Little ones and little deers

Hello Dear Readers,

Two weekends ago I went up to see my friend Molly and her family in Cambridge.  We had a really nice, relaxed weekend.  I went up Thursday after work so that I could babysit Katelyn on Friday afternoon while Molly and George went for Molly's 20 week scan, another baby on the way!  Katelyn and I read the book I brought up, Aliens Love Underpants.  Ten. times.  And that was just after nap time!  It reminded me so much of when I used to read to my little brother, his favorite book was BIG RED the Fire Engine.  Go big red, go!

Next time I know to bring a few books up so at least I get some variety.  At least I am getting a really good preview of what life with Clara will be like in the future, potty training, learning to read, and, apparently, making bread!


Here is the whole family making dinner together, with Katelyn  learning how to knead bread dough.  George had the added excitement of getting a loaner piano while we were there!  As it happens, I have borrowed my friend Lauren's ukelele this week to learn to play, maybe next time I see them we can jam out a bit!  I'm getting fairly good I think, though I have to fight with Patrick over use of the uke, it's so fun!

I have also been very busy with some knitting....... A few weeks ago I went to hang out with my old knitting group at the Natural History Museum.  My friend Sarah told me that she was asked by the guy who she buys some of the books from if anyone would be interested in knitting  him an "ugly" Christmas sweater for his company's Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Competition.  Of course I would love to, and this is the design we decided on :

Now take a closer look at those reindeer, although readers of this blog should be familiar with that design. And that is James.  I hope he likes it!  I really wasn't sure about the fit, but better a little big than too small. Apparently the grand prize is a Caribbean cruise! If I had known that I would have taken a lot more care over the sweater, I thought he just got office bragging rights. I hope he wins and that he takes me with him on the trip.

The weather has been unseasonably warm this fall, which I am loving as it gives me more time to really get into my allotment.  I also volunteered to take care of the communal herb garden, oy vey!  I'm nothing if not busy, but you get out of life what you put in, and I'm getting a lot so I can't complain.

Hope everyone is enjoying fall as much as I am! Almost Halloween...... and I get to wear my Halloween socks now.  I wear them on the outside of my cycling pants so everyone can see.  Yup, I'm pretty cool.

Cheers!

Henly-on-Thames Royal Regatta - At Last!

Hello Dear Readers,

You may (or  may not, as some of you I fear have yet to discover the joys of the RSS feed)  have  missed me last weekend.  The truth is it was so beautiful I didn't have the heart to sit inside and blog.  Chris and I walked all the way to Barnes on Sunday, which is quite close to our new flat and had a lovely day out pretending we had already moved there.  We visited all the cute little shops and admired the French and Italian cafe's with their outdoor seating.  We chatted with local sales clerks about how lovely it is to be in Barnes.  Sadly, we are not much closer this week to being in our new flat, but the Bank's solicitors have assured us that they only received the paperwork on the 4th of July (they received it June 30 according to the tracking number, but whatever).  Congrats and shoutouts to my friends Adam and Melch who have managed to move in to the condo they bought in CA, well done!

This past week I indulged in two days of Holiday for the 4th of July and went to NOT see Patrick race at Henley-on-Thames royal regatta. Something I meant to do every year I was here and just now got around to.  Above is a photo of Thames boat 'A' who made it to Friday's race...

 Sadly Patrick's boat (Thames 'B') did not, but then they drew the boat favored to win so it was no surprise they lost on Wednesday.  Thames 'B's loss was our gain though, as it meant Patrick got to hang with use at the Remenham club.  Pronounced not remen-ham as it's spelled, but more mumbled as a one syllable word like remenom, though I can't do it properly since I'm not English.

 For the first time ever I went to a public event with a dress code, much like Ascot's horse-race, ladies are advised to wear hats, and they MUST wear a dress to the knee.  Men wear jackets, ties and slacks.  The men were allowed to take their jackets off this year because it was actually warm, but not the ties.  Chris didn't have a jacket so we went shopping on Thursday and got him this lovely tweed number from TopShop, where Matt Smith (current Dr. Who) I think does a lot of his shopping.  This coat, with a red bow tie would be very Doctor-y, and frankly that's just a bit sexy to me.

