Now that we got the Belgium update out of the way, here’s a little look at what else has been going on…
Exeter
A couple of days after getting back from Bruges, we ventured south-west on the train to Exeter for a second (and belated) Waitangi Day celebration. Our friends Tim and Liz had recently moved there from Auckland so Time could take up the role of Director of Music at Exeter Cathedral. So to celebrate their arrival and our national holiday a group of singing Kiwis (and a few Brits who were adopted Kiwis) came together on the Saturday for some good food, great wine, and a bit of Cards Against Humanity.
Being singers, we couldn’t turn down the opportunity to sing in Exeter Cathedral on Sunday morning with Antiphon – a small choir run by one of the cathedral’s lay clerks while the main choir was on holiday. It was our first time singing since we’d left Auckland six months earlier, but it felt good to be doing it again. That afternoon, we shared a nice lunch with the crew before heading back to London, ready to go back to work the next day.
New job
At the end of February, I finished up working at Digital Look to start an exciting new venture at a brand new station called talkRADIO. It’s the same company that runs talkSPORT and is one of three new stations the company started – talkRADIO, talkSPORT 2 and Virgin Radio.
At the start of March we all met for the first time (a great bunch of people may I add) and started preparing our programmes ready for launch on March 21. My role is producing Jonny and Ash Gould from 7pm to 10pm on weeknights (with various guest hosts on Fridays until George Galloway starts), as well as working as technical operator for Iain Lee from 10pm.
We survived six months in the UK
Also at the start of March we marked six months being in the UK. It’s crazy to think how fast time flew by and how much yet how little we’ve done. When we first arrived in the country we started making a list of all the things we want to do in London, in the UK, and all the places in Europe we want to go to. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of time to get through the list, and now that we’re blogging you’ll be able to see it all.
Nice
After doing plenty around London (too much to write about), and so much cold weather, it was time to get out of the country, and what better time to do it than a bank holiday weekend. Quite nicely timed one might say… (geddit? Yeah that was a pretty poor joke).
Our friends Alastair and Jen (check out their blog at kiwisdofly.weebly.com) hired a place in Nice not too far away from the beach for the long weekend to celebrate Al’s birthday. It wasn’t a weekend of cramming as much sightseeing in as possible – it was a few days out of the UK with good friends, good food, and great wine.
Nice is such a beautiful place, with its old buildings that look like they’re straight out of an old movie, the seemingly never-ending promenade and beach, and not to mention the sun! It was a welcome relief after some relatively cold temperatures back home. It’s definitely on our list to go back one day.
On top of that, we’ve been doing the odd thing around London and catching up with heaps of friends over here. There’s certainly not a weekend that we’re not doing anything.
So there’s the rest of the update. No doubt we’ll have more to share in the coming weeks and months.