Done!

Hello Dear Readers,

This weekend I had a lovely time visiting with my friend Nina at Kew. We went in and sat at the Orangary which is the resturant staff are pratically banned from during normal lunch hours. We had a nice long tea while I taught her to knit and I worked on my Wizard of Oz qult.... and finished it!
I snapped a few photos of it on Sunday afternoon just before the light went.
I'm well pleased with the way it turned out. Originally I had planned not to quilt the yellow bit, but my sister requested that I do a bit more, so I put in some bricks on the yellow brick road.

I also did details around Dorothy and the witches
All in all pretty good. Now I can get back to my spinning and knitting projects...... I've been so busy this year though I'm almost out of wool!! Ah well, as my gym instructor keeps reminding me, Christmas is only 12 weeks away!

Baaaaath

Hello Dear Readers,

On Saturday Chris and I took a trip to the Historic City of Bath (prounounced Baa -th here, it confuses the locals if you say it with a very short a). What an awesome place! If you ever come to England, outside of London of course I really recommend you visit this place!

The first stop was the Pump rooms and roman baths mentioned by Jane Austin so often in her book Persuasion. We toured around the old part seeing all the underground sluices and canals where the Romans filtered the balmy 50 C water into 3 different pools. There is currently a spa nearby where you can enjoy the waters much as the Romans did 2000 years ago, and I think some friends from work and I are going to treat ourselves to a trip there soon to indulge.

After that the next absolute must stop was Sally Lunn's tea house. My friend Elizabeth and I used to walk down to the bakery at WIlliam and Mary sometimes and get Sally Lunn buns, but I didn't realize they came from Bath, and in fact this tea house in bath. The menu is hilarious, you can get anything you want, but it all comes in, on or with a Sally Lunn bun, which is a sort of semi sweet large roll.
As you can see, it's universally famous and even Tom Baker (my first Dr. Who) has been known to taste the Sally Lunns. The building is great, the current incarnation dating to 1450, but the site had been used as a tavern by the Romans before then.
We spent the rest of the day walking around the city enjoying the distinctive Bath stones and architecture, we went up to the famous Crescent and Circus, featured again in many of Jane Austin's stories.
We even stopped by her old house on Gay Street just south of the Crescent, but on other people's advice we didn't bother to go in.

There were lots of lovely shops and a riverside walk and lots more fantastic stuff that we didn't even have time for. Hopefully we'll go back soon and maybe even stay the night, I'd love to check out the fashion museum and more of the river and the Abby. So much to see so little time..

Still some crafting going on, finishing up a quilt, more sweaters, and there is a newly pregnant friend in my life that I get to plan all sorts of exciting baby things for!Woo hooo!

The Angel in Heels

Hello Dear Readers,

Last week was super busy as Chris's mother, aunt and cousin came for a more or less surprise visit (i consider less than a weeks notice a bit of a surprise). They stayed with his Cousin in Guildford for most of the time, but spend Saturday night at our place since all of our housemates were gone.

They came up in the morning and we took them out to Kew. Being typical Cypriot woman (and built for comfort - not for speed) we opted to take the Kew Explorer around which is a tram that takes a 60 min spin around the gardens - at 10 mph. We saw most of the highlights and managed to make it back to the train before it started raining.

Here they are standing at Kew Bridge before we got onto the train.

After that we took them to eat at their first foreign restaurant - the Slug and Lettuce, a little gastro pub chain that's on the high street. The London prices and London portions amazed them, as did the fact that no bread was served with the meal. How do we live here!

Laster that night they wanted to head up to Shepards Bush to go to the huge mall that opened up last fall as Christiana wanted to get some boots. This was annouced at 6 pm, and the mall closes at 9, and it takes a good 45 min to get there, but hey, they were guests. We narroly managed to get the 22 bus to Putney Bridge to get the 220 (note: Cypriot woman are not used to husteling, but the bus driver was VERY nice in waiting for them to mosey across the street). WE settled in to the top of the bus as it started to drizle and made our way up Felsham High street. 1.5 HOURS LATER WE HAD GONE 1.5 MILES!!!! TRaffice for some reason was at a standstill (later we learned that an accident had closed the A4, a major highway, and all traffice was divertey to where we were). After sittin g30 min and going literally nowhere, we decided to get off the bus and try to catch a bus back. As we got off the bus we could see the 220 goin the other way stopped across the street. I ran for it, but, well, as I say, built for comfort not for speed. No matter, we'd just wait for the next one. Me and 5 Greeks. In the dark. In the, now pourning, raing. For 1.5 hours. Again. I thought I would die there. I would never see my bed in Putney again. Finally an Australian girl arrived, fully decked out and dressed up to go out, waiting for the bus. We started chatting about our optinos. Try to run for it in the rain to the nearest tube station? no good, thte tube was too far, and anyway the line that ran to our apartment was closed that day. Call a cab? Someone else had tried 3 times and they were all out. Walk home? Not with 3 slow Cypriot women at night in the rain. Finally she managed to flag down a cab, YES! All 6 of us smashed illeglally into the back and the cabbie nervously took us to the end of our street, and the Australian Angel In Heels (her name was Lauren) went off to her house party in Clapham Junction. What a relief! I don't know what we would have done if she hadn't gotten that cab, because everyone was thinking well we have waited this long, another 220 must come soon, but I don't think it ever did. What a hellish night. Here is a picture of a wet and miserable me, yearning for a cup of hot tea and my bed!

Anyway, the rest of their trip was fine after that, and we took them into the city on Tuesday, did the British Museum, saw the Eye of London, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben etc. I have to say though that I was tired out!! I have had more relatives visit this summer than I have since I moved out of the house after High School! Yesterday though Chris and I took the opportunity of a weekend when I didn't have to work to go explore the historic city of Bath. What a marvelous place! I'll tell you about it later in the week when I'm more rested.