 I'm wearing my favorite new dress with starts on it, pearl necklace and earrings, and my hat, also from TopShop.  Very conservative, very English.  Some women went all out in the hat department
as you can see here.  I think this is a wig, but I'm sure these are two tiny oars she had sticking out of it...

 And this woman I Kinneared on the train on the way to Henley.  It isn't so clear in this shot, but there is a full on bird sitting atop her fascinator, and how fascinating it is.  Turns out she's the friend of a rower on Patrick's team, small world!  Well, I suppose as big as the world of English rowing anyway.......

 Chris and I really enjoyed our day out, and everyone was in high spirits.  Mosley's team even went for the traditional pyramid shot, this was attempt two, and I managed to get the photo just before they all tumbled down again.

I've been enjoying the nice weather here, it's gotten up to the 80's just about (27 C yesterday) and I'm loving it.  I've invented a new soft serve vegan ice cream, which I call call Go Banana's!.  It's frozen banana, pureed with a tiny bit of milk (almond, coconut, soy, anything really) sprinkled with some chocolate chips and swirled with some Reese's' Peanut Butter that I snagged at TKMaxx (that's not a typo, that's what it's called here). The warm weather is also bringing out all the neighbors which is lovely.  We have two kids that moved in next door and they are so inquisitive and friendly, a refreshing change from most English who feel it is polite to pretend like they can't see you.  When I said my dad had been in the army, he said in all earnestness, "Does he carry a spear?!"  when i told him, no of course not, he corrected, remembering that I said my Dad HAD been in the Army, he said, "Oh, well did he USED to carry a spear?"..  I hated to disappoint him.  Maybe he thinks my dad was a Roman centurion?

Hope everyone had a lovely 4th of July holiday, and to my English friends, how about this weather?  I'm watching Battlestar Galactica at the moment, otherwise I'd be outside every waking moment.  Happy birthday shout out to my friend Nina, who had a lovely picnic in Regent's Park for her birthday yesterday (I made her cashmere socks, just realized I forgot to photograph them, meh.)
Cheerio!

Ufh Dah.... still raining

Hello Dear Readers,


Grumble grumble, it's the middle of July and it's cold and rainy.  And it's been cold and rainy since April.  Now I don't mind being able to wear my sweaters for a bit longer, and I love a rainy day to sit at home and knit, craft, read or just sunggle.  BUT 3 AND A HALF FRICKIN MONTHS OF SOLID RAIN EVERY DAY?!?!?!  I'm starting to get a little bit of cabin fever.  So with Chris off in Cyprus last week, I took a FlexiLeave day on Friday and headed up to Cambridge for a little relief.

Oh yeah, it was still RAINING up there, but it was a change of scene kind of rain.  Even little Katelyn was a little tired of it.

 I knit up some socks (in the car from the train to her house - talk about last minute!) in yarn that my friend Toad gave me, it has chitin in it. Yup, you Googled correctly, it's crab and shrimp shells.  They were warm and toasty, just what you need for an English summer.  Molly wore them when we went to the Cambridge Botanic Garden on Sunday.  She was comfy.





Of course I also had to make something for Katelyn, while she still can't argue about what she is wearing.  I used some lovely lush brown wool (also for free from Toad, seeing a pattern here?) and trimmed it with some hand spun green fiber (uh, from Toad, again). Check out those awesome corn buttons! From Helen, formerly of the Hammersmith Stitch 'n Bitch, but now sadly moved to New Zealand.  That's how I can afford to knit so much, people just give me yarn, but I love it.

We went out for the whole day Saturday to an art open house in Cambridge, it was delightful.  We had coffee in an artsy cafe, then walked around to the houses in between rain showers.  We had lunch in a french cafe nearby, where Katelyn ate as much as me, and that's a lot! then finished off with a banana which she ate, then smooshed into our shirts.   (Jennifer, I found a good home for your pineapple shirt, Molly loved it, it wouldn't fit over my boobs... )

Molly and George had evening engagements Friday and Saturday nights, here they are before going out to a friend's wedding.  Luckily I introduced Molly to Call Me Maybe so she knew how to rock out.  If you haven't heard this song  yet, you have to, it's the song of the summer.  Not that there is much summer to be had around here.  Noticing a theme?


