A turkey never voted for an early Christmas.

Well, it is the 01st December 2009, and therefore I can officially be all Christmassy, yay! I spent last night decorating 7 Christmas trees at Tower Bridge, and by golly do they look gosh-darn good. Well actually, I ran out of time so I have only decorated 6 trees, number seven tomorrow morning in the Bridge Master’s Dining Room… It looks tres classy, photos to follow I think. What other news…. well, obv I have fb-friended Nicki’s new beau so tht I can have a good nose (hello Rupert), he’s really quite a cutie!
Been having a busy time at work recently, run up to the festive season means busy busy events people all over the City. Got Sir Terry Wogan coming to lift the Bridge in the next couple of weeks, very excited!
Got my new iPhone also, it’s been fun working out how to sync it all up to my Mac but think I am nearly there – it’s pure genius. For example, if I save some contact details for somebody on my phone, address, email, etc, when I plug the phone into my computer it transfers it all into my address book in my Mac so I have back-up. How clever???
Getting very cold here now, even more so walking over that Bridge every day, seem biting. I have today off so being incredibly boring, ordered my Tesco shopping online which arrived at 11am ish, so now making a nice pasta dish for lunch, with a mince pie dessert, yummy!
Not much more to tell you, have been boring and working hard, but will be home on Christmas Eve – trying to duck out earlier than end-of-day so I can get the train home with CJ, John, Mark etc and have a few Christmas drinkies on train.
Love to you all xxxxx
PS – there’d better be a Christmas tree up when I get to the house…..!!!! xxx

Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa.

Matt Groening.

Hola family! So, since I last wrote to you, I have been v busy, as ever. Last weekend I saw some of you as I visited home, but the real reason I went home was to go up to CJ’s dad’s wedding in Lincolnshire. It was an awesome weekend, had a good giggle and it was a lovely day on the Saturday (except for the shocking weather). I have a few photos that I will facebook for those of you on it.

Yesterday my boss left, so a very manic day trying to hand everything over. Bit sad also, but we made up for it with copious drinkies in the pub after work…. I also spent my afternoon looking after the President of Marketing for Disney Studios in LA, awesome fun, and a very nice guy. His mother also came, and she happened to be the wife of the President of Disney Studios. Gave them a nice tour of the best building in London (yes you know where I am talking about) and then saw them off. This evening they will be at the switching on of the Christmas lights. Which brings me on nicely to….. yep, you heard, they’re switching on the Christmas lights in the big smoke tonight, woopwoop!!!!!!!! Officially means I can buy roasted chestnuts from the vendor on the corner, eat lots of mince pies, and listen to Christmas music until my ears bleed. Life doesn’t get better.

Christmas at the Bridge also looking good, we have Christmas storytelling sessions on December weekends with none other than Mr Charles Dickens. He has popped back from ye olden days to regale us with tales of his London, a few cheeky excerpts from ‘A Christmas Carol’, and perhaps, if you’re lucky, a carol or two to round all the activity off.  Fun much??? Have also got the Christmas trees on order from Elveden Forest, I will be spending my 30th November evening decorating 7, yep, you heard, 7 trees. It’s like a Christmas overdose, LOVE IT.

So folks, be home again on the 21st November weekend, CJ home too, and bringing my mate Chris, so get your drinking caps on, we will be hitting the town!

Love and Christmas cheer to you all xxxxxxxx

A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue.

William F. DeVault.

Ok, so I have been shockingly bad in keeping up with this blog so far, but will try to make up for it, especially after a rather funny email from my pa telling me off for not updating…. So, job is still going well, Tower Bridge is fun, weird things happening including boss leaving on 2nd November. As a result, all a bit up in the air, but I have been there for nearly five months so far and still enjoying. Trying to do some work at the moment with the old agency, Five by Five, so fingers crosse that gets signed off. I have also just been given the Monument to look after, which commemorates the Great Fire of London, and is where the tube station ‘Monument’ gets its name…

Have spoken with Nicki and she is doing well, having fun and is now in Wellington.

