Happy Monday/Tuesday Everyone!

Hello Hello!

Hmmm...I said that with too much excitement, I'm rather tired at the moment!! And since I write this on Monday afternoon it kinda makes it almost, if not, Tuesday by the time you read this. Actually could be later...not that it matters!

To begin with I just want to say thanks for all your e-mails!! I will get around to reading them after I've done this, so then maybe I can get back to some of you individually. I know sometimes one bulk e-mail is a bit less personal...so I'll try!!

So today we've had the one and only Sir Paul McCartney next door, using our car park! We're all pretty excited about that. We need those small kinda things to keep the energy levels up, I knew this was going to be hard work but no where near as painful! Nah it's not that bad. I'm pretty used to long days when you take the past month or so into account, but those days I spent a large part of them sitting at a desk. Here I'm on my feet, literally all day and it's killing me. I will say though, by the time I'm done here I'll have the best leg muscles! Up and down stairs all day long! Goodness me!

I had Sarah (most of you know her as host sister Sarah from when I was last here attending UNITY) come and stay on Friday night because she was flying out from Heathrow to Nairobi and then going to Zanzibar for three months on like a teaching program...volunteer work too! Anyhows, it was great catching up with her! And Heather was like 'you have a guest all ready?' because I'd only been here like a week and a bit...so I turned around and told her not to get too excited, I don't plan on having any other guests!! That is of course unless you guys wanna come visit!!

Saturday was pretty mad here in London. What with all the commotion surrounding Live 8 plus the Gay Pride Festival (which we walked into the middle of I guess rehearsals!), it was a busy city!! Janet was the only one who managed to score tickets, the rest of us (both working and otherwise) had to see or hear it all via live broadcast on the radio and/or the TV.

Saturday also marked my introduction (and induction!) to The WalkAbout, a string of Aussie kinda pubs here. We walked to the one in Finchley as it's the closest. Here I was hoping to catch the Melbourne Storm Game ( I'd rather Essendon, but that's on later tonight and I'll have my night duties to do so I won't see it) but due to live 8 running quite a bit over and due to me going to the wrong Walk About I didn't end up seeing the game BUT I had a brilliant time regardless. It took a while to get half okay, then as the night went on it actually became a lot like Bridie O'Reilies on a Friday night...they even had a band lined up but they started later due to the live coverage of Live 8. In the end they just left the visual on and had the band play. All accept for one point, which even now still amazes me. Robbie Williams came on stage and that was it, they cut the band off and let the live audio stream out. Now at this point in time the place was very packed. There were views of the some 200, 000 people at Hyde Park and everyone was singing to Robbie -Even in the pub, it was incredible. At the top of everyone's lungs everyone sang, word for word!! It was rather good!

The band were okay, played a lot of Aussie music which I think was the point of the whole thing. Yes I had Snake Bites and Marie has a card that gets us Bacardi Breezers for like £1.50 each which was really good too...price wise. There is no need to mention the number of'beverages' I had that night. But put it this way, I left the others for dead, even those who weren't working on Sunday stopped at two drinks! Which was quite surprising really. Marie said she usually drinks more but has had her money cut off from her parents back home in Canada, apparently she's got money issues in the sense she can't stop spending it!! It was kind of also a farewell to Caro who flew back to Germany this morning.

It's funny how I'm in a totally different city, half way around the world, but still Sunday is cleaning and washing day!! So yes, in that regard yesterday was kind of dull. But it was alright because I had to practice my presentation for my welcome ceremony which was last night. And it was Monique's too. The both of us had our welcome ceremony which started at 9pm and kind of ended at 11, then we had Caro's farewell ceremony! In presenting us with our Pax Lodge pins and a special blanket plus a few other things, Janet mentioned some thingabout being welcomed to the Pax Lodge family. It sounded kinda weird I guess. But when Caro's farewell started and as I watched the reaction of everyone else...it started to make sense. In essence, we house assistants (8 in summer, 6 in winter) plus the senior staff, are abunch of women who in most instances would probably never meet. But for some crazy and unknown reason, we all took a leap and chose to live and work together. And as I looked at everyone, I guess there was about 14 of us, I realised that we are 14 in in say 6 billion people in the world who will share this experience and adventure, right here and now. Then I realised I'm going to need a jumbo box of tissues come December!!!

Today was back to work, my first day working the 'House' rota. I cleaned rooms from top to bottom, made beds, did LOADS and LOADS of washing plus ironed for what seemed like FOREVER! No wait, I forgot the vacuuming of the entire first floor (minus the dining room as it's lino and the kitchen as its tiles) from about 7:15am this morning!! Actually what I do like is that I get up half hour before I start, shower, dress and that's it!! No getting up an hour before I leave to include breakfast, not a half hour drive or 40 minute commute!! It'slovely! But yes, today seemed quite long. That said, I prefer it over Friday's dishes and food, at least I get to float around the entire building!!

Actually you know what I'm craving right now? Well actually I'm craving several things right now...but I could really do with a Caramel Macciato (or however it's spelt!) from Starbucks...Mmmmm...Starbucks...Actually what I really want is a Lamington with lots of strawberry jam...yeah..actually there's probably other things I want more than that, but you get my drift.

Now I'm just talking rubbish. I'm quite tired. Just over an hour and a half till dinner and that time is all for me, then it's back to work till about 8pm and then that's it for the day. Yay!
Oh and a correction, I think at some stage I said that I was 14 hours behind you guys, man I don't know what I was thinking that day! It's actually only 9 hours. So in the event you want to call...that's a bit more of an accurate time frame!!

Righty-o I think I've dribbled on too much for another day, I will catch you all again soon at some point!

Take care and Stay safe,

Rachael :-)