The last day when we went to the Botanic Gardens, which I've been meaning to go to forever, I asked if they had an agreement with Kew as some gardens allow you to get in free if you are a member or staff member of another garden.  The woman looked at me through the flood of rain hitting the plexiglass of the ticket booth and said, "Normally no, but go ahead."  I guess she figured if we were crazy enough to go to the gardens in the POURING rain, we must really want to.  Luckily there were green houses and a lovely tea room to sit in after getting soaked.  Here I am enjoying what is called a Jade Plant from Thailand.  Lovely big bean pods.  I'm wearing a tank top, short sleeve shirt, thin cardigan, Holister Hoodie (cause I couldn't afford to dress trendy when I WAS 16) ....... and a bulky aran jumper.  In July.  And I am comfortable.  Sigh.

To look forward to next month, trip to Whitby, home of Dracula and Lewis Carroll.  Visit from Cousin Elias, visit from Cat and Jeff.  Oh yeah, and the Olympics.  And rain. More rain. Probably.


Hope everyone else is managing to stay warm and dry, I'm going to go snuggle under my quilt with a hot water bottle......


Cheers!

Scillier and Scillier

Hello Dear Readers,

Part two of the Scilly trip, as promised.  On Monday we went to the island of St Agnes for Mark to do another Wildlife Trust talk and for us to finally start on our collections.  Here is Megan carrying the plant press around in the field.

After some hot dusty plant collecting work we found the pub near the harbor and sat for about an hour, drinking and relaxing.  It was such a hot day that I even braved taking of my stuffy boots and plunging my feet into the glacial waters.

That's as far as I got, but Mark went knee deep, and Elisa went up to her waist!  Apparently after a while you don't feel the cold but I wasn't going to stay in there long enough to find out.  It sure was pretty to look at though, look how BLUE!!!

There was even a lovely blue butterfly on the island which we saw all over the place.  I managed to catch two in the act, but what I like about this photo is how you can clearly see the difference between the dorsal and ventral views of the wings.  You wouldn't know they were the same butterfly if you saw them separately
.

The butterflies were on the island of Breyher (pronounced like Briar Patch) where we went on Tuesday.  This was probably the smallest island we went to, only 1.5 miles long and 1 mile wide.  The most exciting part of being here was searching for the dwarf pansy.  It was a beautiful flower (damned hard to photograph though) but it was also hilarious watching a whole group of botanists butts in the air admiring this little gem.

Here is one of my best attempts at photographing it, with my 10x loop for scale.  The pansay is the little purple splotch...... you can try clicking to make it bigger, but I don't think my macro setting was really up to it.

Wednesday was a "free day" in that Mark didn't have to give a talk, so we did some more serious collecting around St Mary's, with plenty of time for fun of course.  Megan explored some exciting rocks (in some exciting home made leg warmers to protect her sunburned legs).

And we climbed to the famous preacher's rock, no mean feat for someone like me who is a bit skittish of bouldering after that nasty accident when I was a camp councilor....

We hiked out to the site of neolithic burial chambers and settlements, here even before the Romans came.

And our real free day on Thursday was spent finding PUFFINS!  We took a boat that specifically promised we would see puffins and seals and they were not wrong.  They live mostly on the uninhabited (by humans anyway) islands of Annet and Samson.  This is probably the best shot I had of the birds, but they were everywhere.

 Kate had a handy monocular since the puffins are a bit shy and tended to fly off as we got close.

This seal on the other hand seemed almost too happy to pose for use as we came by. Not shown in this photo is the baby seal that was swimming nearby, perhaps that's why (s)he? was waiting around.

Friday was our last real day of work so Thursday night we had a bit of a celebration in the Barracks by lighting a bonfire in one of the old gun wells.  We had a grand old time finding dead wood in the nearby foresty area and burning as much as possible.  We grilled meat and veggies, invited the ornithologists over (they were looking for shags.  Honestly, it's the name of a bird!) and had a grand time singing songs (that was me and Kate) dancing around the fire in our bras (that was just Kate) and listening to tunes on my iPad (that was me).

