17 Aug 2012

Moving Home


Hello friends! I have moved Oh Antipodes to my shiny new website. You can read it over here!

Don't forget to resubscribe to RSS over at the new site as Google Friend Connect will no longer work for Wordpress sites.

I will be deleting this blog on 17th September so make sure to subscribe now!

20 May 2012

The Antipodeans visit Camden Market Part One


The Antipodean Man suggested on Friday night that we visit Camden Market on Sunday. He had previously been in 2000 with his cousin and her husband, but I had never been and it was something on my tourist bucket list that had been screaming to be ticked off for the last five years. Since it was such a huge day, I didn't think one post could really cover it all, so I'll be covering it over two posts, today and Wednesday.

When we arrived at Camden Town station, I stepped out and groaned. I'm not good with crowds and as per usual, hundreds of people seemed to have congregated around the station entrance. I thought to myself that it might not have been such a good idea to come here, but I soldiered on regardlessly.

As we walked up the high street, all nerves disappeared. There were a mixture of high street stores, but not the normal ones like New Look or Oasis, more like American Apparel and H&M, and market stores. It looked pretty funky and I was ready to get my shop on! We looked around the front of the first market - the appropriately named "Camden Market" (actually known as Buck Street Market) and waited for a friend who was on her way to join us. 

As our friend was running late, we walked further up towards Camden Lock - I didn't realize it was named because there was an actual lock there and was quite excited in a completely nerdy way to see a boat going through the canal lock. The Antipodean Man quickly explained how it worked and we watched the boat go through along with quite a few other people. I wonder if the man who operates the lock gets a complex? He had an audience all day long.

Once we crossed the canal, we entered in to Camden Lock Market, which was established in 1975 and was the original market and started it all. I loved the handmade craft, especially the leatherwork and The Antipodean Man loved the art and spent more than a few minutes perusing the photography stalls. We didn't have plans to actually go in any particular direction, so we stumbled on to the food stalls next and couldn't help breaking our healthy eating habits to demolish a rather large jam donut, although after discussion, we thought it really wasn't worth it as it looked a whole lot better than it tasted.

Our friend called just as we finished the donut and after meeting her at the tube station, we walked back up to Buck Street Market. We'd only seen the front stalls earlier as we didn't want to go in too far without our friend and having to repeat ourselves later in the day. I was really disappointed - Buck Street Market was not at all what I had expected, compared to the small section of Camden Lock Market, BSM was full of cheaply manufactured synthetic clothes and fake designer handbags. You couldn't walk past three or four stalls without seeing an exact repeat of stock, it was just like a mass produced chain store out in the open. All in all? A real shame....

I'll leave it here for now though, with a promise that it did get better! I'll be posting the second half of my trip to Camden Market on Wednesday, so I hope to see you here again then!

19 May 2012

The Sunday Session: It's Back!

Well, well, well. Someone took a blogging holiday and forgot to inform the general population about it, didn't they? Please feel free to slap me on the wrist and tell me I'm a naughty girl. More on that later.....

It's almost Sunday here in not-so-sunny London and that means it's time to start The Sunday Session!
  • There are no rules.
  • On Sundays I play music on my blog.
  • Old or new or in between.
  • Related or not.
  • But always songs I love! 


Celine Dion - It's all coming back to me now
You can blame Glee for this one. I grew up on Celine Dion - my mother has been a fan since her days of singing in French and I guarantee that when we picked CDs for long car trips, Mum's entire selection was good old Celine! I hadn't listened to a lot of her stuff for a long time, but when Rachel Berry sung this in their Nationals performance, I got goosebumps. I honestly didn't think that anyone else could do this song justice, but Lea Michele is spot on. Saying that, the original will always be the best.


Emeli Sande - Next to Me
Not a brand new song, but it's been on high rotation on my iPhone since it's release. Emeli's song is catchy and really fun to sing too, with all those ooooh ooohs! I also happen to think Emeli has a really lovely voice and it's so nice to hear a song like this these days when the majority of the UK Top 40 is manufactured pop rubbish, dubstep or crap-rap.

Anyway, I hand over the DJ reins to you now. Share your choices on the linky!


