Bout time eh?

After much anticipation, my next post is here! Ha! Yeah okay because people have been screaming at me to hear about the life of an unemployed person in London. . .

. . . Gosh how depressing is that? It's true, yes, I'm still unemployed, and yes, I do have somewhere dire moments of down time, but that's to be expected. On the whole, life is kinda grand. Seriously, I live in one of the most animated cities on the planet, what could be so bad?

Indeed the job search has been much more harder than I anticipated. I've been here a month and three days now and with three interviews under my belt and something like 180 job applications lodged, the odds aren't in my favour. However, the feed back I have been getting has been somehow twistedly positive. I'm over qualified. I've made shortlists, but not shortlists of shortlists. So clearly I am employable. For the right role. Which to date hasn't reared it's taunting head.

So to occupy myself in all this free time I have (well outside of applications which believe it or not takes up a big chunk of my day) I've been wandering the city. I've been to see We Will Rock You again (friggin awesome, if not a little different) and been duped by the movie DUPLICiTY. Walked the gardens of St. James Park, Hyde Park, Embankment Gardens and though not a garden, wandered along the Thames Path. Which I might add had me run into filming for a movie called Forget Me Not. The actress looked somewhat familiar to me, but I cannot place her name. I guess we'll see when the movie comes out.

I've had good times with people. We had a surprise celebration party for Heather who has just passed exams and earned her Blue Badge here in London. Which I might add she gets presented with today. I mingled with a great group of kids for an afternoon of fun. I ran into a face from high school which was something nice and unexpected, a great way to spend three hours on a relaxing day. Visited a few local pubs, including one for a trivia night which we won (with little help from me I might add!).

Been to some remarkable places I missed on my previous visits like the Portobello Road Markets on a Saturday morning (utter chaos I might add!), wandered the rooms of The National Gallery, visited the BFI building on the Thames and even took a trip out to Old Street to see Jamie Oliver's famous Fifteen eatery. Needless to say on my current budget I could not eat there, but I certainly plan to in the future :-)

Overall its lots of little things that have occupied my time. The weekend before the G20 summit there was a PPF march (Put People First) which found me sitting on the base of Nelson's Column (that's somewhat crude in some minds no doubt) for two hours watching the march go by and look enviously at other photographers cameras. Sometimes it takes being somewhere quite randomly to find something to amuse you. I have to admit, that's one of the things I love about London. Somewhere, somehow, there is always something happening.

*sighs* Jeff Dunham is in London tonight . . .