Take a walk, with me

Hello Dear Readers,

It was the most delicious day today here in Putney, birds singing, sun shining, and everyone was out enjoying it! I SHOULD have stayed in to finish two job applications I'm working on, but they will be here tomorrow, when it rains again.... so I went on a nice long walk and took some photos.

Here is the view from my front door, some lovely rosaceous trees in full pink bloom...

And here is my brother's rowing club, Thames Rowing Club, just two blocks from our house (no accident that).

Further down the Thames towpath, a nice collection of boats, more pink trees and a lone skuller making his way down the river. Later he actually ran into a group of novice skullers, almost literally, the poor kid behind him didn't have control of his boat and his coach in the launch had to yell "Watch out!"
A nice close up of an apple tree, half out of bloom along the walk. Liked it so much I made it my wallpaper.
A KISSING GATE! See the metal part of the gate closest to me swings into the u shaped gate, allowing one person to go in, then you have to swing it back out to get to the other side. Traffic control. Very Smart.
And then as I headed down to Barnes high street to enjoy the duck pond, I saw this in someones balcony.
No idea. Truely, no idea. I had just spent the morning watchin Dr. Who The End of Time and for one wild moment I thought, hey, maybe it is real! But I think someone just has too much time and money. Certainly money, since this house is pratically on the river in Barnes. But still, very expensive sculpture for a place that rains a lot. Maybe it IS a statue....

A Quickie

Hello Dear Readers (both of you, no, three, Kat emailed the other day...hi Kat!)

Just a quick bloggie today, for two main reasons.

One, Chris doesn't get back until late tonight (1 am) so I'm still limping along on my housemate's computer. It's painful because it's a bit old, the internet explorer hasn't been updated in a while and it has an ENGLISH KEYBOARD. What is an English Keyboard? It's another one of those quirky things about moving to a new country, even though we speak the 'same language' there is always something just a little different to keep you on your toes (and it's what makes living in England fun, no really, i'm not being sarcastic, it would suck if everywhere were the same) . Anyway, things are just different enough to slow me down, the letters are in the same places, but the shift key is smaller, so I keep hitting the \(for some reason next to the z), and the " is above the 2, and the @ is above the ' next to #, ~ and the enter key. Weird.

Second reason for quickie blog, Chris doesn't get back until late tonight (1 am) so I'm cameraless and I think the blog is a bit blah without photos. But when I get it I'll try to capture some of the lovely springness that has been happening around here. Cherries and Apple trees in bloom, lovely fields of daffodils, and people walking around without bloody big parkas on! Still lots of scarves, seems to be THE fashion accessory around here. If you don't have time to accessorize, wear a scarf!

Knitting night tonight. I think I talked too much as usual but it is always so lovely hanging out with those ladies! What diversity! What knowledge! What patience for me and my big American mouth! And they didn't make fun of me too much when they asked what I was knitting and I said......hot pants. Hope it means the same to them as to me and not something crazy (have already established here that pants=underwear, and tank top=vest....didn't have time to look up 'hot pants' in my English to English dictionary). I intend them as yoga/sleep/warm up shorts, but who knows, I just may take London fashion week by storm this year.....

THE Boat Race

Hello Dear Readers,


Yesterday was a big day for Putney, the world famous Oxford/Cambridge boat race! The banks of the river were packed with people from Putney Bridge to Cheswick Bridge. I went down to Thames Rowing Club boat house (where my brother rows) to watch the start(s). First off were the second best boats. The crowd there were sitting along the concrete launch that slopes to the river. The race officials kept pushing us back and back, finally to the road, claiming a giant Tsunami sized wave was going to wash us away. With typical English grumbling we all backed to the road. When the boats finally went by, a feeble wash of about 2 feet came up onto the launch. This prompted a lot of jeering from the Foster's swilling crowd, to which the official responded "Oi, you lot, if you don't cut that out I'll make you go to the other side of the road!" But all in good fun of course. The 'first' boats launched second, at 4:30, to a great deal of excitement. Oxford was pulling out ahead as they passed us. By the time I walked from the river back to my house, I put on BBC 1 to watch them heading in to the last mile (it's about a 4 mile race). Cambridge edged their way to victory, securing a boat length and a half ahead of Oxford, what excitement! They hadn't won the past two years, so it was a good win for them. Better luck next time Oxford.
I did take some pictures on Patrick's camera phone, but I'm not sure how to get them from his mini SD card to this computer. They weren't that good anyway, just a bunch of guys in a boat....


Even more exciting, the new season of Dr. Who (with a new, young sexy doctor) premiered last night, also on BBC1. How nice it is to watch it as it comes out, then flip over to BBC3 to watch Dr. Who Confidential. Eat your heart out Stephanie! (Think the Monkey-Butt will come out rude, but not Ginger?)


