I had my first true London experience of the tube in peak hour. I left work fairly promptly so I got to the tube station before 6 PM. The first train pulled up and it was packed with people in suits. Still, two or three hardy souls beside me managed forced their way in.

‘I’ll just wait for the next one,’ I thought. I was in no hurry — I had a free newspaper to read.

A minute later, the next train arrived and unbelievably, it was even fuller than the last one. Again, I didn’t try to get in. I didn’t have the heart to compete with the other city commuters, so desperate to go home that they were running up and down the platform looking for an entry point, their suitcases and rolling luggages flying alongside them.

‘It’s going to be like this until 7 o’clock, isn’t it?’ I realised. Up the tube line were two major stations. Their larger passenger catchment meant that the carriages would no doubt be filled before a train got to my little station. Although it meant a ten minute walk in the wrong direction, I began thinking I’d have better luck getting on at one of those bigger stations upstream.

The next train arrived two minutes later. What a relief! It was only three-quarters full so I folded myself in, along with the large backlog of bypassed commuters from my platform. This one train managed to clear almost the entire queue.

When our train arrived at the next tube station, I saw a waiting crowd as big as the one that had been at my station. There was no way anyone could get on. It was the same story at the next station too.

‘Don’t worry, people. The backlog is being cleared one station at a time — your platform is next.’

This prompted a mental image of a common dance figure from traditional English or ceilidh dancing. You’re standing in a line and the person at the other end pivots and starts skipping down towards you. As he or she moves, the next person peels off and follows so that you watch a string of people skip past. You know that any second now, you too will be skipping past the spot on which you are now standing.

London is famous for its red double decker buses and its Underground of Tube trains. It’s an excellent system, despite how Londoners like to moan about it. True, tube trains do seem to break down a lot and buses do get stuck in traffic jams. But normally, getting from point to point in London is pain free.

If you have an Oyster card, a single trip from zone 1 to zone 2 during peak time costs £2 (AU$4.60). That’s one trip — not a two hour pass, not a return. If I took the tube to and from work, it’d cost me $9.20 every day. A monthly ticket is £89 (AU$207).

On the other hand, a bus trip at any time of the day and through any zone costs £0.90 (AU$2.05). It takes me about fifteen minutes extra to get to work (50 minutes door-to-door, compared to 35 minutes). I can handle that. I haven’t yet had any luck with buses coming home during peak hour. Buses get stuck in traffic jams.

The pattern I’ve settled into is to take the bus to work in the morning and the tube back home in the evening. I get off one stop early so that I limit my travel to Zone 1. A zone 1 trip costs £1.50 (AU$3.45) instead of £2. I walk about 15 minutes to get home from Zone 1, instead of 8 minutes from my local zone 2 station.

I guess I could travel to work from a zone 1 station as well. Therefore, my daily bus adventures are only saving me £0.60 (AU$1.40) a day. Darn! I thought I was saving more than that. I’m saving about £12 (AU$28) a month — that’s enough for one dinner out in town.

This is cute.

Link to YouTube video — Babies can spot the good, the bad and the ugly

It was 5:30 PM on Friday and I was packing up.

‘Joan, are you going to the after-work thing?’ my team mates asked. There’s an office party for our group every month.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to a play. My housemate Richard is performing in it.’

‘Really? What’s the play called?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It’s something to do with knights, some romance… I saw a flyer for it at home… There was a half-naked guy on it.’

‘Well, well, well…’ they tittered.

‘It can’t be that bad,’ I assured them, ‘because we’re taking our six year old housemate, too.’

I took the tube home and by 7 PM, Damian, Andrea, Neo and I were ready for the theatre.

It was a short fifteen minute walk to the ticket office. Damian, up first, told the ticket man, ‘Two adults and one child, please.’

The ticket man’s eyes widened momentarily. After a long pause, he leaned in towards Damian and said, ‘I have to warn you, there are sex scenes in the play.’

Damian glanced at Neo. ‘What kind of scenes?’ he asked the ticket man.

The man murmured something that I didn’t hear.

Damian looked surprised. ‘They don’t actually do that on stage, right?’

‘Oh no,’ the man said. ‘It’s simulated. But the actors, they’re quite good actually. It doesn’t go for too long. You could just cover up the child’s eyes. It’s clear when it’s about to happen.’

‘Not to worry, then. After all, Neo saw Die Hard 4 last week,’ Damian decided. ‘And he wants to see his friend Richard in the play.’

‘That’ll be £26, then.’

Oblivious, Neo had already run halfway up the stairs to the theatre bar.

After the last two episodes, we’ve made it through some Aussie bush and are now at the paddocks.

Here is the general vista for the next two kilometres: paddocks on the left, bush on the right.

I was here on a work day. There was a large group of walkers here too. I know why I wasn’t at work, I wonder what their excuse was?

