Righto. I've finally got the bloody internet working in the new flat! Anyway, as explained here, I've now moved down to London! Last Friday was spent packing up my life, and stuffing it all in the back of a rental van. Bike, stereo, even the pool table - the whole lot hehe :)

I left Edinburgh on Saturday morning for the 650km drive down, which only took around six hours due to it being motorway pretty much the whole way from the Scotland/England border. Prior to that I got to enjoy the Scottish country side one last time.

Katie came down with me to help out and keep me amused during the drive, which was bloody good considering this was the view for most of the way.

Evidently a truck filled up before me. Might send this shot into work and try claiming this back on expenses hahaha!

For now I'm staying in our company flat in St Albans, 40kms north west of central London. I'll put some shots of it up when it isn't such a mess with boxes and crap all over the show. We arrived just after 5pm, unloaded the van, and went out for a wander and some pub grub. My first London / St Albans meal - the classic steak and ale pie. Hell yeah :)

Monday was my first day at a new client site, located right in central London. I could have fallen from the sky and still known exactly where I was - welcome to London town.

One week down, and I've only just now got around to unpacking my crap from boxes and tidying the flat up. Anyway this is my new home for the time being - a flat right in the middle of St Albans owned by the company I work for. Note my stereo in the shot on the right - my old neighbours in Edinburgh will have been glad to see the arse-end of that! Time to make friends with the new neighbours hehe.

The flat occupies the second floor and the roofing area of the building (which has a couple more flats in it besides this one).

My bedroom has its own little balcony, but the weeds have got away on it somewhat so it's kind of a garden too.

Out back is a big open area, complete with BBQ that looks like it hasn't been used in about 10 years.

Five minutes around the corner is St Albans city centre. St Albans itself only covers an area of around 20 square-kilometres at a guess, so this is hardly on par with Edinburgh. However, just like Edinburgh, it's a madhouse on the weekends thanks mostly to the markets that sell almost everything under the sun.

Today was the first since I arrived with no rain - summer my ass! So obviously I made the most of it and got out for my first proper burn on the bike.

Small town or not, the centre is always clogged with traffic. I love to mingle with the traffic but today I was very nearly collected twice by cars pulling out right in front of me without looking! One of those two is now missing their left wing-mirror after I caught up to them in traffic and smashed the fucker off with my handlebars as I went past - clearly they don't use it anyway.

Many of the suburban roads around town are just like these - very narrow, all the buildings look squished together, cute cottages here and there, and lots of pubs. You're never far from a pub in this country!

A few of the buildings here remind me of those up in York - very cool!

Lots of pubs,\and lots of green space! This is the 100-acre Verulamium Park (Verulamium was the original name of St Albans back in Roman times). Reminds me of Inverleith Park in Edinburgh with the remote-controlled boats out on the water destroying the serenity hehe. Today it was Action Man tearing up the lake!

Nearby is the huge Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Albans. This big thing is the second longest cathedral in the UK. Much of the current structure dates all the way back to the 11th century.

Aside from traffic pulling out in front of me, the other thing that is going to piss me off about biking around here is the hills! Edinburgh has mostly easy rolling hills - nothing too steep; St Albans has quite the bloody opposite.

The Organ Museum is so exciting that it's open on Sundays only, and for just 2.5 hours!

St Albans is only small but it is surrounded by several other small town/cities which might keep me amused, many of which I think are connected by cycle tracks.

This is The Alban Way, and joins St Albans to nearby Hatfield 10kms to the east. If I get bored of seeing small town after small town (which I suspect will be the case), London just 20-minutes away on the train :)

Work has been keeping me busy over the last week and a bit, and that combined with the typical British weather and having to sort several things out surrounding my move here has meant I've had bugger all time to go for a good wander during the day :( These are a few shots of the buildings and area in which I'm currently working. This is the Moorgate area of the city. Like most anywhere else in the city it's pretty chaotic, and I'm itching to get the bike around here!

This is Finsbury Circus - one of many green areas within the city; reminds me of Edinburgh a bit :)

So, out with the old and in with the new! From the μ500 to the μ1010 (the number has more than doubled - that's gotta be good!) Here's to three more years of punishment and bad photos - hooray! :)

Welcome to London! We got a bit of sun during the week, but come the weekend it all goes to hell.

I'd been hoping to bike through to London but decided against it until I noticed one of the market stalls selling a heap of crappy bikes while I was walking down to the supermarket. I could see bits of blue sky, the legs were itchy, so bugger it.

St Albans to London is a 30-something kilometre route passing through a few small towns and villages along the way, the first of which is Radlett. Radlett was actually the only decent spot I passed through, probably because it is "one of the most prosperous places in Britain" with some house prices in the area pushing the £1 million mark according to Wikipedia.

Population of 8,000'ish, big church buried in trees on the main drag...

Scary looking public footpaths that I wouldn't be walking down at night...

And a lost tortoise called Darren, who went missing last summer (as in a year ago), last seen at the Radlett cricket ground apparently.

After Radlett I passed through a couple other places all full of chavs giving me disturbing looks, such as these yobs.

Before too long I was in the outskirts of London, and man what a dive!

Yup I'm a long way from Edinburgh now. That's not to say Edinburgh doesn't have a few spots like this, but man this was reminding me of Glasgow!

Good parking bro!

As I got closer to the city centre, the traffic got closer to chaos - hell yeah!

Honey, I've got dinner!

Also as I got closer everything became slightly less of an eye-sore...

...until I got right in and it became big and ugly again ;)

Eventually I made it through into the thick of it all! I love mingling with the traffic but London's weekend foot-traffic is something else!

Check out Mr Cool with his ice cream hehe.

Safety in numbers, this car had the right of way but was held up by a wall of bastard pedestrians. Then his light went red, ours went green, and he got horn after horn blasted at him for blocking the intersection hahaha! I can see I'm going to have a problem with pedestrians here (and they're going to have a problem with me).

Looks safe.

I spent about an hour playing with the traffic and passing a few places of note: Piccadilly Circus - London's answer to New York's Times Square...

St Pauls Cathedral...

The Mall leading up to Buckingham Palace (for some reason The Mall was closed to traffic - might be a Sunday thing because it's usually chocker)...

And St James Park, one of many in central London.

I read in the paper last week these bendy buses keep failing to take corners and smacking into things hehe, and people want them off the road. So when I passed this street on the way to the train station, completely cordoned off and full of cops surrounding a couple buses, I thought I might have found some action, but no. It was just the end of another rally or demonstration or something.