A Grand Tour of Sunny Places is Commenced on the Holiday Weekend

A bit late, naturally, but here are some nice pics from my spring bank holiday weekend. Tom and I went to Hampton Court Palace and had a picnic in the gardens.

Tom and a garden:

Courtney in the vine walk:

Then we took a river boat down the Thames, through the locks, and got off at Richmond for a nice steak dinner at Gaucho Grill (Tom’s toss up favourite restaurant along with Bodean’s BBQ).

Boat through the locks:

Tom get excited about Gaucho:

We also spent a nice sunny day in Hyde Park, with me skating along the Serpentine Road naturally.

A good boyfriend carries all the stuff:

This type of activity seems to be part of a theme lately….with most weekend finding us visiting some lovely touristy type place. Ice cream sundaes at Fortnum & Mason, reading books in Green Park, meanders around old Hampstead village (lunch at Gaucho’s naturally), etc…. We actually joined as members of the Royal Palaces which means we can get into the Tower of London and Kensington Palace and Hampton Court anytime we want. We both like the crown jewels.

Skating, etc…

So the other day I surprised Tom with a present: a brand new pair of size 12 Riedell R3 speed skates. Muahahaha…..

He was amused and shocked (dunno why) and now he has to learn to skate.

I don’t think he will end up as a derby ref, but it will be nice to have him able to roll around with me.

Speaking of rolling around.

This weekend is pretty much one of the most exciting things to do with London Rollergirls to date. Its our first ever international bout. We have a team of skaters from 5 different Canadian leagues coming over to play us as Team Canada. This is a big one. Winning means major props for us…and we are going hard core for it.

Mutiny on the Mountie Poster:

In other LRG news….last week I competed in a BBC game show called Eggheads. It wont air for another month or so, but it should be AWESOME.

Eggheads pic:

Mondays and relationships are pondered

Mondays in general are always a bit sucky, naturally, because you have to go back to work and deal with all the stuff you left behind on the glorious Friday of the past. But when you are in a relationship you get this little added bummer…. after a nice weekend of cuddles and fun, you all the sudden feel you are going through couple withdrawal!

I felt it keenly today, so Tom and I arranged to meet halfway between offices (me at Oxford Circus and him on the western edge of the square mile), for a little extra dose of coupleness. In true romantic style, Tom brought me a big bunch of red roses. Very sweet – and they are making me smile as they sit on my desk inviting glances of envy from all the ladies in the office.

Tom is off to an emerging leader course for work this week, so we will have 3 whole nights to miss each other, but then a nice long bank holiday weekend to be sappy again. Instead of spending too much money to go to some village in the country, we are planning a London tourist weekend. We are going to visit Hampton Court Palace and maybe do a London Walk, and if the sun shines even a picnic in Hyde Park. I have been here a year so its time to pretend to be a visitor again for a long weekend.

P.S. the flowers and trees are in bloom and it’s SO GORGEOUS here right now. Lilacs and cherry blossoms everywhere…especially in my hood of Notting Hill.

On the Occasion of the Happy One Year London Anniversary...

Let’s pull a quote out of the archives to start this off:

From approximately one year ago, specifically April 22, 2007:

“…It was certainly not how I expected to feel on my arrival, but I guess in hindsight I should have figured on it. I mean seriously, a lot of people make this kind of move because they are tired of where they were before. I love LA...I love my friends and the life I had in LA. I did this because I always wanted the chance to live here...not because I wanted to leave LA. For me this is a challenge I gave myself....not a reward. So it's hard. But yeah, that day I was seriously questioning myself. And I still have that thought from time to time...but it's more geared towards allowing myself the possiblity of not living here for a long spell...and being ok with going back home if that’s what feels right too. People have told me that I am pretty ballsy to make this move, and I get it now...cause it sure ain’t easy…”

So here I am. One year to the date of my arrival in the UK. I have come a long way from pulling up in a black cab to my temporary flat on the Camden canal…and I am still here. There are no plans to leave.

Life does go on, I do adapt, I get over the homesickness, I get over the fear, and the longing for familiar things. New things become familiar, new friends are made, new bonds are forged…and it all combines to make me feel that London is now home.

But I am still ballsy and brave. I did it. I moved to London. I made it happen, and I enjoyed it…still enjoying it. Pretty cool, eh?

Following a holiday, the writer becomes busy

I always seem to slack on the blog posts after a trip or holiday. Most likely because returning from a holiday usually finds me thrown back into work or activities with no free time. That has definitely been the case this time.

So here I am reporting a while later.

The trip was good. I really enjoyed the sunshine and the beach and the Pacifico with lime down in Mexico. It was also fun to hang out with my brother, see my dad, visit with cousins and aunts, and introduce everyone to Tom. Tom wasn’t a huge Mexico fan…the street food and poverty weren’t too his liking…but he did enjoy the family, which is what really counts anyway.

Then it was back to LA for a short time. Once again I felt a sense of oddness about being back in LA. It’s like I don’t belong there anymore, but yet I have strong ties in friends/family/familiar scenes. Tom did like it quite a bit. We went shopping and had posh drinks and enjoyed lovely Santa Monica. It all felt a bit short, but I was ready to come ”home” to London.