27 Apr 2012

Friday Thoughts

Hello everyone! I am back on solid ground, freezing my butt off again and ready to get back to real life after a wonderful week at Plaja Es Canyer in Ibiza, Spain. It was a great holiday and I can't wait to show you some of the photos I took and give you the royal rundown next week. But, as it is Friday, it's time for my weekly Friday Thoughts post. As usual, please do share your thoughts in the comments or over at your own blog (and make sure to let me know so I can come and check them out!)

Currently loving my dryer. It's so not environmentally friendly but with a suitcase and a washing basket full of stuff, I need to get everything clean and dry as soon as possible.

Currently thinking about a little side project I've been working on. Without giving too much away, it's a small "businessy" type blog that I'm part way through working on. I'm still umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether I want to go ahead with it now as I have a fair bit of stuff going on outside of blog land and therefore not sure if I can give it the full attention that it needs.

Currently anticipating my start date for my new role! My agent called me on my first day in Ibiza to let me know that everything had been approved and I had a firm verbal job offer. I finally went and sorted out all of the paperwork involved and my references are being checked today so I hope that I will be able to start Wednesday next week!

Currently watching nothing. The Antipodean Man is home sick and has been watching TV on the computer since we got home on Tuesday, so I have been without my usual entertainment, so instead, I've been re-reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Currently wishing that I could be back on the beach. It was a lovely 22 - 25 degrees back there and it's averaging about 7 degrees here in London. Brr!

Don't forget - this post is, as usual, my submission to Glow's Flog yo' Blog Friday which will be moving to a new home very soon!

15 Apr 2012

Sunday Sessions


Hello Sunday Sessioners! I hope you've had a great week and an even greater weekend. The premise of The Sunday Sessions is simple:

  • There are no rules.
  • On Sundays I play music on my blog.
  • Old or new or in between.
  • Related or not.
  • But always songs I love! 

Here are my picks for this week. You can play along by linking up below. Can't wait to hear your picks.



I am seriously loving me some Dr. Dre & Eminem at the moment. There's something hauntingly beautiful about this song that just gets me, every time I listen to it. I've loved Eminem since I first heard "The Real Slim Shady" and this song is just a reminder of what a versatile musician he is. He does funny rap, serious rap and everything in between.



{Warning: This song does contain expletives}
Nicki Minaj is a bit like Vegemite. People seem to either love her or hate her. I think she's cute and quirky and her songs are fun (well the ones that don't seem to have an excess of swear words are). This has been my "getting ready" song this week and I've been caught numerous times by The Antipodean Man jumping around the bedroom dancing away to this song whilst applying makeup or brushing my hair!

Now it's your turn!

14 Apr 2012

Friday Thoughts (on a Saturday)

Image sourced from WeHeartIt.com - original source unknown

I am such a naughty blogger! You can blame The Antipodean Man and his insistence that we stay up late and watch trashy TV for me not posting my Friday Thoughts last night as I had intended to! As usual, please do share your Friday Thoughts in the comments or at your own blog. Unfortunately, I've missed out on Flog yo' Blog Friday but do remember, it's the best link up of the week, so go and check it out!

Currently loving my morning coffee expeditions! This week, I've been catching the train with The Antipodean Man to the next suburb (or actually, it's a village) and treating myself to a huge coffee. It not only forces me to get out of bed in the mornings, which I'm struggling to do at the moment, but it also gives me a feeling of what it will be like to get back to the real world, once I'm employed again.

Currently thinking about my work situation. Still. The latest update is that it should be official next Thursday. After that, there's still reference and credit checks that need to be done. I'm hoping I might be able to start by the 30th.

Currently anticipating my week's holiday in Ibiza! We are leaving on Wednesday morning and I'm so excited! We go every year, to the same little beach side town and we have a week of doing not much at all. The party season doesn't start for another six or so weeks, so Ibiza is still a sleepy little island in the Mediterranean Sea where the most important thing to worry about is what side of the beach gets the most sun and has the best cafe.

Currently watching Friends. It's been my "ironing" show for as long as I can remember and I've had a lot of ironing to do this week!

Currently wishing that we could hurry up and get to summer, pay our big deposit on the flat and get a firm date on completion.

11 Apr 2012

It's oh-so-official!