Cheerio!

What I did on my Summer Vacation

Hello Dear Readers,

Here is part of what I did on my "summer vacation" or my time as Grass Assistant Botanist at Kew

I'm famous!

Arrrrgh you ready for another blogpost?

Hello Dear Readers,

It's been awfully quiet I know, I've just been busy and tired and not taking too many pictures but there has been a lot going on.

Last friday was my last day officialy as the assistant botanist in the Grass section at kew and there also happened to be a party for the horticulture students who were leaving. It was a pirate themed party which was really fun, they even had a pirate band!


Patrick and I went together, and I dressed the both of us. The best was my hook hand (made from a coat hanger). I really wanted to keep it, but it would have made handling herbarium specimens a little tricky....I'm still working at Kew, digitizing some specimens for a researcher in Zurich or as I like to call it, "freelance botany". I also have some potential to do work with the Tropical Africa team on a freelance basis and have applied for a few jobs that have come up.

On the crafty side of things I'm working on this 'well awesome' quilt for my sister in a Wizard of Oz theme. The backing is going to be a blue check to match Dorothy's dress and red binding for the slippers. I am going to start quilting as soon as I can get some batting, the local shop is out (curse you small English stores!)

I'm also working on my blue lace weight cardigan. The cardigan is nearly finished, but I kind of don't want it to end as it's been so lovely to have something to just knit and knit and knit on, plus the yarn is like buttah. Commissions anyone? You send the yarn, I'll send the finished item...... fall is coming, my favorite time of year to curl up with a good audio book and a knitting project...... if I ever find the time!

Off to eat dinner and work on some spinning (Christmas present for Pat, never to early).

Cheerio!

Bank Holiday Weekend

Hello Dear Readers,

Instead of having labeled holidays like in the US (Labor Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July) the English very neatly and orderly arrange their holidays to be more or less spaced out over the year so everyone gets a rest once in a while. Therefore we have "Bank Holidays" and Monday was our end of summer bank holiday which was lovely. My foot was acting up a little so I spent much of the weekend resting which meant knitting, reading and catching up on good movies.



On Monday we had the pleasure of a visit from some new friends of ours, the girl in the green shirt is Kelly who I met through my knitting class. She is from California and her boyfriend (on the right) is of French/American descent but sort of also Spanish... anyway he went to school in California as well and they both just moved to London a few months ago. It's nice to meet some fellow expats that are more or less in the same situation as Chris and I (US educated, EU citizens and partners trying to settle in the UK). We had afternoon tea together and chatted for a few hours (they meant to stay only a few min, oh well....). My brother also got into the fun of it, and for about 3o min he and Kelly conspired to buy and fix up the house next store, but first devised many elaborate ways of ascertaining whether or not it was currently occupied. Oh dear.

Anyway, lots of knitting going on too but I was too lazy this weekend to get photos done, more to come soon.

Last two weeks of my job at Kew, it's been a really great summer and no matter what happens next I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to work in such a great place. It's kind of like going to Jefferson (the magnet school I went to for High School). It's a place full of people more or less interested in the same thing, so you feel like you can really fit in with most people. Will keep you posted as any job prospects develop there.

Off to bed now, I had knitting group tonight as well, then a 4 way video Skype with my family (yes! conference calls now supports multiple videos!) but I figured I better blog now or I won't get a chance till next weekend.

Cheerio!

Busy Weekend

Hello Dear Readers,

Due to the EXCESSIVE leave that I get working at Kew, I have enough left over to work only 4 days weeks until the end of my contract (Sept 10). I took last Friday off to take care of some business, including working on a paper for publication and finally registering for a GP! It seems the real problem I had before was going to the wrong one, one that as I was informed the first time I went there was "only for keeping English people healthy." I thought that didn't sound right, so the second time I went there to register they told me I had to prove that I was going to be in the UK for 6 months which I could only do by showing I was a registered student or had a job for 6 months. So when I went back with proof of my job at Kew and a letter from the place where I teach knitting, they informed me I needed to show I had been in the UK 6 months AND was going to be there 10 more months. I showed my letter from The Sewing Rooms, but since it didn't have an end date (it was open ended and implied I had a job as long as I wanted) it wasn't good proof I would be here 10 months. At the advice of some of my friends I went somewhere else, and guess what? All they wanted was proof I had an address in the UK and a copy of my passport for identity!! My first clue that I wouldn't get satisfaction should have been them saying it was only for keeping "English people" healthy, foreigners beware! Ah well, at least I finally got in the system!


In other news, I've been busy knitting! I made this cowl for keeping warm in the chilly herbarium. It works perfectly because it keeps me warm without dragging in the specimens.
It was a quick project that I could work on while chilling out watching movies on the weekend.
I did a double twist in the tube to make a pleasing drape on the neck, I think it works pretty well. Originally I did it about 5 times too big, but the second try is the charm.
I've also been working pretty steadily on my lace-weight cardigan which I'm making from some yarn Patrick got me for my birthday. I'm already under the arms and working down the body.
Madeleine was also here on Friday on her way back to Amarillo. She gave me a fantastic bag with dachshunds on it and a cute sewing kit that will be perfect for me to take with me while I'm working on a new quilt. She also dropped off these two gems of books for me to use while she's out of the country. Beautiful illustrations of a new flora to learn, perfect!!

Just working 4 days again this week, I will try not to get too used to it. The other thing I did Friday was to apply for 3 jobs at Kew that would be starting in a few months, so keep your fingers crossed for me.