Staring at a frozen pig farm dreaming of the gold coast

For any readers of Lucas's blog you'll probably be getting a fair idea of the philosphising we are doing in order to stay sane and keep pushing ourselves to stick it out in London. We even looked at each other on the tube this morning with a twinkle of 'lets get the hell out of here', which quickly vanished as we were shoved further into the carriage so more people could squeeze in before the doors closed - beep beep beep beep, quick!

Ahh the difference between 8:06 and the 8:12.....

But despite our attempts to be positive about it all, sometimes I think you just need a really good moan to get it out and know that we're all in it together, then we can go about thinking of coping strategies. So tune out now if you're not interested in my moaning.....

I have got to say, working in Canberra was a dream compared to London. The sport, the fresh air - I have never felt more like a caged rat on speed (as opposed to the castrated rat from a few months ago - I have various rat-like demeanours) than I am at the moment. It's the combination of full-time work in an office with not a balde of grass in a mile. If I could get out at lunch time in the sun (possible even in the depths of Canberra winter) and chase a ball around like a deranged whippet - I mean Rupert - then I would be able to face the negativity towards Australians in this institution - or this country for the most part.

There has been an Ashes series which gave them an opportunity to gloat, and then recent Rugby losses - not to mention the World Cup - I almost felt sorry for the chaps here who still use the World Cup as an example of them beating Australia in something. But I would have thought that these seemingly parade-worthy victories would put an end to the jealousy and anti-aussie vibe. But it appears as though they are still exuberant when Australia lose to anyone, not just England. There is also the anti-aussie sentiment at work - various people throughout the organisation are more than willing to tell us to our faces that they don't think young Australians should be doing these jobs. The pressure which this is putting on our team is quite visible, a couple of the girls aren't able to cope and are considering resigning after recieving biting emails from older (but not more senior) staff around the country. In a twisted way it motivates me to work harder and show them that I can know everything they've learnt in 20 years over a couple of months, which shouldn't be too hard as they consider knowledge of English geography and history invaluable. Yeah great empire, 60 million people living in a shoe-box sized country - I wonder how that gene pool is going. Actually more than one person I've talked to has said 'there are so many people here who look the same'. There are certainly just a couple of physical characteristics that manifest themselves in the majority of the caucasian British.

My other recent experience of England was some travel around the North. The Northerners are supposed to be a friendly bunch, but from my experience (and some other peoples recent experiences up there) they are even worse than people in London, they will go out of their way to be rude, rather than just ignoring you like in London.

Phew, almost went off on a flying headbutt at the nearest englishman...

On the upside - we are moving to a street just of Portobello Road this weekend, joined a gym, going to start doing indoor rock climbing, maybe go back to Salsa, buy a football, play mixed netball with the girls from work, maybe find a basketball court, join an AFL team in the new year (there is one in Hammersmith!), and spend most of January in the Alps speeding down a mountain with my heart in my mouth, not to mention the 8 Christmas parties over the next two or three weeks. So all in all it isn't that bad. Just needed a good whinge - I am half English anyway....