Today I'm linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday

My Little Drummer Boys

8 Apr 2012

The Sunday Sessions: For the first time

I have been following Thea on her blogging journey for a while now. We have chatted online through our blogs and on Twitter and Facebook and I would consider her to be a good friend of mine. Thea also hosted a great weekend blog linkup known as The Sunday Sessions. I never participated but I loved to see all of the great music that she and her other friends posted on a weekly basis. A few days ago, Thea mentioned that she felt her time with the Sunday Sessions had come to an end. I was so upset and I asked her if I could take it on over here at Oh Antipodes. She said yes and now it's here!


The premise of The Sunday Sessions is simple:
  • There are no rules. 
  • On Sundays I play music on my blog. 
  • Old or new or in between. 
  • Related or not. 
  • But always songs I love!
Here are my picks for this week. You can play along by linking up below. Can't wait to hear your picks.




Glee Cast - Stereo Hearts
I'm a huge fan of Glee and even though it's in it's mid-season break and I still have another week to wait to find out what happened to certain characters from the heart-wrenching cliffhanger of the last episode, I still find myself listening to Glee songs over and over and over! Stereo Hearts is my most played song of the week according to iTunes and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do.





Adele - Set Fire To The Rain
I never "got" Adele. I found her first album was overplayed in London and I wasn't at all interested in hearing her new stuff from 21 - The Antipodean Man and I called it "music to slit your wrists by". When I went out to Australia for the summer, Adele was all the rage and I got hooked on this very song. There's just something special about this girl and I'm glad I finally opened my ears to listen to her.



6 Apr 2012

Friday Thoughts


I originally saw this posted on IROCKSOWHAT, who actually got the idea from another blog, Sometimes Sweet and I think it's a great way to keep track of the week gone by and the weekend ahead and I'd love it too if you'd share your currently's as well in the comments or on your own blog.

Currently loving popcorn! I can't get enough of the stuff lately. I've always loved salty snacks but this week I've been hoovering packet after packet and I honestly can't get enough of it. Thank heavens for the 99p store and their mega packets of popcorn.

Currently thinking about my work situation. I wish I had a definite answer on that job. I know patience is a virtue and all that, but the extra money would definitely come in handy and it would be nice to feel like I have a purpose again.

Currently anticipating prices being released in the development where we are looking to buy an apartment. We have been waiting for about a month now and it looks like there is only one more two bedroom apartment to be bought in the current section before they can release our prices, so hurry up, prospective apartment owner! We've got our deposit and mortgage (gulp!) all ready to go.

Currently listening to Adele, Glee Cast & Nicki Minaj. I've also got something rather musical lined up my sleeve for early Sunday morning.

Currently watching Downton Abbey. I was so late getting in to this series and I really only started watching it because it because all of my other shows were on their mid-season break but I'm so glad I did. My favorite character is the Dowager Countess, closely followed by Carson.

Currently wishing everyone a safe & happy Easter weekend.

This post is my submission to Flog 'yo Blog Friday, hosted by the very lovely Glowless @ Where's my Glow. Please do go and check out all of the other blog entries there, because you can be guaranteed a good read.

P.S. I have some very exciting news to share with you over the weekend. I'll be scheduling a post for the early hours of Sunday morning and I hope that you'll all come and join in the fun.

4 Apr 2012

2 Apr 2012

Unemployment

Picture sourced from shop.juliakostreva.com via Fat Mum Slim on Pinterest

Poor Antipodean Man, he's not feeling well. He slept horridly with his monitor attached on Thursday night and he asked me to meet him for coffee after my agency appointment on Friday afternoon. I convinced him to come home early and he's slept pretty much the whole weekend.

Meanwhile, let's talk about the job hunt, shall we? I have been unemployed since last October, my last day at Le French Company was just after my Grandparents arrived on their six week visit to London. About half way through, we decided that I'd go back to Australia with them for a few weeks so I could see my parents new house in Brisbane. In December, I extended my holiday again by another month so I could spend Christmas at home. I got back to London on 23rd January. It's now almost April. I am still unemployed. There have been a few "almosts" and too many doors shut in my face to count. We are not struggling financially but we are not on easy street either and with a mortgage on its way, those purse strings are getting tighter.

At first, it was fun and I enjoyed all the free time I had. I dread the phone ringing because I just cannot be bothered to answer it in case it's just another knock back. I have one opportunity on the horizon that seemed promising. It has been a whole week since I had a proper update and I am getting ticked off now. People are on holidays and I am in jobseekers limbo.

I am frustrated, sad and scared but most of all, I am bored.

