to Sevenoaks.

The next day, my brother Davo, and sister-in-law, Lion, picked me up and now I'm staying with them. This is when I got sick. Ugh, just one morning I woke up with a really acute pain in my throat. So I slowed down my office work a little, struggled through, tried to be disciplined and eat and drink better, but eventually just gave in and had a number of beers whilst we watched a movie last night. Still a little bit of a pain, but it's not too bad.

Off to have dinner at Amanda and Jayson's tonight (all of us) and might head back to Brick Lane for the curry festival tomorrow. It's kinda nice to be heading back to some visited places that I like!