These paddocks aren’t the pastoral paradise that much of England is. The paddocks on our left are owned by Boral and just beyond the paddocks, the company is carving out the hills to make bricks or something. I don’t have a photo of the mine but here are some electricty pylons in the middle of the field.

In the same field, animals graze. As promised, here are horses.

The Melbourne Spring Carnival this year was threatened by EI — not emotional intelligence, but rather, equine influenza. I don’t really know what the drama was. The horse gets a cold, right? Doesn’t it get better? Anyway, the Victorian gambling industry was on the verge of disaster but luckily, signs like this one helped save the day.

Look! Baby horse! Isn’t it cute? Cuuuuuute… Actually, I’m not big into horses but lots of little girls are. In fact, I don’t really like animals much in general. I like them in a theoretical way. I want them to exist and I feel bad about extinction. But I don’t like to pat them. Well, maybe pandas, I like pandas.

More horsies.

Sometimes, there is water in this channel. It doesn’t happen so much now, I think. The Victorian drought has been going on for almost ten years now.

This is typical Australian grass, sparse, dry and yellowish. When I first visited England, I remember being on the bus from the airport to Damjan’s house. As I watched the lush landscape go by, I felt anxious. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘They’re wasting so much water! Look at all the green grass!’

Australian flora (and fauna) is well-adapted for the dryness. You can recognise European trees because their leaves are fat and round. Such leaves are a liability in Australia! The big surface area means that all the water is sucked right out. Australia trees have thin leaves with less surface area for evaporation. Leaves also droop down to reduce exposure to sunlight. Aren’t they clever?

We are now approaching the park, which will be our final blog stop. This sign is at the park entrance. You know you’re in Australia when you see a sign that says: welcome to the park; shared pedestrian and bike path; dogs welcome; pick up your dog’s poop; beware of snakes.

Here is another sign with the same warning. However, we also have a new message here. What’s that third symbol mean? Can you guess? I’ll show you what it is in the next installment.

There will be a proper photo of me in the next installment. In the mean time, here is a preview!

After the trauma of my last houseshare interview, I was obviously in danger of accepting an offer from any strangers who smiled at me and liked Chinese food. Luckily, in my vulnerable state, no bad decisions were made.

Forty-five minutes late, I ran to the next house interview and met Damian and Andrea from New Zealand, their six year old boy, Neo, and Richard, an Englishman who works as a pirate at Madame Tussauds.

They had put up their ad on Gumtree only that morning and I was the sixth person to visit that day. They seemed easy-going, and sympathetically expressed horror at the idea of anyone banning garlic and onion in the house. Other goodness: they laughed at my jokes and have every season of House on DVD.

‘You know I like cooking,’ I said. ‘The other thing is that I really like is dancing.’

Andrea perked up. ‘What kind of dancing?’

‘My favourite is swing dancing.’

‘What kind of swing dancing?’

‘Well, do you know lindy hop?’

Andrea clapped excitedly. ‘I do lindy hop too!’

At that point, I thought, ‘In the bag!’

We talked for a bit longer, then it was time to go. Damian said, ‘You’re the last one we were waiting for before we made a decision. We’ll all have a chat between us now and I’ll call you to let you know what we decide.’

I left the house, thoughtful and tired. It was an eight minute walk to the tube station, then maybe another twenty-five minutes before I could get back to my temporary apartment to make dinner. Then my mobile phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Joan? It’s Damian. Have you ever seen X-Factor? Well, it was like that. We took a vote and you’re in. Are you interested?’

‘That’s great! Definitely. I’m really pleased.’

‘Can you come back during the week some time to pick up the keys? I guess you’ll move in on the weekend…’

‘Actually, I’m still near your house. You guys were just too quick on the voting. I can come back now if that’s convenient.’

Five minutes later, I was back at my new home. They gave me the key and I stayed to celebrate with a glass of wine and a home-cooked dinner, which definitely involved garlic!

I’ve been here for two weeks now and have finally gotten my room mostly organised. Here are the first photos. I will eventually rejig things so that the desk isn’t in such an awkward position.

Here’s the widest view I can get with my camera.

I bought the desk online and waited all last Saturday for the company to deliver it. When they didn’t come, I was pretty peeved. The desk arrived on Monday. Luckily, Damian was as sick as a dog that day so was home to pick it up. I spent Monday night, happily wearing my engineer’s hat, screwing things together and twirling my allen key. Now that I have a desk, I am more inclined to be on the internet. Hopefully I will blog more regularly now.

The curtains are quite flimsy and there is a street light outside my window. Orange light filters through, making it tricky to get to sleep. Damjan has given me one of those eye-cover things you got on aeroplanes (what are they called?) and that’s worked well — easier than buying new curtains!

I needed more shelf space but don’t have much room for it. Along with my desk, I ordered a set of seagrass baskets and have stacked them to make a reconfigurable shelf space. I’m really pleased at how they’ve turned out.

The sword in the wardrobe! Whoever can pull it out is the rightful king of England.