The Big First Day

Monday

The only set in stone plan I had was meeting my (soon to be) new colleagues from Rushes at 6pm for a night out drinking. I figured I would make the most of the rest of the day and had planned to venture in to Central early, work out my commute journey times and route on the tubes, and then spend some time finding some pretty parks, exploring, maybe visiting a few free museums and the like... This all got scrapped the moment I woke up and noticed it was raining... sod exploring in the rain... that would take the fun out of the whole experience.

Instead I lazed in bed with Ellie all morning and the early part of the afternoon. A much better way to start the day than wandering around getting soaked! By 4ish we had gotten up and ventured out to the shops, had had some lunch, and it seemed like the rain was letting up so I walked Ellie to her station and began my (rain delayed) adventure in to London! It quickly came to a grinding halt, my tube got one station before being stopped due to some form of accident or repairs further down the line... Time to make use of my "Tube Map App" and plan a new route...

My route took me to Baker Street tube station, somewhere I'm going to have to go back to for a proper explore, but for now I thought the decoration of the platforms was pretty sweet! The dots the picture is made up of are actually really tiny versions of the same picture as well - thought that was pretty cool!

After leaving the tube and re-surfacing at Piccadilly I wandered vaguely towards Soho to get my bearings and then aimed for Covent Garden, this was where I was to be meeting my colleagues later and also where I knew I'd find some entertainment to watch. On my wandering I passed this road... I seem to be passing places daily that remind me of Folkestone based local band members!

 

I then stumbled across Forbidden Planet, the geek inside me didn't take long to convince me to go look around. Soooooooo many cool toys, complete with a whole section of WWE toys, authentic Harry Potter wands, a MASSIVE range of books and comics and also a history of Dr Who toys! I will be back there many times over the coming months!

After getting my geek on I headed back out and found my way in to Covent Garden. I've always loved this part of London, so many cool shops and the street entertainers are always fun to watch. The first guy I came across was doing a magic act and although the 20 minutes I saw only actually comprised of one cup and ball routine his act was so quick and witty that it didn't matter that there was virtually no magic. The rest of the acts I could find around were mostly circus style; tight rope walkers and juggling, some really good, others not so much!

One main feature of Covent Garden at the moment (and a lot of the rest of London it seems) is the Egg Hunt - 210 individually designed and hand made eggs have been put all round London with the greatest concentration being here.

 

The one covered in chickens is most definitely my favorite! Although the silhouetted animals was pretty cool too, and the only one I could find featuring a giraffe... (for those that dont know, my girlfriend Ellie is (almost worryingly) crazy about Giraffe's!)

 

6pm finally rolled around and I headed to The Maple Leaf for drinks with the Rushes Runners! Despite the high price tag per pint the Maple Leaf was a really nice pub, made even better by Monday night being "Chicken Wing Night" - 20 wings with your choice of sauce for just £6.... Boom! Dinner sorted!

The chicken wing offer was used and abused by the lot of us, with our table eating over 120 wings in total. Topping the table however was our youngest member, Elliot, who tackled 40 on his own...

He only managed 39, one was dumped in to a pint of Guinness by Chris (far left on this picture) as punishment for one of Elliot's bad jokes... it wasn't wasted though, Paul (in the red hat at the back right) fished it out and ate it... Elliot finished the Guinness...

Here we see the mighty chicken wing warrior finishing the final two... we're considering getting a statue made in his likeness but probably wont bother!

For those that hadn't worked it out from the name, The Maple Leaf is a Canadian pub, staffed exclusively by Canadians and covered from back to front in Canada themed rubbish... the best of which was this stuffed bear which Paul and James took a liking too.

We finished up at the pub around 11ish, and I was home and in bed by midnight. The night was a really nice welcome to the company, although the chicken left my guts a little on the iffy side....

Tuesday

First day on the job! Weeeah! I wish I had loads to report on about how exciting today was and how exhilarating it is to be working in the busy media hub that is Soho, but, truth be told, the job of a runner isn't all that glamorous! I dare say that soon enough there will be times where some really interesting stuff happens, but for now the most interesting thing that happened was that I bought £145 worth of fresh sushi for some other people to eat!

My day consisted mainly of getting paperwork filled out and signed to ensure that I get paid, making a few cups of coffee and tea, getting the previously mentioned sushi from a very nice looking restaurant called Kyoto and doing a shed load of washing up cos our dish-washer had packed in!

Over the next few weeks I will be aiming to get myself in some training on Smoke, Resolve, Flame, basically anything I can get time on! But for now I need to get used to filling out petty cash forms and ending the day with achy legs! Still wouldn't trade my situation though... the future is looking too interesting!