Friday we spent on the island of St Martins and made a feeble attempt at collecting, but by this point we were all totally knackered.  After hiking out to see the famous Scilly Ant and giving up our search for the Scilly bee, we took to the beach, as it was probably the nicest day we had.  

 Kath made the mistake of lying too long in one spot so she got covered in sand and turned into an exquisite mermaid princess, complete with seaweed wig and merkin, as you do.

Clockwise, starting from me, Kath, Elisa, Megan, Kate, and Jacquie

Nothing left to do after this but catch the ferry the next morning, wait till 5 pm in Penzance and take the 6 hour slow train to London (thank goodness for iPads and knitting) and arrive at 1 am in Paddington station.  Phew!  What a great trip!

So much more has happened since then but this post is already long and photo heavy so it'll have to wait till next time.

Cheers!

Easter weekend

Hello Dear Readers,

Happy belated Easter everyone, Easter is taken pretty seriously here, not as much as Christmas where there isn't even public transportation or movie theaters, but quiet with Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays for most people.  I experimented with my bread machine and made some lovely hot cross buns, which were scarfed down in about two days.  Chris even ate them even though they had raisins.  They came out super fantastic delicious!  Thanks again Molly for that bread machine! 

 

In the afternoon Chris and I used one of my London City Walk cards (thanks again Molly) to explore the village of nearby Wimbledon, which is really in walking distance of our place.  Above is a windmill where apparently Baden-Powell, the creator of the Boy Scouts wrote much of his book, and where you can see me using my new wildflower guide.  We saw Primula veris, Lamium purpureum Taraxacum officinale and Ulex  europaeus, what a handy book!  I've been doing a little volunteer work this week, yesterday at Kew and today at the Museum and tomorrow a friend of mine is bringing a spinning wheel for me to use, so I'm keeping pretty busy.  Not sure when my new job at Kew will start, probably in May but possibly sooner.

Cheers!

Molly and Baby Katelyn

Hello Dear Readers,

This past week my good friend Molly came down for her spring break and brought her daughter Katelyn with her, who is one year old last month.  We spent the first day recovering from their trip, hanging out in Putney and visiting the children's playground that you can only go in if you have a child with you, how frustrating!  I finally got to go in and play on the swings!

 

The next day we had a sunny day, well sunny morning, out at Kew.  There were quite a few birds out on the little lake, and Katelyn was fascinated by them.  We tried to steer her more towards the plants but we may have a budding ornithologist on our hands.

 Later we had a delicious lunch in the garden while I played with the settings on my camera.  Here I am picking up on all the pink, after all she is a girl and girls mean pink, right?

 It started to rain a bit after lunch, and it was close to nap time so we took the train back home, planes trains and automobiles, this is one well traveled girl!

 The next day we really lucked out because it was sunny and not too windy, the best you can hope for in an English Spring so we took the train down to Brighton.  Here we are enjoying a delicious take away vegan cafe (Infinity Foods Cafe for those interested) lunch in front of what someone once described to me as a giant curry palace, but which is in fact a summer palace of George IV.

 That girl managed to smash an entire baked potato into her mouth, go girlfriend! I had half of a great BLT with potato wedges and vegan mayo and a half of Molly's miso tofu and finished her fries, delish!  We left a little before 5 pm and made it home just as the weather changed (i.e. turned to rain).

They left Thursday morning, but not before I got Katelyn to put on her new duds, pants made from an old t-shirt, and her new matching Easter sweater and bonnet!  A warm Easter sweater is what you really need way up north in Cambridgeshire, and a matching bonnet is just so classy.  It was a really nice distraction, and I hope they are able to come again soon!

Ireland!

Hello Dear Readers,

 So when Adam and Melch were here, one of Adam's goals was to be in Dublin on St. Paddy's Day.  With no plan and no idea, we booked train/ferry tickets to Ireland from Wednesday to Saturday.  The train ride was good, and we got to go past the Welsh station famous for having the longest station name in the UK.  The ferry took about two hours across some calm waters, then we arrived in Dublin to sunshine.






