So good to be back in London

Patrick UK Life

My only question is: How long will this last? Since returning from Copenhagen I’ve been working a project that’s now wrapping up that’s been (finally) based in London. By my rough calculations, the last real project I’d had in London was probably about two years ago. This, most recent one, was based in Tower Hill so I count myself lucky being able to stroll to work and I count myself even luckier that the weather has been so wonderful.

St Marys Axe

St Mary’s Axe is one of the many wonderful landmarks I get to walk by every day on the way to work. I’m appreciating every single moment of it whilst it lasts. My only worry is really about how soon will be my next project out of London.

London Open House Again

Patrick Entertainment, Travel, UK Life

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since London Open House was on. Every year, different buildings around London open up their doors to welcome the public with most of them being free. Some are worth applying in advance for, ushering limited numbers of people around, whilst others you can only turn up on the day, and practice your British queuing skills with all the other people.

Coin Street Builders

This year, the whole weekend was planned out but I’ll share some of the highlights with you and I visited far too many sites worth mentioning. Saturday’s highlight was the OXO tower, one that you could only turn up on the day to book a tour given each hour. With only 18 people allowed each hour, it was definitely worth waiting the hour before the first tour began.

The X in OXO

The Coin Street Community Builders, responsible for the entire site were kind enough to at least collect the names and contact details for the huge volume of people they ended up turning away. The start of the tour begins on the ground level where you collect your hard hat and they give you instructions about how things to watch out for and the plan for the hour. We’re instructed to take the lift to top, where the Harvey Nichols Restaurant sits before we duck into a small door to take the, normally, restricted access door to an even smaller set of stairs where it’s obvious the hard hats are needed.

St Pauls from the OXO Tower

We stopped at the various different floors on the way up, stopping at each O-X-O before emerging at the top where you get an amazing view of the surrounding area. We were so high that we towered over the rest of the diners enjoying their river front views (pictured below).

River view from OXO

Day 2 started with another queuing experience at the Horse Guards near Buckingham Palace. We waited much longer than we did at pretty much any other venue but it was definitely worth the wait with a great story lead by one of the members of the First Guard walking us through the different rooms.

Horse Guard

I also really enjoyed your time visiting City Hall, namely because for the time invested queueing to get through security granted you access to some great views, a wonderful building to walk through without feeling overly crammed or rushed. Below is the cool staircases you got to walk down at the end of the tour.

City Hall

Other places we visited included Royal Albert Hall, BFI Imax, the Channel Four building, and the Treasury Building.

Returning from Copenhagen

Patrick Travel, UK Life

I’m finally back in London after commuting back and forth from Copenhagen on a weekly basis. Doing a weekly intercontinental commute certainly eats up more of your free time, hence the lack of blogging for some time. Getting up at 4:30am every Monday to still arrive at the client by around 10am doesn’t really leave you with a lot of energy on a Monday.

I certainly did appreciate that we were working in Copenhagen at least. It’s a very liveable city, and if it weren’t for the draw of the bigger city like London, I would even consider moving there at some point. There are many great things about the city including:

  • Wonderfully separate bike lanes for cyclists
  • A work life balance that encourages a healthy and active lifestyle, and therefore very healthy and active people
  • Amazing quality food in restaurants (though service is a bit lack lustre)
  • The city has lots to discover yet is all very accessible (made even more by lots of public transport and the bike lanes)

      • I am, however, certainly glad to be back and looking forward to rebuilding a weekly routine, or least participating in all the wonderful things London has to offer during the week.

John Butler at the Union Chapel

Patrick Music, UK Life

A couple of weeks ago, I ended up at Islington’s wonderful Union Chapel, to see John Butler perform. It’s a wicked venue and with most of the pews filled on all sides, I have no reason to doubt it was a sold out show.

John Butler

It was a great way to unwind after getting back from the weekly overseas commute and he played an awesome show for all. There’s some great photos of the gig on Flickr including the one above. He played a lot of songs from old albums, a few new songs and even dedicated a Michael Jackson cover song the king of pop.

Summary

Patrick UK Life

The last couple of weeks have been busy including spending the weekdays in Copenhagen for work. Weekends have been pretty busy as well including two weekend’s ago an engagement picnic, dinner with a friend my sister has known since she was in primary school and then a nice brunch in the East End of London, Albion.

The week is pretty much filled with a couple of runs around Copenhagen (the lakes are really nice and we discovered some fields on the other side of the canal), some great dinners and, of course, plenty of sushi these days. This weekend, we’re having a work Away Day which are always great fun. It’s a time to socialise and catch up with everyone that you might not see all the time and Sunday will be pretty much chillin’ before starting another week overseas.

Brighton

Patrick Travel, UK Life

As I mentioned in my previous post, I managed to make it down to Brighton for the first time since getting to the UK (I know, I know!) on the Bank Holiday weekend. Getting there seemed to be a bit of an effort. My plan was to take a train directly from my closest tube, Farringdon but I totally forgot that they close it on weekends for the Cross Rail project. I ended up walking down in London Bridge to catch one but there was a bit of a stuff up and instead of being a fast train to Brighton, we had to get on a slow train that stopped almost everywhere on the way to Croyden before having to change again for the Brighton train.

nia

By the time I got to Brighton I was pretty famished so headed for one of the many cafes I’d noted down if I happened to be in the area. I ended up at Nia’s, a large bright cafe full of wooden tables and a small handful outside in the sun. Of course all of those were occupied so I took a seat where I could absorb the bustling atmosphere behind the counter, grab one of the many local magazines they had and indulge in a very tasty eggs benedict for brunch. Awesome value too with a flat white for about £11 including service. I’d definitely come back again.

northlanes

After breakfast, I wandered the North Lanes for a bit. It had a very colourful and alternative scene with lots of tiny little shops, plenty of cafes and a big variety of just interesting people around. I particularly liked a lot of the painted buildings that was done one of the streets.

northlanes2

Very colour and really detailed. I definitely preferred this much more than “The Lanes” on the other side of Brighton, even more full of tourists and plenty of stores that looked like high street ones.

brightonbeach

Of course, you can’t really visit Brighton without visiting the beach and it was definitely crowded the day I went down. I took it from the three people that were swimming (out of the 1000+) that the water wasn’t exactly inviting. I took their cue and didn’t even try to go down, instead simply walking up and down the beach side walkway and down to the cheesy Brighton Pier. I even wandered up into some of the residential parts of Brighton (the Fiveways) where they were having some artist open house exhibitions before heading back to London.

I really enjoyed the vibe and the atmosphere of Brighton. It probably helped they had great weather. It seemed like a very nice part of England and I can understand why people enjoy living there and commuting to London instead.

Summary

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Well the last few weeks have been especially busy, starting a new project in Copenhagen, coming back for a short week to head to Brighton for the very first time on a sunny bank holiday weekend. I then went out to Sardinia again on a fairly remote part of the island with beautiful beaches and completely sunny days for a conference before returning only to head out to Copenhagen again.

Sardinia

Life probably will be busy for the next several weeks, so apologies in advance for the slow updates.