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 :-).

A day at the races....

Hello Readers,

Saturday was the big Woman's Head Race, or as Pat 'affectionately' calls it, Pooh Sticks. It was a pretty chilly day, but it wasn't raining! :-) That's what you are supposed to say about the weather here, at least it isn't raining, or at least it isn't cloudy, or at least it isn't etc.... We walked down to the old Harrod's Furniture Depository and swung around the gates to the old condemned dock to watch them go by.
That's me leaning way out on the railing, and standing to my right is Patrick.

At least 300 boats in this race! In a head race you have all the boats in front of the starting line, and they get released in 15 second intervals and it's a timed race, so you don't really know how you did until the end, but it's more interesting to watch because the boats keep coming and coming and coming.

The team we were cheering for was Thames Boat Club, which had three boats in the race.
ummmmm, i think this is the one with Patrick's girlfriend in it, sitting 6th from the front....you have to look REALLY hard. They came in 4 th out of the 16 boats in their division, not too shabby.

After the race came the party! It was Oscars themed, so many people dressed either as if they were going to the Oscars, or as people who had won an Oscar (there was even a Nemo, and a Mary Poppins) One girl came as the red carpet, but of course some people had to go for the gold.... I'll see if I can rustle up some pictures for it.

Off to do my morning shopping/chores. So busy in my 'unemployment'

Spring has Sprung

Hello Readers,

Late breaking addition to my birthday goodness. My friend Madeleine who I worked with in Amarillo is English, and she had her mother sent me this wonderful yarn for my b-day, hooray!

She also included a postcard from Bath, which is someplace Chris and I are planning to go in the near future. Assembly rooms, the Crescent, Sally Lunn cakes and of course, lots of Jane Austin goodness.

Yesterday outside the kitchen window I saw my first robin this spring! He stayed put long enough for me to take a picture through the window, but as soon as I opened it he went away.

He is a bit camouflaged in this pictures, but he is sitting on the rail near the center of the photo. I saw him again this morning though hanging around my bird-feeder, so it seems to be working! There is a great website for identifying birds in the UK and I plan to make good use of it this summer. I've already seen about 3 species hanging around in our neighbor's back gardens that adjoin ours, it is shaping up to be a good summer.

Today is the woman's head race on the Thames, and our roommate Sally and Patrick's girlfriend Sarah (of cake face stuffing fame on this blog) are racing. We are going to go down to the water and watch them, pictures to follow!

Hello Dear Readers,

Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes yesterday! I set out to have a great day and that's what I did. Apologies to those with no interest in Art History as this is a very link heavy arty post, but you can glaze over the links if you don't care.

I started off going into work with Chris to see what he does all day. I took the train into Victoria Station and went into the great glass building that is his office.

I headed around the corner to......


that's right, the queen's house. Not sure if she was home, but plenty of tourists there watching guards swapping guns in a very British, formal way. I rounded Victoria circle and headed down The Mall with the help of my handy laminated "Streetwise London" (thanks Toni Garrett!) towards.....

Trafalgar Square, specifically to the National Gallery to catch the 11:30 free hour long tour of part of the collection. It was so fantastic, all the fun of my days studying art history without any of the exams or actual studying! After discussing the architecture of the newish Sainsbury Wing, we covered The Annunciation and it's companion piece Seven Saints, a brief stop to admire the double sided Durer then Rubens' A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, rounding it out with Madame de Pompadour, where I correctly identified her as doing embroidery, not writing (how did I know?). After the tour I took the opportunity to play one of my City Walk London cards number 36 to tour the Embankment/Leicester Square (theater district) area. Among the sites I found the narrowest "street" in London:


I didn't even try to walk through, it seemed like an invitation to disaster. I also found a rather large (especially for London) bead shop and made a mental note to bring certain visitors there (Mary, Madeleine), or at least incentiveise them to come visit me! I wandered into a dance shop where they sell my favorite ballroom shoes (Freed of London), looked at the Victoria Embankment Gardens, and had "vegetarian" fish and chips for lunch on Leicester street and generally had a good what I'll call "wander around" (read: walk briskly through the streets searching for fish and chips with my nose in the map, wondering how London seems to defy my usually excellent navigation skills).

At 2:30 I went back to the gallery for the second tour of the day, viewing the San Pier Maggioro Altarpiece and comparing it to the San Benedetto Altarpiece painted 30 years later. We visited a room with some experimental hangings where the pieces were arranged not by artist or century, but rather a grouping of works that all dealt with the human figure. Or, as our tour guide put it, our (read: male patron's) obsession with looking at "Nudie Ladies" under the guise of being high art,and for good measure sticking some reference to Greek mythology to make the nudity ok. We looked at Titian's Diana and Actaeon compared to the later Death of Actaeon and debated whether the punishment of accidentally viewing a nudie Dianna merited the punishment of being torn apart by your own dogs.....

Finally we discussed Turner's Ulysses Deriding Polyphenus. Or as one old lady in our tour put it, Odysseus giving Polyphenus the finger. Five points to anyone who can actually find Polyphenus the one-eyed giant who is hidden in this work, and five more points if you can see the horse heads pulling the chariot of dawn. This painting has particular resonance with me because as someone who is always traveling (not just vacation traveling, but you know, 16 moves in 28 years kind of traveling through life) I really identify with Odysseus/Ulysses. Also, our nephew (Chris's sister's kid) is named Odysseus and his christening is coming up. Maybe I should get him a print of this for his wall, it's never to early to appreciate good art. The National Gallery even has a program for 2 year olds!

To round out the day I spent some time on the phone with Molly, Cat and Jeff, Chris's mom, and my Gramma, phew! Then Pat and Chris came home and delivered lots of lovely goodies. From Chris came a selection of shampoos (plus carrying case), soaps and face washes from LUSH wrapped in a nice scarf which is THE fashion accessory here in London, so it will be put to good use.


Patrick thoughtfully got me a card with knitted animals enjoying a birthday cake and 1000 m of lace-weight cashmere/silk blend wool in baby blue. It's so nice I said I just wanted to let it sit in my stash with my other skein of cashmere and just look at it....touch it.....put it against my cheek.......... sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, Patrick said he knew I would say that but that I HAVE to use to make something for myself. He also gave me a gift certificate which I have been instructed to use to buy a Knit Kit for myself. Between that and my interchangeable needles I have the perfect knitting travel kit, just add local yarn and I'm good to go! I'm taking any and all requests for knitted objects so I can use my fun toys!

So that was about it. Wow, what a long post.......but it was a long day, and good. Here's hoping to many happy returns.