Hope everyone is having a happy Easter. I polished off the chocolate cake I made!!! Chocolate seems to be an important part of Easter here, it's almost like Halloween!

P.S. Apologies for the awful spelling. Both Chris and Patrick are gone this week and the computer I'm using doesn't have the good spell check that I'm used to, and I'm a rubbish speller.
eta fixed spelling New Years 2011-12, updating blog as part of new year refresher!

Received in the Mail Today

Dear Miss Lindon,

Post as: Assistant Botanist (Rubiaceae)

Thank you for attending the recent interview for the above role. I am sorry to say that you have not been recommended for the appointment this time. However, the Board was impressed by your performance and asked that you be treated as a reserve candidate in the event of the successful candidate not taking up the post.

It then goes on to say, don't quit your day job yet though! Oh well, it is a very nice rejection, and I can always hope that the selected candidate is a fool and says no.....

Keeping Busy

Hello Dear Readers,

Sorry for the absence from the blog. There wasn't that much to tell so I was waiting for something to happen, then I was bummed because it wasn't any good and didn't feel like blogging......

First, had interview at Kew. They said I interviewed well but haven't heard a thing from them. Very likely means they have offered the position to their first choice and are waiting for them to confirm before sending out reject letters. Oh well, it was a dream come true just to get a tour of the Kew herbarhum, what history! Didn't see any Darwin specimens but it was a treat anyway.

Secondly, for those who know I was supposed to spend Easter in Cyprus and meet my nephew at his Christening, I am not in Cyprus because I didn't understand the convoluted process for requesting the return of passports from the Home Office. Anyway, still hoping that it might turn up this week and I can still go, but for now I'm hanging at home.

Thirdly, in good news at hanging at home I finally finished the enormous pink baby blanket for my roommate. I had to take the entire edging out once because I miscalculated how many stitches to pick up, but it's finished and lovely.

I made a matching cushion cover for it, but I think that it's cooler if you use the cover to hold the blanket. That gives you a pillow AND a place to put the blanket when you aren't using it!

Fourthly, I bought this:

A Singer sewing machine (serial number ED871291) made in Scotland in 1946, I believe it's a model 99K, but it has an unusal knob in the front instead of stitchlenght/reverse lever. Not sure what that's about, but I sewed myself a new wallet:

out of some scraps I had. (Steph - If you remember you wrapped my Birthday present from last year in a lovely blue batik, I've used that for the lining so I can think of you when I open it). That's my old wallet on the left, I got it in 2000 from a friend in High School in exchange for tailoring her prom dress. IT's served me well, been lost a few times, and derided by Chris for being too small and dark so that I can never find it. Well now I have an ecological and upcycled (the zipper was salvaged from some jeans that Patrick's friend was throwing away - how thoughtful of him to give them to me!) and the main body is from an old skirt I made in high school. I plan to have many more lovely afternoons sewing on it, it works beautifully and looks great in the room. I had to go all the way to Upton Park to get it, over an hour on the district line, and the neighborhood was full of immigrants, really interesting stores all over the place. The woman had two machines, a hand cranked and this hand cranked converted to electric. I liked the idea of the hand crank (even more eco friendly) but after sewing on it the tension was pretty bad, and it would be hard to manipulate fabric with only one hand while cranking the other. I had to carry it back though and man am I sore today!! I hauled it over a mile to the tube station (remember, it's all cast iron and wood) and 100 big men must have passed me. One even said to me "that's too heavy for you" and I thought, thanks, thanks a lot. It was only after I got off the tube in Putney that someone offered to help me carry it, and I got it to the bus stop. The last 100 feet to my door were the worst, but now it's safe in my room, and it's all mine!

Hopefully my next blog post will be about my miraculous trip to Cyprus, right now I've got to go clean something.

Cheerio!

Quick Update

Just a quick update from the weekend. had a wonderful trip to Cambridge to visit Molly and George. We walked around the city, had a rousing game of Upwords in which George graciously gave me an l for slaw to turn midget into widget! Next up is a trip to Cyrpus, provided the passports come back from the immigration office in time.....

Oh yeah, and had interview on Friday. The interviewers said I interviewed well, but there is also apparently a lot of stiff competition. Hoping to hear back this week at least one way or the other. Advancing on the job front, I have an interview tomorrow at Mountain Warehouse. Outdoor gear anyone?

Kew

Had a lovely day today, and I took a 1 1/2 hour walk around Putney/Barnes Common. I was going to write a lovely blog post about the birds and the bugs and the dogs and climbing a tree, but as soon as I got home that went all out the window.

I found out I got an interview this Friday. At Kew. Wish me luck :-).