Jon's one year anniversary

Can any of you believe he's been here a year already?! And what a year it's been. It's flown by hasn't it? He seems to be settled in and enjoying his time here. And his accent has got decidedly dodgy!!!

It was a pretty low key celebration, I'm afraid I didn't do right by Jon and didn't get organised enough to plan anything great. But the actual day (16th April for those of you with a head for dates, unlike I, who had to look it up!) was Easter Sunday this year so we happened to have a nice four day weekend. We drove down to Hastings on the coast to visit our friend Nik who has just bought a flat down there. The weather was uncooperative so some of our plans were rained out but we had fun just hanging out with Nik and having him show us around the area. This included Old Town Hastings (Most memorable sight? A house shaped like a wedge of cheese, I kid you not! It is even marked 'the piece of cheese cottage' in case you were at all confused.) and the village of Rye. One of the highlights of Rye was a visit to a cute old fashioned sweetshop, a place with one counter, a friendly sweetie-man and shelves lined with row upon row of jars filled with sweets. It was lovely and nostalgic for me but I was disappointed to find you can no longer buy sweets by the quarter, but now by a metric 100g - just seems wrong somehow!

Anyway, I digress! After our sugar high and crash, we said goodbye to our very lovely host and headed back to London on the Sunday. We stopped at a pub for lunch on the way back, the John's Cross Inn near a tiny hamlet, the name of which escapes me now. We seem to be touring the UK by pubs! Which reminds me, I forgot to mention the bizarre sight in one of the pubs in Old Hastings, two mummified cats and a rat in a glass box, some legend about a witch! You'll have to ask Jon or Nik for the full story, I was too grossed out yet mesmerised to stop staring at it and pay attention!! Anyway, we had a nice Sunday lunch at this little pub on the road, a nice traditional old English pub which boasts the smallest dining room in the UK, a very low ceiling which Jon couldn't stand up straight under, and a very nice friendly landlord.




The real celebration was a couple of days later, at Vertigo 42, with two of Jon's flatmates, Steven and Justin. Vertigo 42, for those of you who don't know it, is a Champagne bar at the top of the old Natwest Tower, a tall and slightly strange structure in the middle of the City. It's on the 42nd floor and offers great views of London. Extravagant, and most definitely a special occasion place, we were looking for an excuse to go there! It was great, we sipped Champagne and cocktails and watched the sunset over London. Very appropriate for the occasion no?



And all the best to Jon for the year to come in London!