I have got my new tattoo, which is on my arm and says ‘enlacee dans les bras d’un poete’, which means ‘entwined in the arms of a poet’. It’s beautiful, and according to Lou, not as large as she thought it would be, so all good!!

I spent yesterday at another of City of London’s places, the CoL Cemetery in Manor Park. It is beautiful, I had a review meeting there all day, and then we got a tour. Saw where two of the Ripper victims were buried, and Bobby Moore. Also got to watch a cremation in the depths of the cemetery, pretty odd watching a body burn. Apparently the temperature in the furnaces reaches 850 degrees, and it takes around 90 minutes for a body to burn. The larger bones in the skeleton don’t break down, they just get very brittle, so at the end of the 90-odd minutes they scrape it all out and put it in something called a ‘cremulator’ (yes I didn’t think it was a real word either). This spins it all round with some metal balls, and the ashes fall through the holes in the machine (think mini tumble-dryer). The metal that is left at the end (including teeth, hip and knee joints, screws and coffin handles etc) is then gathered up, and the metal sold to make more things, such as screws etc. The money then gets donated to charity. All fascinating, although was glad I had lunch before I saw through the window of hte furnace!!!

So I am home now, having just packed. Off to Fareham town tomorrow after work for the night, then driving up to Lincolnshire with CJ and his bro for their dad’s wedding (how exciting?! I finally feel like a grown-up). Should be a good weekend, very much looking forward to meeting Pat’s other half Val too.

Not much other news I can remember right now, was supposed to go on a date this evening with a nice guy I met through work, but he has food poisoning. Hmmm….. Wait and see if that materialises into another date…!!

Been seriously getting into a new show called True Blood, and VVVVVV excited about the new ‘Twilight’ film out in about 3/4 weeks. Woop! Went to a funky cinema on Friday to watch the last Heath Ledger film with my mate Chris, then went to my friend Steph’s engagement party on the Saturday night in a place called the ‘Old School Yard’ in Borough. Was like a student union so the best thing I could’ve done was to get wasted on tequila. WhichI did. And the fine upstanding gentleman that CJ is managed to keep me standing up for the journey home. Yay! Felt like crap on Sunday but still managed to stomp down to Covent Garden in the afternoon to meet my friend Andy (an opera singer) and some of his ENO friends, who were  performing next door. All very theatrical dahlings! Went to see an Exhibition of photographs on Monday night with CJ – it was in Canning Town and was Lou Marshall (from Cams Hill) running it as it was her boyf exhibiting. Great to catch up.

Must go, telly to watch, will keep you updated with any more news, hopefully more regularly….. Mwah xxxx

“Most people are so busy knocking themselves out trying to do everything they think they should do, they never get around to what they want to do.”

Dale Carnegie.

Not so with moi, I have been very busy but have enjoyed every moment! In a nutshell, I have done the following:

 Seen Chris play in King’s Cross…. Been to the Absolut Ice Bar and Nobu…. Been out with KP to Livevibe…. Been on hols with Dad…… Been to see U2….. Hosted a dinner party in Crouch End with CJ….. Taken delivery of the Red Bull bike and equipment for the Tower Bridge Exhibition….  Worn my new Hunter wellies…. Seen the family…. All awesome things!!!! xxxxxx

Red Bull Great London Jump

Absence makes the heart grow fonder…

No idea.

So, D has just told me off as I have been soooo busy I haven’t posted since JUNE. C’est terrible! So here I am and I am going to do my month update as quickly as possible. So, major thing was the Great London Jump, Robbie Madison jumped over Tower Bridge on a motorcycle in the dead of night in mid-July. It was shown on Channel 5 a couple of weeks ago and can be seen on YouTube. I can’t post the link yet as on a restricted system… Will do later. Was awesome fun, and my part in it was to shadow the film crew and make sure they knew where to go and how to get there. Next, met Will Self who came with his son to raise the Bridge, he was lovely, very quiet, took lots of notes (as a journalist he writes for the Evening Standard and the Big Issue). I took a few photographs for his personal records and emailed them over to him the next day. He responded by sending me a signed copy of ‘The Book of Dave’, which I am reading at the moment (although my old scruffy copy, not my shiny new signed one).

