The travels of Tim and Megan: October 2008

Fans,

The weekend of the 20th-21st September finally brought some blue sky and sunshine to London town, so we were determined to get out and enjoy it. On Saturday we made our way to Oakwood in the far north of London so that Megan could try on a couple of dozen bridesmaid dresses for Anna's wedding in February. We seem to have settled on a dress now, so good news!

On the Sunday we ventured out to Richmond Park (and we found it this time!) in south-west London. It was a beautiful warm sunny day and we really enjoyed walking through the park. Richmond Park is massive. We walked for over an hour and basically covered one corner of it. We didn't see any deer, but we did see a lot of dogs chasing sticks and swimming in the pond. After our walk we stopped in at Richmond village for lunch and a beer at one of the cosy little pubs. Both the park and the village are very pretty and we will definitely be back!

On Tuesday 23 September, we went to Emirates Stadium to see Arsenal play Sheffield United in the 3rd round of the Carling Cup knock-out competition. Arsenal has traditionally used this competition to blood young players and this game was no different as Arsenal fielded its youngest ever side, with an average age of just 19, including 16 year old English talent Jack Wilshere. We were a little nervous as we had encouraged quite a few people to come along to see their first ever live football game and the first team was not even playing. However the nerves were soon gone as the Arsenal kids tore Sheffield to pieces, winning 6-0! New Mexican striker Carlos Vela (19) scored a brilliant hat-trick, Nicklas Bendtner (20) scored two and Jack Wilshere became the youngest ever scorer for Arsenal with his goal. It was probably the best game we have been to so far!

On Friday 26 September, we met up with Libby and Ben for a few drinks and some dinner in Chinatown before going to see Scottish comedian "Danny Bhoy" at the Soho Theatre. We had seen him before in Auckland and we have a DVD of one of his shows in Sydney. He is very funny, although a few of his jokes had been recycled from his DVD. It was a small theatre, which meant we were close to the action. One ridiculously drunk guy tried to heckle Danny but got well and truly shot down. Danny reminded him that a key ingredient of heckling was being capable of forming words, which the guy could not, and then said that there was a gap of around 3 and half hours from the time work finished until the beginning of the show and that this guy had clearly spent every second of that time drinking...nice.

Saturday was another bright sunny day in London and we decided to check out the Museum of London - Tim's mum had visited the museum while she was in London and recommended it. It was really good - definitely worth a look - they have exhibitions on the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Plague.

On Saturday afternoon we returned to our favourite place in London (Emirates Stadium) to see Arsenal's first team play premier league newcomers Hull City. Sadly it was one of those days where Arsenal looked flat and lethargic, wasting at least half a dozen great scoring chances, and they suffered a shock 2-1 defeat. We were not happy Gooners. Perhaps we should have fielded the kids again! To make things worse, Tim was struck down with a severe case of man flu - not cool.

On Tuesday 30 September, Tim made it three visits to the Emirates in eight days, to watch his first ever Champions League match. Arsenal played FC Porto, the Portuguese league champions and recent winners of the Champions League - a very useful side. But Arsenal bounced back after the weekend's loss and hammered Porto 4-0. It was a much better performance and obviously the crowd were a lot more vocal.

Finally, there was excellent news last week as Tim's HSMP visa application finally got approved by the UK agency...it took only four months!!! Tim is heading back to New Zealand shortly to get entry clearance for the visa. Fun times!