Last of the Summer Mud

Hello Dear Readers,

As they say here, the days are starting to draw in. Not really sure what that means, getting smaller I suppose?  At any rate the leaves are changing, mornings are crisp, and I've put a set of full fingered gloves inside of my cycling half gloves.

Last weekend I met up with some friends who I went to the Scilly Isles with at the beginning of the summer.  We went to a small creek that runs to the Thames in Greenwich, where the Cutty Sark and the Observatory is.

 Here I am standing in front of only a small part of the vast collection of detritus that has washed up to Deptford Creek over the years.  Wallets, phones, children's toys, glass, a skateboard, computers, bikes, garden equipment, shoes, china, you name it!  The most interesting thing we found was a short samuari sword, though it had rusted in its sheath so we couldn't see if it was metal or not.  The manager said a lot of it is stolen goods that get too hot and people chuck it in the river.  There was also a case of a boy who fell in far upstream after a heavy rain and was swept down almost to the Thames, but luckily a DLR driver had seen him go by and phoned in downstream so they could catch him.  How lucky!  The water wasn't nearly that high when we went, hence it was a mud walk.  Or more accuraly, poop walk since that's a lot of what we were walking in!

 Here are Chris and I geared up for the walk, hip waders and a sturdy walking stick.  Nick, who runs the place (not pictured) said the only time he's ever fallen over was when he didn't have a stick, so I clung to mine.  We walked up as far inland as we could go and saw some of the old buildings and heard about the history of the area, how there were bakeries until the last one burned down, how they used to break up old ships in there to be reused, and how the new buildings they were putting up were affecting the entire area.  We also saw evidence of this history in the creek bed by finding ceramic bits that belonged in the old ovens, long ship nails and non native plants that were clinging for dear life on the mud and moss on the brick walls of the creek bed.

 
We walked towards the Thames end as well, but the water was starting to get a bit too high and it was rough going for my little legs, almost went in once and took my friend Mark with me!  We were so lucky to have such a warm, sunny, amazing day, that's the last one we've had in a week and I'm afraid it might be the last one we see till next spring.  After the walk we went to Kate's house where she had a beautiful spread of food (vegan too!) and we ate and talked and laughed and generally had a great time. 

To top it off, when we went home we decided to go by river boat.  Unfortunately the commuter boat had a 40 minute wait, so we took the tourist boat which left in 10 min and was half price that day.  We got the rare pleasure of going under the Tower Bridge while it was up, something that the other people who were on the boat with us assured us was a pretty rare event.  The bridge was lifted because a ship with a tall mast was going through, you can just about make it out in the photo here.

As we pulled into Waterloo Big Ben was ringing out 6 pm and we hopped the train home to catch the latest Dr. Who.  Great Times!  This weekend not doing too much, but if things work out I might be going to a Brazilian club to learn to dance forro!  Catch you later!

Catching up on More Visits

Hello Dear Readers,

I had a blissfully quiet weekend, allowing myself to sleep in past 8 both days and catch up on reading and lounging (and Dr. Who, Netflix has the very first doctor episodes on - wheee!!).  I thought I'd catch up a little by sharing a photo of a visitor who came in August, my Master's advisor Dr. Dick Mack.

I'm looking very flushed in that photo because we had a jug of Pimm's at the Botanist, a pub just off of Kew green, then we had a bottle of wine at Wine and Moussaka, a restaurant across from Kew Green run by a guy from Cyprus.  Small world.  It was interesting to talk to him and hear all the gossip from Washington State.  When you leave a place it stays frozen in your mind and it's good to be reminded that things do change and go on.

I also found time this weekend to make a new wallet for myself, you may recall in this blog post that I replaced my old worn but much loved leather wallet with a new one sewn from one of my favorite batik fabrics, which was in its first life a faux wrap skirt, and worked its way into multiple quilts (including this one in our living room)

This time I used some of the last fabric that I got as a fat quarter when I left Hancock Fabrics after graduating in High School (12 years ago!!)  It's little boys playing blind man's bluff (featured in my needle case too, waste not want not).  The inner part is a striped fabric, courtesy of an old pair of Patrick's boxers (washed) and a pink plaid, also from Pat's boxers, but I think the colors and textures really work together.  So cute, I just need an excuse to go on a shopping spree and use it!

So that's about it then, I'm off to have some plum crumble and watch more Dr. Who and spin some sparkly green yarn.  It's getting to feel like fall around here, but in a nice way. Hope everyone else had a good weekend too!

We'll always be as one! One one one oneeeee!