The first thing we did after getting a map and getting our bearings was to walk across town to the Guinness factory, or Heaven, as Adam would have it.  They don't actually brew the beer in the tour building, but they did up until the 1980's I believe, and you can see at our feet the custom narrow rail road tracks they had around the complex to move the beer around.

 I even tried my  hand at pouring the perfect pint, and had a few gulps of it.  Not bad, but still not the thing I would reach for refreshment on a hot day, I prefer a lemonade or best of all, a glass of water.  But it was a fun tour and the best part of all was being up on the top floor in a suspended glass bar with windows all around, able to see the entire skyline of Dublin at sunset.  After Dublin we got a car and drove towards Kilkenny, stopping along the way to see Ireland's tallest waterfall.  We got to Kilkenny in the evening where we ate at what can only be described as a Dadaist Chinese place, I highly recommend it, though I don't remember the name!!  We spent the  night at a hostel in Cork, but slept only until about 6!


The next day we went towards the Ring of Kerry which is a touristy route known for it's arts and crafts stops.  We hit up the highlight of the tour for me, the Kerry Woolen Mills, and I scored 2 lbs of fiber and some lovely yarn which they spin at the factory there.  It was heavenly, I made Chris take the bag away so I didn't keep filling it.

We drove around the country side, eventually making our way towards Galway to see the cliffs of Moher (featured as the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride).  Lots of sheep and green country side and rain in Ireland.

We did end up being back in Dublin for St' Paddy's Day, and Adam got his Guinness and Jameson's in to boot, but then we had to hurry to make our ferry back home to the UK.  I was pretty pooped at this point, from the "You can sleep when you're dead" school of traveling that we practiced the whole time, but thankfully I had my trusty wool with me to lay down and take a nap.

I'm so glad Adam and Melch were here to make us go, otherwise I fear Ireland would have been another one of those places that we always talk about going but never really do because it's so close.  However, I would definitely go back, the people were amazingly friendly and open, and there is so much to see there that we didn't get a chance to do at all.

More news to come about a surprising and welcome visit from an old school friend, a visit from Molly and baby this week, and updates on all my crafty activities, since I'm sure you are curious.....


Cheers!

Playing Tourist

Hello Dear Readers,

The part Chris ordered for his computer finally came in, and tomorrow is my last day working at the museum so I should be doing a lot more blogging in April.  To catch up, two weeks ago my good friends from high school came over and we got to play tourist with them.

We took the Big Bus Tour around the city which I had never done before, it was a really good way to see all the highlights, some things I hadn't even had a chance to see yet.  We had the obligatory South Bank/Big Ben photo op. before going to Waterloo for lunch at "A Hole In the Wall" restaurant under the tube bridge.

We took a cruise along the Thames to see the stuff that can really only been seen on the river like the Globe Theatre, Somerset House, the Mayor's office, the Shard in progress and lots of pubs.  Simon was our captain, he said he's a 6th generation Waterman.  The waterman have a long history in Putney too as they are the ones that used to ferry people back and forth until Putney Bridge was built.  The above bridge of course is the Tower Bridge, made famous recently in the new Sherlock Holmes movies.

Later in the week Adam, Melch and I took a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath.  I was a little worried that I would be disappointed by Stonehenge, but it was totally worth it, I spent the entire hour walking around and had to scurry back to the bus!

We toured around the famous Roman baths and had the obligatory glass of "Bath Healing Waters" which didn't taste of warm rusty nails as much as our bus guide would have us believe.  These are the elegant pump rooms, now a restaurant but used a lot as a plot device in Jane Austin's Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.  We walked around the town a bit which was lovely and sunny in stark contrast to the cloudy morning at Stonehenge.



After this they came to the museum to see behind the scenes where I worked, then we took a whirlwind tour of Ireland!  More stunning photos of that to come (and 2 lbs of raw wool for spinning - win!)

