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!

Big Things

Hello Dear Readers,

This weekend Chris and I traveled to Kingston on Thames at 8 am to see an 8:45 showing of The Dark Knight Rises (the latest and last Batman movie) in IMAX.  It was a bit early for me, and the show was 3 hours long, but it was a good one.  What I enjoyed at least as much was exploring the little town of Kingston.  It has some good shopping including a mall and the "Old London Road" quaint shops.  It has a little Quay by the river (pronounced "Key") and a fantastic medieval square with a little farmer's market on the Saturday morning we went.

We also found this gem, which I had seen in photographs before but had no idea it was so accessible or so local!  It's no the most interesting town in London perhaps, but I was blown away by it's charm.

 Speaking blown away, what have we here?  A Coca Cola bottle with Olympic branding?

 What is my whole team from the office doing standing outside in the middle of the day?  (Notice what a fantastic looking group we are, and how it's not raining, but seriously, these guys are great to work with).

 Who is that standing behind me?

Why it's the Olympic torch relay, passing right through Kew gardens!  We were able to take some flexi time off to see the torch being run through the gardens.  Impossible to get a good photo, but it was a fun little break in the middle of the day.  The first Olympic event is today (soccer) but the opening ceremonies aren't till Friday.  We're all a twitter here, big things happening, I'll keep you updated!
I am having a little trouble with my shoulders - too much stress and typing- so knitting is out and I'm limiting my out of office typing so I still plan to blog, they will just probably be short and sweet for a while.

Cheers!

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!

and even more visitors!

Hello Dear Readers,

Well well well, the bar is being set pretty high here folks.  Jennifer, Amy, Adam and Melch, Luke, Matt and now....... Devin!  That's 7 out of 11 Skippies who have come to visit me in London.  Susan, KT, Jon and J-fer? Buller?  Your know what to do.

Last weekend completely out of the blue my friend Devin said, "hey Heather, I'm in London over the weekend, you around?"  Turns out he was here with another high school friend of mine to be the best man (and maid of honor) for a surprise destination wedding.  Not a surprise to the bride (I asked) but to the parents of the happy couple.  We met up at Piccadilly Circus, walked to Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, had dinner in a pub (mmmm Eton Mess and Banoffee!) then wandered around the south bank, St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace and back to Piccadilly just in time.

It was so great to catch up with him since it's been about 5 years at least.  It's so weird how seeing old friends can make it seem like absolutely no time has passed at all.  Its always like that and yet I'm always surprised.  Pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday we had another (somewhat surprise as it was arranged last minute) guest, Christiana, Chris's cousin who lives about an hour south in Guildford.  She came up for the day to just enjoy our company (and my cooking, she lives in a dorm).  We walked along the Thames path up to Hammersmith, such an amazing day.  Cool and breezy but sunny and warm enough if you are walking.  Typical English summer I guess. After that we headed to the Mall in Shepherds Bush, but were pretty exhausted so we went back home shortly, ate more food and then chilled.

June Roundup

Hello Dear Readers,

As it's the last full weekend in June I thought I'd catch up on other things that happened this month.  I participated in a "Hen Do", or Batchelorette party for Elina, a Cypriot friend of my from the Natural History Museum, hence the greek Gods and Goddesses getup.  I'm Athena, goddess of wisdom, also called the "awesome one in pigtails" in some translations of the Odessy (Barbra Nelson's 9th grade English class anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)

As it's the last weekend in June I thought I'd catch up on other things that happened this month.  I participated in a "Hen Do", or Batchelorette party for Elina, a Cypriot friend of my from the Natural History Museum, hence the greek Gods and Goddesses getup.  I'm Athena, goddess of wisdom, also called the "awesome one in pigtails" in some translations of the Odessy (Barbra Nelson's 9th grade English class anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)  She's getting married this summer and we gave her a bit of a send off.  We had a picnic in Hyde Park, complete with kisses for the bride from total strangers.  Then we learned the moves from Dirty Dancing, where we posed for the above photo.

Afterwards we headed to another friend's place for a Vietnamese cooking class.  AMAZING! Such delecious food, and so much of it.  Of course obligatory tube ride in our hen do get up, thankfully we weren't the most outrageously dressed hen-do that weekend and there were a lot of them.  Hot pink tutu's and leg warmers for one, have to say I'm a little jealous about that one.....




Last weekend I received this fantastic belated birthday present from my friend Jennifer (remember her?).  It's a TARDIS, or for those who aren't Doctor Who fans (and why not?) it's a spaceship shaped like a police box which is actually an alien time machine space ship.  Which is also alive.  And bigger on the inside.  Ok it sounds weird when you say it like that but it's a hell of a lot of fun!  It's going on my desk at work as soon as I figure a save way to transport it, maybe in a large tupperware?


This weekend, there is a surprise guest in London - just further proof that the year 30 is going to be the best ever for me!