Hello Dear Readers,

Another busy weekend here at the Lindon Bed and Breakfast.  My good friend Molly came down to visit on Friday, and we cycled to Putney from Kings Cross.  To me, this is the best way to see London, in the evening by bike.

 I knocked out this hat for little Katelyn, with flowers so that people don't think she's a boy since she's not wearing pink.  This matches the little brown sweater I made for her in July, I'm having to make child sized stuff for her now instead of toddler, my they grow up so fast!











Thursday I got a bit of a panicked call from my English friend Madeleine, who is a Professor in Minnesota.  She is in England for two weeks for her mother's wedding, but she unexpectedly had to make a call at the American Embassy on Monday morning, so she asked if she could stay for the weekend.  It's so nice after several years of quiet uneventful living by myself to suddenly find that everyone wants a piece of me, well, my floor anyway. 

Saturday Molly and I went to Hampton Court Palace and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day, sun shining, no kids to worry about, just the two of us enjoying English country gardens and some good English history.  We also found our way to the center of the hedge maze at Hampton Court, just too two MSc's to do it!


I had tickets to see Grease at Kew the Movies on Saturday night, this is where they set up a big screen on the lawn and show a good movie outside in the fresh air.  Here is a photo of the four of us just after the movie.

We had such a great time with a warm up girls doo-wop group, FREE popcorn, and singing along to all the songs.  The crowd was amazing, lots of people had dressed up as Pink Ladies, Sandy's and Danny's.  I must admit, the movie is a LOT different than I remembered it.  Oh i\I still knew all the words, but they meant something different to me now that I'm a grown up!

Sunday Molly and I cycled up to Oxford street and shopped at Selfridges and Uniqlo, then had an amazing snack at a real Soho coffee shop (complete with sketching fashion students and ultra hipster students) and then up to King's Cross, sadly, for Molly to go home.  All too short a weekend if you ask me!

Madeleine stayed through Monday morning, so we managed to have Dr. Who, tea and knitting in the evening.  Sigh. I do miss that about Texas.  But she'll be coming back on her way back to the US next week.

Hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did, though I don't know how anyone could trump TWO old friends coming for a visit!  It's the best!

Cheers.

Ode to my sissy...... and my brother from another mother

Hello Dear Readers,

This will be mostly a post card, a visual love letter, if you will to my sissy and her fantastically fun and funny husband.  They came for a week starting August 17th and we had a total blast while they were here.

 We took advantage of the beautiful weather in Putney on Saturday to throw our FIRST BBQ in England.  It took a little while and Pat's mad Boy Scout skilz to get the fire started (I know, I should have read the directions more carefully!).  And thanks to the 50 lb suitcase of American food that Cat and Jeff brought, we were able to have S'mores for dessert!

On Sunday we met up with some friends of mine from Knitting Group, Lizzy, Lucy and Sian to see Henry V in the last few weeks at the Globe Theater.  We had Groundling tickets, only 5 pounds ($7) to stand for the entire performance.  You are right up against the stage, and quite a few scenes go right through the audience, I could have reached out and touched Prince Hal if I wanted to.  There is no substitute for seeing Shakespeare in the language, place and theater it was written for, it makes so much more sense!

Later we ate at Waga Mama's and wandered down along South Bank, where there is always something going on.  Cat spotted this great photoshoot opportunity outside of the Tate Modern. 
After watching Henry V victorious at Agincourt,we were off the next morning for, well, I'll let you guess.....

 

Yup, Eurostar to Paris!  Sacre Cour, the Moulin Rouge, the Louvre, Luxumbourg Gardens, dinner at Les Deux Magots (we hoped that didn't mean the two maggots.....), sleep in a quaint and very French hotel where we fortunatly got bumped up to the 500 a night rooms with JUCCUZIs!!  You can bet I hopped in there as soon as I got in the door!  Eiffel Tower first thing Tuesday with a stop for Nutella Crepes, then wandered up to Arc de Triumph, down the Champes Elysees, Louvre again, Shakespear and Co., Notre Dame, the Maire area, pretty much anywhere you could get by walking and then hauled ourselves back to Gare du Nord.  Phew!

Undaunted, Wednesday we went up to Holburn to see where Patrick works, and to enjoy the World Famous Fish and Chips at the Bass and Sole Plaice.  I only eat at world famous or world's best establishments, I have standards.  On Thursday we took Jeff on the obligatory Kew trip, where I showed off my workplace, a lot poorer than Pat's in money, but loaded up on pretty things to look at!  We had fancy afternoon tea at the (obvously) WORLD FAMOUS Maids of Honour tea room just across the street.  Little sandwiches, pots of tea, scones and dessert.  Yum!

