And the coffee is served in buckets

Glen has alluded to the fact that Ugg boots are expensive. Eye-poppingly expensive in fact – but – almost unbelievably – not as expensive as they are in Vienna.

I remember Ugg boots from 30 years ago in Australia. They were sort of shabby-chic. Not very expensive and favored by students and bohemians.

Well the company is still called Ugg Boots Australia but it is now American and the boots are made in China. And the boots are now so fashionable that people just must have them.  By the size of the crowd in the store in Covent Garden one would have thought that they were giving them way – but no. I am guessing that the average pair is about £240.

I just sat there looking astonished as they sold hundreds of pairs before my very eyes.

Just down the road in Long Acre in Covent Garden Cate looked at a very nice woolly scarf – a snip at £375 – with a matching Beanie for another £190. There is something seriously wrong with this world.

There are more Eastern Europeans working in London than there are in Vienna. I did not encounter a single person working in a café or coffee shop who was not from that part of the world. And in most cases their English is as bad as my German (well…maybe not quite that bad) and of course no one can understand an Australian accent. So I had constant communication problems.

And the coffee is served in buckets. They have been – shall we say – upsized – and when you order a Cappuccino now you get a pint in a gigantic cup. It is not possible to get a normal cup of coffee. Cafes are bad enough but when you go to Costa the smallest size is a cardboard bucket and a trolley on which to wheel it away. Fortunately it contains almost no caffeine otherwise the populace at large would all be completely wired and would be chasing each other around the streets of London with clubs and knives – or Blueberry Muffins.

The food is actually not too expensive. Apart from the first night when we went to a trendy (i.e. over-priced) restaurant in Shoreditch we were not too badly dealt with anywhere.  It is much cheaper than I remember it – but probably because we now live in Vienna which is most certainly one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

Thankfully Cate earns enough money to sustain life because my only income is the amount I can steal from the housekeeping money.