Workwise all going v well, lots of events, lots of work to do, and lovely people there too. It is going to be a busy couple of years in the run up to the Olympics, lots being done on the Bridge, including the restoration. Found some guy on Twitter who calls himself Tower Bridge, and basically just tweets the Bridge lift times. Trying to get hold of him as think it will be great if we can promote some of our Exhibition and Events info on there too. BTW, my Twitter username is BrandCarrie if you want to follow me, although mostly personal chats, it does give an up-to-date view of the cool stuff I get to do at the time it is happening.

Now…. now it is the beginning of August, and I am sat in D’s motorhome in Devon, where it has been raining solidly for the three days I have been here…. Heading off the Umberleigh today and then down to Croyde Weds/Thurs/Fri to learn to surf, tres exciting!!!! Will be getting wet then anyway so don’t mind the shite weather.

Home Saturday morning (well, to Fareham), for a few drinkies avec whoever is about, and then back up to London.

More to come, this month is my flatmate KP’s 30th birthday, lots of celebrating to be done methinks, as well as work Chris’ 30th. Busy busy. Lou coming up next week with Kayleigh for some fun, and then my birthday beginning of September. Will promise to be better with the posting in future.

 

Lastly, but my no means leastly (is that a word?), congratulations to both Sarah and Becky, who finished their degrees this summer and both did very well. Sarah has since found out she has her PGCE Primary place at Southampton Uni from September, so fantastic news. Well done ladies, very proud!

Happy birthday to Katherine and Tom too.

 

Lots of love

BC xxx

Wowsers

Me.

Gosh where does the time go??? Feels like yesterday I last blogged… So, dinner with A’s lovely, although it did feel a little strange doing the family thing in London town!! Friday went out with Sarah and Bryony to Jewel in Covent Garden for one of Sarah’s friends birthdays, v good night, couple of hot boys about so nice nice! Stayed at Sarah’s in Wandsworth and went shopping in central Saturday. Was meant to be meeting Mad and Tom, Nicki’s mates, for a few beers in Shoreditch on Sat evening, but didn’t get my ass off the sofa so will have to catch up with them soon. Sunday I went with my friend Steph to the UK premiere of Ice Age 3 in Leicester Square, given to her by one of her media clients. It was 3D and so awesome!!! Sadly rang the kids up to brag that I was gonna get to see it before them. Hey ho, have promised to visit Hamley’s and send them something in lieu!

Last night had a big showcase event at the Bridge, around 120 guests which was lovely, if not a long night. Made the mistake of going drinking with a few collegues afterwards, got in at 2am. Been hanging all day, so was glad to get home and now on sofa eating Choc caramel biscuits and waiting for new series of ugly betty…

Event tomorrow night and then a wedding on Saturday so busy week.

CJ has tickets to Bruno at cinema next Tues so gonna take Weds of in lieu for this Sat and have an evening out Soho direction…

Have set up Nicki’s blog for her, and have joined Skype, although she needs to learn how to blog, and I need to learn to Skype before we can start communicating in the 21t century…

Booked hols with pa today, going to join him Devon way first week in August, and then coming home for weekend, so keep it free!!! Think it is the 8th Aug ish. Dad – is there somewhere I can learn to surf near where we’re going?!

Update me on your news, especially looking forward to hearing S&B degree results….

Love to all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Media: 99,99% of what happens is not on the news

Loesje. True, you know. Barney told me tonight (his ma works at Bank of England), that we came v v v close to being in serious serious trouble financially as a country one day  around four months ago. Lots of crisis talks for a very long 48 hours. Eek.

Oh. My. God. Forgot to update on THE coolest of news. I got to raise Tower Bridge yesterday, was by far the best thing I have done in my nearly 27 years so far… The scariest also, but well worth it!!! I got to stop the traffic, lift all the big bolts, close the gates to the public and to traffic, didn’t feel confident enough to make the announcement warning people though, proper person did that. All electronic of course now, no more steam power and massive levers, although the bridge lift itself is done by a joystick type thing. which I had to pull towards me to raise the bridge (I did of course ask what would happen if I let go. The answer was that the lift would stop, and not drop back down. Phew), and then push away to lower afterwards.