Money shot of the beautiful antique (but still functional) Palm House, look for it when you fly over into Heathrow.

 We really lucked out on the weather, as we seem to have with guests this year.  I promise guys, it's raining when you aren't here..... There was a slight drizzle when we went to the Tower of London on Friday afternoon......

But the Crown Jewels are inside, and being a Friday and dreary, there was no line to see them!  That evening we went to see Spamalot!  It was hilarious, it's been a while since I've seen The Holy Grail, so the jokes were familiar, but fresh enough to still be funny.  And of course, Chris hadn't seen either one before, so as usual I get to experience it for the first time again through him.  Who needs kids?  When we got out of the theater the streets were wet, proof of a downpour we  missed while in the theater.  I'm telling you, it's grey and rainy here!

Spamalot was a great note to end on as Cat and Jeff had to fly out Saturday afternoon.  Sniff.  We made do with a day of shopping (30% off at the Gap, got some great deals for Pat!).  But we are thinking of visiting Boston and Cat and Jeff's new house next fall, woo hoo!

Last weekend Chris's cousin came up to see us before she goes back to Cyprus, maybe for good.  And this weekend my friend Molly is coming by herself, yay! Girls weekend!  What a great year 2012, you can't make up for the crap in 2010, but you are close.....

Cheers!

Our American Cousin

Hello Dear Readers,

Well when there isn't a lot going on, I have lots of time to blog and little to blog about, but now there is so much going on I have no time to blog and so much to say.  That's life! Thank goodness for RSS feed or a lot of you probalby would have stopped reading by now, am I right?

Last time I talked about some of my Olympic experiences, what a great time.  At the same time I had my cousin Elias Opgenorth visiting me from Oregon by way of Finland.  He had a friend in high school (he just graduated this summer, congrats Elias) that was a Finnish exchange student and he was spending a few weeks with him this summer.

 As a way of splitting up his ticket and making it cheaper he visited us in this sceptered isle.  I took him to some of the traditional tourist spots, watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace....

 Cheesy photoshoots at the M&M stored which opened recently in Leicester Square where we also bought tickets to see the Lion King, which I've been wanting to see here for a long time, nice to have an excuse to do this kind of stuff every once in a while.....

 We also played tourist in Covent Garden where we had lunch with Chris before seeing the show.  Here is one of the many Olympic mascots we've seen around, this one is a classic tourist.

 And here is another classic tourist, posing in front of Big Ben in the background with Nelson's Column of Trafalgar Square in the foreground.  Nelson's hat had a union flag on it for the duration of the games, how fun.

 When we hit up the South Bank area we considered the London Eye, but the sun was at a very low angle which is bad for sight seeing, plus it's bloody expensive!!! Instead we checked out the pop-up vintage fair near Royal Albert Festival Hall. For a tenner we rode on the swings (pictured above) and the tornado roller coaster which you can see below in this photo, wheeeeeeeee!

 The weather has managed to  behave itself for most of the Olympics and my guests, though it has been still raining off and on, this IS England!  Fortunately we were able to catch sight of an awesome rainbow at the end of the day.

Other highlights of the trip included seeing some Banksy graffiti art near Holburn (this, this and this),  going to the National Portrait Gallery TWICE, and going to a Dim Sum place in Chinatown (no Lee Ho Focks, but I think that place is closed).  Here is Elias trying to try some chicken feet, they didn't go over so well, but Chris enjoyed them.

It was a great trip up until he missed his flight home.... Damn Piccadilly line!! He made it in the end but I felt very guilty.  I had just about enough time to wash all the sheets and towels before my sister and her husband arrived next weekend, but that's a blog post for another day.  Besides, we are just taking a break from painting the last of the rooms in the house that need it (ours and Patrick's).  Hooray!  Patrick is cleaning his new bike, Chris is cleaning his new weights set and I'm cleaning the bathrooms from the last round of visits.  Clean fresh rooms ready for a visit from Molly and Madeleine....... best year ever, so glad it's the year of ME.

Olympians!!

Hello Dear Readers,

So I have lots of photos and fun from my cousin Elias' trip to London, but first, I want to share with you some of Chris and mine Olympic experiences from the last week.  Fresh on the heels of the closing ceremonies, here are some shots of my Olympic experience in London 2012!!

 Here is Chris, Patrick and I gathered on Saturday August 7th at Hyde Park.  We left at the ungodly hour of 7 am on a Saturday to line up with thousands of other people, Londoners, foreigners and everything in between.  Too bad we didn't have any American swag with us, but I'm in blue and red, and so is Pat, we gave it our best. (Cyprus won their first Olympic medal EVER - silver in the sailing, maybe Chris is wearing silver for them?)

