Humo & Kaz take on the World: May 2006

Four days later....and Dani's in hospital!

Poor Dani at the Paddington hospital after having her apendix removed.

Gladstone Park..Willesden Green

Dani and Humo decided to head down to the park on one of the rare sunny evenings in London for a Strongbow and Dorrito picnic..these are a couple of pics. The park is about 150m from our house.

Canary Wharf..Jane's work

Canary Wharf station..here you go mum, this is where I come to every morning

The building on the left is my old work, Northern Trust. I'm standing in the same spot as before

Claire & I went out for dinner and decided to take a terrible photo in the middle of Canary Wharf buildings

My current work, Credit Suisse. FYI, this company is huge!! 63,000 employees world wide. This office isn't the biggest but you'll see it is huge and the person who designed it, also designed the Louvre in Paris!

Credit Suisse building at night from the other side

A Grand Farewell to Pokey...miss you already!

Round 1
House party Friday night at Pokey's house in Southfields. What a night! In case you can't tell it was dress up..with the theme Vilians and Superheros

Ben was the grimreeper, Pokey as Poison Ivy and Rohan, clearly as Scooby Doo

Start of the night..Kaz=Alex/Lucy Lu, Dani= Natalie/Cameron Diaz, Jane=Dylan/Drew Barrymore

Us with Pokey

The backyard...random shot

Lucas as someone from Clockwork Orange & Dela as Mario

Us as Charlie's Angels

Pokey & Pia as Lara Croft

Humo & Erin

The sun started to come up..5 or 6am on Saturday morning..no bed for the weak hearted. Rohan, Kaz, Serge & Humo

A goss session in Pokey's room

Round 2
Sunday Session at Red Backs..
Becks, Pia & Pokes

The whole gang... Back: Rohan, Dela. Middle: Humo, Jo, Pokey, Pia, Kai. Front: Becks, Kaz & Dani

Round 3
Dinner and drinks at Fire & Stone Covent Garden...and then she was gone...

Humo's horror trip home on the tube....