As I said, very cool, but as I was about to do it, police boat turned up and apparently they had had arning of a possible jumper, so they had everybody on standby, with rescue boats and the lot. Didn’t really help to ease my nerves I can tell you.

Got a very cool certificate and a handshake from the Senior Technical boss-man, so chuffed. Will scan certificate and put pic on blog asap. Yay me!

Night xx

I think that there was an element of tiredness with all the recalls.

Bruce Nudell – pantsquote but I really am tired, and struggling to recall my last week or so already….

So in a nutshell, as I haven’t blogged for a while… my news is this…

1) Started my new job on Monday, went really well, met lots of people and had a wicked time…. Incident on the bridge though, amusing if not a little scary… Some guy stripped off, running along the bridge screaming. Our security guy wrapped his jacket round him as it was cold, and the guy managed to push past him and run up to level 5 of the tower, climb out onto the balconies… Police everywhere, ambulance etc, as they thought he was a jumper. Luckily this time just a pissed up young guy. Funny in hindsight, but everybody naturally on edge as you can imagine!

2) Whole week went well work-wise (how’s that for alliteration?!), got my keys to the Bridge which was a pretty good feeling. Email address at work is name.surname@cityoflondon.gove.uk in case you need it, but pretty strictly monitored so no swearing please!!

3) Tuesday night got taken out by the guys from the Marketing and Events team, started at 5pm after work, got home at 12.15am so Wednesday was a bit of a write off… Wednesday night first event, all went smoothly. Thursday night met Lou and Nicki (bye bye N, boo!) in Leicester Square, great to see them but tube strike meant nightmare to get home. Friday night another event (lots of overtime thank you very much).

4) Weekend: Chilled out and had a lay in, then K and I made dinner and watched a movie whilst drinking Pimms. Lovely.

5) Sunday went down to Columbia Road flower market (v famous market where al the flower traders buy their stock for the week), we went at half twelve as open 8am – 2pm, so you get the flowers cheap cheap. Got some nice roses and lilies for the flat, fiver each so bargainiferous.

6) Monday came round again too quickly, work still awesome. Tuesday night went out with guys from work again after another event, got home at a similar hour to the previous week, so tough day today!! Spent the afternoon doing no thinking though, had to make up goody bags for an event next week.

7) Went out with Barney tonight, just got back. Went to uni with Barney, he works for a big broadcasting corporation. Been three years since we’ve actually caught up face to face so that was excellent. He took me to a lovely French run pub by the Ivy in Soho area, expensive (£11 for two 175 glasses of white wine), but very good. Had a couple and have just got tube and bus home. Awesome!

Tomorrow we have a Welsh Media Agency coming in to do some filming from 8.45am – 11am, so going in a little early to sort them out and give them access to the balconies. Dinner with A’s in the evening, venue yet to be decided but will be good to catch up. Need also to set Nicki’s blog up as will be far more entertaining than mine. Can’t wait!

So all good here…. No news form you guys… although did receive a lovely card from Auntie J and the Allens, thanks

Off to bed now all news caught up on. Love to all xx

“Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread. For recognition as well as cash; for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying… We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.”

Studs Turkel (what an awesome name!!)

So first day at work…. Very good thanks! Started at half nine, basically did the usual new job bits, got logged on to the email system, did lots of reading, asked lots of questions, met lots of people, did the tour. All good. The colleague I will be working with the most closely is unfortunately off to Bulgaria for a week on Wednesday, so he is trying to cram initial teaching into the next day and a half. So gonna be busy for a while.

On a great note, I have to arrange a bridge lift when I have been here a little while, and I will also get to go underground to the cool, not-seen-by-the-public parts. Am also filming with Nike on Thursday so will keep you updated on that one…

Not much to report this week, going for drinks with new colleagues tomorrow night after work, then doing events Weds and Fri nights, and having dinner with the girls (L&N) in London before Nicki flies (boohoo). So busy week. Speak on the weekend, off to make my salad for lunch tomorrow. Night xx