 Here is the lead cyclist for the women's triathlon in Hyde park...... they did 7 laps of this, and 4 of running......

 ....... and there they go, woosh!  I'm glad they did several laps or else it would have been a long trip for very little pay off.  A Swiss girl won it and there were quite a few Swiss in the crowd around us so it was a great atmosphere.  Of course we had to walk around the entirety of Hyde Park just to get back to South Kensington and get out of there, but it was a good chance to show Elias the sights..


 And here is a giant basketball arena!!

Woah, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Love, Kevan Durant........ Susan Clark, eat your heart out!
Patrick's friend gave him tickets to the basketball quarter finals.  We went to the North Greenwich Arena, also known as the 02 (I didn't know they were the same, that's a phone company around here for my American friends, they sponsor it).  It's also known as the Millennium Dome, built for the millennium celebrations here, though from what I gather it wasn't as popular as other things, like the London Eye, built for the millennium.  We had dinner at T.G.I. Fridays (I know, I know, but you kind of miss that stuff when you are in another country......) and then saw the Brazil/Argentina game.  Major snoozefest.  The only thing that made it interesting was the row of Argentina fans sitting in front of us (they are all the raised hands you see in the front in the first photo).  They were singing songs, chanting, waving their flags and shirts around their head like a helicopter......  We were a little bummed because we thought we only had tickets to that game and that the US/Australia match was at a different park, but lo, as we started walking down from our nosebleed seats, they announced the next teams, score!  We sat in seats vacated by the victorious Argentinians and had much better seats for what turned out to be a much better match. 

We won gold eventually.  For those who didn't follow it.  Not that it's a surprise, they are AMAZING!!!!  I have a new love for basketball, and it was Chris's first live sporting event and he loved it.  That's the great thing about being with someone who never did anything or went anywhere as a kid, you get to do it all for the first time with him!  Next week it's his first trip to Paris........sigh.

All in all a great night, the traffic wasn't bad at all, the tubes weren't crowded, and we had free day passes with the tickets to boot!  I was ambivalent towards the games when they started but I have to say, I was really sad to watch the closing ceremonies.  What a once in a lifetime experience.

Dracula, Captain Cook and Whitby Jet

Hello Dear Readers,

It's been a while, but that's because I've been so incredibly busy.  I knew August would be crazy and I was right, but it's also been a lot of fun.

 

 I'm fortunate to have a friend Jane who's husband runs this great bed and breakfast in Whitby, which is in the Yorkshire area (North east coast of England).  I highly recommend it, it's called Union Place.  She let us stay there the last weekend in July and showed us around the famous seaside town of Whitby.  We walked around the town a bit, here is Jane trying to Splat the Rat at a local fundraiser.

 

We walked around the port and downtown area as well, and climbed up the famous 199 steps to the church and ruined abby.  The steps are famous in their own right, but also mentioned in books set in Whitby such as Elizabeth Gaskill's Silvia's Lovers and...... DRACULA!

 

 Here we are at the top by the church and graveyard, overlooking the very beach at the mouth of the river where Dracula jumped to shore on the ruined ship in the shape of a giant Dog.  Below is the reverse view from a boat ride we took around the port.  The large curved breakers are to protect ships in the port.

Since I'm not taking any time off this year to go anywhere (I'm just having stay-cations as guests come to visit London, but more about that later) this was a good chance for me to go to the seaside since I haven't been since the Scilly Isles at the end of May. 

As you can see, Chris was really having a good time throwing the stick for Jane's dog Hettie.

 On Sunday Jane's son Tristan was generous enough to show us around the sights of North Yorkshire.  One of the highlights was the train station that still uses real steam trains.  Apparently they were some of the trains (or similar to) the ones they used in the Harry Potter films, as well as the train station. How cool is that?  We also ate lunch at this fantastic little pub and walked around a local little town called Gotland that was apparently also the setting for a TV series called Heartbeat.

 It was a refreshing and relaxing weekend away, and so nice to see my friend Jane, who fortunately is going to be back at the museum in September doing some more work on seaweed.   Here is a parting shot as we were driving back to the train station in the evening, a rainbow over the sea, just beyond the moors and Heath (full of flowering Heather).  If I lived in Yorkshire, I'm not sure that I'd ever want to leave.....

Next week, adventures with my cousin Elias in big old London Town, and my Olympic experience!

Cheers!