I was just going about a normal day..I jumped on the tube at 5.45pm all excited to get home and see Sarah Softball. Normally I would pull into Willesden Green station around 6.20pm and then get home round half past...but this was not to be.
It was 6.10pm and we had just gone through Baker street when the train came to a sudden hault. I wasn't worried cause this seemed to happen all the time so I just continued to read my book, glad that I had a seat unlike half of the passengers on the carriage. The train driver got over the announcer, "Sorry ladies and gentlemen, I'd been instructed to bring the train to a quick stop as there is someone going for a joy ride on the back of the train." As I was sitting in the last carriage on the last seat I got a bit of a fright to think that in this dark tunnel there was a man hanging on to the otherside of the wall I was next to. So they powered the train down, the air went off, the heat increased rapidly and the lighting was dimmed a little. Needless to say the book I was reading, coincidently a bit of a Thriller went straight back into my bag!
Next thing the driver is telling us that he's not sure how long this will take, as guards from the previous station were making their way down the tracks to find this person. Good to be let in on the loop, but scary at the same time. Of course, this makes your mind wonder too, any noise and banging I heard from the other side of the train wall I just kept thinking..oh no they've got a bomb and it's all over. With no phone reception in the tunnel I couldn't even text anyone..nor could I tell the others wwere I was and I knew Karen would know somethings wrong as she would have been due to jump on a train behind me at around 6.10pm and she would have found them all closed.
Anyways, everyone is fairly quiet not knowing what to do. We had been there about 15-20 minutes, when all of a sudden the girl opposite me gasped and pointed out the window. In a panic, myself and the rest of the train turned around to find a black man sneaking he's way alongside the train..If you've been in the tube, you'll know that there isn't much space between the train and walls, so here's this guys almost pressed on the window right behind me. A couple of minutes pass and he's making he's way along when someone said.."we have to tell the guard!" So everyone looks around to find the emergency handle, and what do you know, it's right next to me!! So everyone's looking at me saying well I'm not pulling it, i'm looking back about to say well I don't really want to, when someone just said as if we were all in high school, "well your the closest!" So ok, I got up and pulled the emergency alarm. It sent an alarm echoing throughout the train and tunnel...
About 5 minutes later...although it felt like 15... the guard finally comes over the speaker. "Someone's pulled the alarm what's going on back there..." As I had a cold and therefore husky voice I thought well I'm not even going to try and say anything...and there was no way any male on the train was going to contribute at all so finally a girl next to me piped up and said, "we just saw the man making he's way up beside the train." The train driver was a little confused and took at moment in which time the man was somehow able to get up between the carriages (and for some reason someone had let him in the emergency between carriages door!!!!) and walk down the train stopping to the end, which meant he was standing right in front of me. Everyone stared as this man with layers of clothing, in all black, covered in grease and sweating like a waterfall, whilst he just stood there looking around. The driver talks again "were is he now, can you see him?"
No one knew what was going on whether he had a gun or not or anything really...so of course everyone was too scared to say anything..especially us as we were right next to him. A girl from further down in the carriage finally said quickly, he's here on the carriage with us. The driver replied saying does the person look like a fellow passenger or a guard or what...The man was getting edgy...the girl replied no it's the man from outside..the driver asked for the man to speak up, what's your name? He said it's Bobby or something like that...Then he continued to say that he was just in the other carriage, he wasn't the guy outside holding onto the train, he's still outside in the tunnel somewhere...no one wanted to say anything....Finally the same girl further up the train started asking him questions....(I think by this point the guard couldn't hear us)
What were you doing out there? Who are you?? what are you doing??? He just kept saying it wasn't me. It was silent for a few minutes until he finally decided to make he's way back down the train and outside again.
The train driver came back over the PA, told us that the guards from Baker Street were in the tunnel pretty much here and asked what was happening with us...another lady said he's gone backoutside. We all watched as he crawled back beside the train...he stopped a few seconds behind me against the wall and then exited out behind the train, everyone was silent...5 seconds later the silence was broken by what sounded like 15 gun shots going off outside the carriage...Everyone just stared at each other not saying a word.
It was almost 10 minutes before the guard came back over the PA saying, the man has been detained by the guards, hopefully we'll be on our way within the next 10 minutes. So we all just waiting silently checking with one another that we all heard the same thing from the tunnel earlier...waiting..some people almost passing out from the heat whilst others were just relieved they'd found the man...
A few more minutes and the guard said, sorry folks, but theres been information that there was another person holding on the train. I can't give you a time for how long this will take but I will keep you updated. More time to think about what was going on..another person...where are they..did they have a bomb..I know it sounds silly, but that's all I could think of.. Eventually the guard spoke up again, not mentioning another person at all, saying that he was starting the train up again to regain electricity. Once the train was powered up he said that we would start moving slowly through to the end of the line..after my bomb thoughts and movie influences prob didn't help, I thought I don't want to move in case there was a bomb and we blow up...we starting moving anyways and all was fine. We arrived at Willesden over an hour later, 7.30pm..I was a little shaky, but everyone just went about their business, no one saying a word.
I walked in the front door 10minutes later bit shaken, walked up stairs, Jambo and Dan in there rooms. Knock on the door, it was Karen, I walked back down to open the door to Karen. She was annoyed as she had just had to bus hop her way back to Willesden because of a tube failure, when I told her my story she soon understood why her phone calls weren't getting through to me....A few wines and Chinese take away for the perfect way to wind down after my big day!!

May Day Long Weekend!!-another one

On friday morning two of Karen's good mates from College headed to London after a 3 week holiday in Thailand, Marcus King (Kingy) & Leigh Nicholas (Leigh Leigh). To give the boys a warm welcome to London we took them to the Church after a gourmet cooked breakfast at home. By 11am we were in the ques drinking and from around 7pm to 1am we all slowly made our way back back home. Kingy was a little worse off then the rest. We all had Monday off to suit back and relax whilst Kingy had to hit the airport for an 8am flight. He ended up getting there with plenty of time...since he left our house at about 1am still quite drunk! Was a great weekend anyways...see the pictures below. xx