The Christmas Gift that Kept on Giving......me a headache

Hello Dear Readers,

Here I am in sunny warm Cyprus!  I had intended this to be a blog intensive trip, full of photos of the fun stuff Chris and I were doing this time since he promised that we wouldn't do chores or see lots of relatives.  Well, he partially kept his promise in that I spent almost the first full week in bed (starting on Christmas Day) with a nasty, knock down cold courtesy of Chris.  According to his family, the cause of my cold was the change in weather in Cyprus, as it had just turned "cold" (14 C/ 60 F) when we got there. I pointed out that it was actually warmer than in England, which then changed the story to, "the drastic change in temperatures is what caused my illness."  I pointed out that Chris had the same bad cold a week before, but that didn't seem to make any difference, and people mused that traveling such a long distance in an airplane the day before probably also contributed to the cold.  So either it was the fact that it was cold in Cyprus, or much warmer than the UK, or traveling great distances, but not living with a sneezey coughing Chris that caused my illness.  Only by wrapping up warm and sweating it out could I recover, oh, or I could take antibiotics.  Sigh.  I think it was more tiring trying to explain basic biology principles than actually being sick.  I'm still stuffy and coughing, and seem to have pulled a small muscle in my chest with all the hacking, but I'm trying to cram in a few fun things now that I am vertical before we fly out tomorrow!

Before I got too ill, we were able to visit our friends Stavros and Margarita who have two little boys.  I love to make things for them, last year I did the sock monkeys and this year it was a dragon and a lamb.  For some reason Andreas was afraid of the lamb at first, but he took to it eventually with his usual good humour.  Somehow he seems to have skipped the terrible twos.  Here is his baby brother with the dragon I made him, lots of good sticky out parts for him to put in his mouth, which is exactly what I intended, along with some safety eyes that he can really get his teeth into.

Christmas day was a very quiet affair, as only myself, Chris, his mother and aunt and uncle were home (and I was in bed the whole day), but being Greek Orthodox Christmas isn't really celebrated, it's New Years (at midnight) that St. Basil comes and delivers gifts to children.  Chris's cousin and her boyfriend were here for New Years, and somehow we got into a discussion about traditional clothes.  Chris's aunt happened to have an old dance costume of one of her girls, which I immediatly put on and paraded about hte house in.  It's very comfortable I have to say, on a par with what I wore when I worked in Colonial Williamsburg.

 Further proof that I was born in the wrong era, I think, I make these outfits look so good!

New Years day we had the traditional lunch at his Aunt's house.  His sister's family was two ill to drive the 1.5 hours to come see us, so it was just the 7 of us.

L to R is Chris, his mother Nikki, Aunt Anna, Uncle Stephanos, Cousin Valando and her boyfriend Dolis.  I've been able to make good use of my Greek lessons this trip, though the fast paced, slang Cypriot dialect still gets the best of me most times.   Fortunately I've been able to use the time I wasn't comatose to finish up a sweater order that I got before I left. 

Yesterday we drove to the Capitol to see Chris's sister and her family.  His mother spent the whole day before cooking and buying food because she seems to think that the largest and capitol city in the island is a desert, devoid of food and, apparently, quality eggs.  It was a bit of a bust though as Odie is deep in his terrible twos stage, every item in the house is his, and you can't touch it or you get a whack with a plastic wrench.  When given a book as a gift from his great Aunt, he proceeded to tear the whole thing apart while his father watched and sighed "Oh dear, tsk tsk." Hmmm, someone really needed a nap, or perhaps everyone.  Not really endearing him to me yet, but I remember my brother was a little brat as a kid, so I'm hoping in 10-15 years he'll be fine.......

Today is our last full day, and it's sunny and warm.  I'm finishing up a job application (it's a never ending process in these austere times) and Chris is doing his annual servicing of his cousin's computer.  Afterwards we'll take a stroll on the new path by the sea and pick up a few groceries that we can't find in the UK.  Tomorrow it's back home to England, and snug in my own bed again!  I hope that Patrick has fufilled his promise to repaint the kitchen, we'll see....

Hope all my dear readers had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I think I've slept enough this week to last me through the rest of my contract at the Museum, and feel refreshed and ready to tackle the new years resolutions I've made.

Cheers.