P.S. I wrote this post on Friday afternoon whilst I was at the park with the dog and have this addedum to add:

I had a call on Friday afternoon whilst I was sitting in the park where I take the dog each day and it was an update but not one I wanted to hear.

Someone else had been offered my job.

The company still wants me, but for something different now. It means I have to wait longer to have HR sign off on my new position and they cannot make a firm offer with the all important pay rate until this has happened. I was hoping to be able to start at a new company by April. The rate that this is going at, it will be May before I even set my foot in the door.

30 Mar 2012

One Fine Day


 The Antipodean Man took a day off work on Thursday to go to a Hospital appointment (he has sleep apnea) and I was expecting another boring day at home filled with moaning how bored he was and him hogging the TV and laptop whilst I ran around trying to clean around him. You can imagine my surprise at 10am when we were waiting for the bus to take us home when I suggested that we take a visit to have a look at our flat-building site-showhome to bug the sales people about prices again and with only a little bit of effort required, he agreed!

We got to the bus stop near the development and decided to have a late cooked breakfast at one of our favourite cafes, Maggie's and then, over many cups of tea and coffee and a huge slap up breakfast with all of the trimmings, decided to run up to Tescos to do our grocery shop so we didn't have to worry about doing it on Saturday in the weekend crush. The shops were completely dead and after a fifteen minute leisurely walk around Tesco, we'd finished, paid and were waiting on a cab to take us home.

Once we got home, The Antipodean Sausage needed walking and instead of a quick run around the block, the three of us walked down to the park and spent a leisurely hour and a bit in the spring sunshine, reading magazines, Instagramming and throwing the ball. One happy and tired pup and two happy dog owners later, we walked back home and spent the afternoon lazing around drinking tea and watching Downton Abbey (well I did, The Antipodean Man watched sci-fi and had an afternoon sleep, the lazy git.)

I forgot to mention this before, but this post is my addition to Glow's fabulous Flog yo' Blog Friday linky. You should go and check it out because a) Glow is an awesome blogger and b) There's lots of other awesome posts there you can read!

28 Mar 2012

I'm not in Kansas anymore

Picture sourced from PastonPaper at Etsy.com

 I have lived in London for almost five years now and there are still things that surprise me because they are so different to Australia. You know, like trains that come every two minutes, distances measured in miles instead of kilometers, £2 coins being bigger than £1 coins, winter being so incredibly cold. I could list more but you'd be reading forever!

At times, I hate the differences. Mostly though, they are reminders of the incredible journey that The Antipodean Man and I have taken. But there are many things that are the same too and I'm happy to make sure that I always keep a little bit of Australiana in my home and in my heart, like this great vintage map that I found on Etsy this morning.

There have been times lately whilst I have not been working and not had a lot to do at home or money to spend on going out that I have felt down about being here in the UK and have wanted desperately to go home back to Australia but the more I think about it, the more I realize that my home has become London. 

The Antipodean Man and I, we have family here, we have friends here, we (almost) own a house here. It was a huge decision to cut those ties, pack those bags and leave that family in the first place, almost six years ago, when we made our decision to plan to move to the UK, I wonder to myself, is it something that I really want to do again, when I'm not even finished discovering this wonderful place I call home?

26 Mar 2012

Layout Resources


I am so excited to finally have this blog up and running! For a while there, I had been thinking about it and planning it in my head but I felt like I didn't have anything to say. With the future looking rather busy and bright for The Antipodean Man and I, I thought there was no time like the present to start a new blog and get cracking with sharing some of my stories from my life as an Australian Expat!

One thing I always love doing online is collecting resources related to Web Design and when I designed the first version of this blog, I decided that I'd make sure I kept all of my resources pinned on my Blogging Board at Pinterest so I could remember where I got certain graphic elements, which fonts I used and other tutorials I used to customize this Blogger template.

Fonts:
Body - Georgia
Header - Bebas & Raleway
Post Headers & Navigation - Raleway
Sidebar Headers - Ribbon

Graphics:
Header Squiggle - IROCKSOWHAT
Social Media Buttons - August Empress

Tutorials:
Webfonts & Typekit by Puglypixel

I'm also working on a launching a little side project, helping people to customize their Blogger blogs, totally free of charge, but only time will tell if I will be able to keep up with that. However, if this is something you might be interested in, please do drop me a comment with your email address and I'll see what I can do for you.