And now Tom is officially living with me and that has been really good. It’s nice to have that feeling of being in a serious relationship again, knowing that you can come home and always have that person there to support you. He might even learn to rollerskate!

A peculiar turn of events regarding the knee

Well la ti da….I finally managed to finagle my way through the morass of the NHS and get back to the hospital to hear the results of my December MRI. Turns out that I have been unintentionally healing from a non-displaced tibial plateau fracture for the past three months. Oops on the NHS!

I am in two minds on the whole thing…

1) PRO: I am relieved that I do not need soft tissue surgery to fix a meniscus or ligament tear. Plus, I am cleared to go back to full derby, providing I ease into it a bit

2) CON: doing the normal hypochondriac shuffle on google, I read that this type of fracture usually results in a knee brace and no weight bearing during at least 2 months of healing time. Folks, I won a dance contest on December 21^st…there was definite weight bearing! So I am a bit paranoid that it didn’t get the benefit of a good diagnosis and healing that it should have had. The fracture clinic at UCH (which is admittedly run by one of the best sports ortho docs in London) didn’t seem that worried, and basically said I had the benefit of 3 months of healing, but I just wish I had known earlier, and had been able to treat it properly!

What have we learned?

• Will NEVER EVER play roller derby again without good private insurance, which I now have…no more waiting on the NHS!
• Bette Noir has joined the ranks of the “broken bone” club, and now qualifies for the ‘ol AC/DG crutch tattoo (which she will be banned from receiving by the lovely Mr Posh)

In which a change in our heroine's living situation arises.

And duh....why didn't I title all my blogs in the above manner to match the overall theme? From now on I will. :)

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So I am about to get a new flatmate. Yup, Tom (aka Mr Posh in the derby world) is moving in. He has been keen on living with me for some time, and he spends about 5 nights a week at my place as it is.

Finally my flatmates said “why doesn’t he just move in and pay some rent?”

:)

So when we get back from the states, Tom is moving over to Notting Hill…leaving southeast London behind. Eeek!

No seriously, I am cool with it, obviously. Just a bit nervous because I haven’t lived with a guy “officially” since my ex-husband – and this seems to put the final nail in the coffin of any vestiges I might be harbouring that I am still “single” or unencumbered by a relationship. I think that after the long struggle to accept divorce I had finally reached a state of enjoying singleness. And then of course I met Tom…who rather than being the kind of guy you have to pin down for some shred of commitment, is pretty much the poster man for “serious relationship”.

Anyway, I really didn’t want to leave my flat, as regular readers and friends will know that I LOVE where I live. This makes everything cool….cause now I get to live with Tom and stay in my hood. Notting Hill Carnival 2008 after party is definitely on this year!

So Courtney Goes To London moves to Phase…3? Yeah I guess Phase 3 sounds about right. Briefly proceeded by Holiday in the Sun 2008 Phase 1.

Exhibit A – where I will be sipping mai tais next Friday

Exhibit B – the house we will be staying in while in Todos Santos with my family

http://www.mexicovacations.com/mx/32731.html

LRG Update...

So the second London Rollergirls bout was absolutely amazing. It was so close after xmas that we were all a bit worried about turnout, and at one point were even thinking we would have about 50 people in the audience. HA….hardly. We were totally sold out about 2 days before the bout, and we even had ticket scalpers outside the venue on the day! You know you have arrived when someone is trying to tout your tickets.

I had a fantastic time announcing, and definitely would want to continue doing that if I ever had to retire (along with coaching). More importantly though, the gameplay was just super amazing. The difference in skating skill level between the first game and this one was truly great to see. We probably had about 10 bout rookies in the lineups and they held their own and showed potential that makes me happy for the future of LRG. And for the girls that were skating their second bout, well I may be biased, but many of them showed skills and gameply knowledge at the same level of gals that have skated more than one full season. The audience could really tell too. Our first bout had an audience that didn’t quite know what to do…but this time around people were jumping up and down and screaming their lungs out by the end of the bout. This was probably helped by the fact that the game pretty much went down to the last two jams, with Team Pink finally taking the win.

On an unfortunate note, we had a broken leg in the 1^st period from veteran skater, Ana Ki. She is sporting a titanium pole in her left lower leg as a souvenir of derby now.

And on to boot camp…

This past Saturday, LRG hosted the first ever European Roller Derby Boot Camp. We had skaters and refs from the across the UK leagues, and even a few from Stockholm, Sweden. It was pretty sweet. We had five hours of skating and training – covering the basic basics for newbies, and also hitting all the major elements of play for the more advanced girls. The session ended with a two hour pick-up scrimmage with everyone getting involved to their levels. Everyone had a fantastic time at the boot camp and the afterparty, and I really felt like for the first time here everyone understood what it was like to be a part of a roller derby community. We have the benefit at LRG of having lots of visiting gals from the states and other leagues, but many of the smaller start up leagues in the UK and Europe just don’t get that. So for them, I think it was very important to get a feel for it.