Christmas Time Is Here

Merry Christmas Dear Readers,

Well, I had a whopping 5 day weekend last week, which was terrific.  The first two days were spent mainly doing laundry and napping, the perfect way to unwind after a particularly busy week at work trying to finish things off before I start my new job January 18th.

 Pat's girlfriend Beth was over for Christmas, we started the morning right with pancakes and sausages, but then Patrick could wait no longer, he wanted presents!  Here he is opening the Kindle Fire that the whole family got him, he's very excited.  He is coming with Chris and me to Cyprus so he's loading it up with plenty of reading material for the trip.

To Patrick's left is what Chris got me a, GIANT BOX OF LUSH PRODUCTS!!!  tied with a big bow.  Just what I always wanted!  It's the gift that keeps on giving, though I'm going to try to stretch it out for the whole year, we'll see.  We spent all of Christmas day in our pajamas, and played the board game version of QI that Beth got us.  If you haven't seen the show you should check it out.

 The next day, Patrick experimented with shaving the beard he's been growing for all of Beardcember, as he calls it.  Here he is sporting a trucker....

 And the bizzare cowboy look,  (Notice my Lush box in the background).  Fortunatly for all of us, he shaved off the whole thing in the end.  Phew.  I think he was taking a page out of this .

I went to work Thursday and Friday, but have been taking advantage of the pouring rain this weekend to do a bit of crafting.   I used this pattern to turn this XL t-shirt from my friend George....

 Into this super cute racer back dress.  I love how I was able to preserve the whole front motif of the shirt.


I also had another oversize shirt that I used this wrap around pattern to make up a front or back wrap dress for.  The little girl that I sew for gets so big so fast that I am trying out dresses with no waistband, on the mother's recommendation.  The racer back is sized for a two year old, and the wrap 2-3 so hopefully it will hold her for the next year or so!  We probably won't have sunny warm weather for her to wear it as a dress, but she can layer it over a top and tights, though girls that grow up in the UK seem to be able to wear little summer dresses - even in winter!

Oh well, at least we are headed to Cyprus tomorrow where the weather has been about 20 degres C (that's about 70).  It will probably feel warm enough to me to wear a dress, maybe even go to the beach!

Speaking of which, I'm headed off to Oxfordd street to do a little shopping.  After 12 weeks of P90X some of my clothes arn't fitting well and I wanted to see if I can get some stuff in the after Christmas sales to keep me looking good and show off my somewhat fitter body.

Catch you all in the new year!

Just Under the Wire

Hello Dear Readers,

Had another really great weekend (this year seems to have been full of them!).  Adding to the list of my high school friends who have made the trek out here to visit me (Jennifer, Adam and Melch, Matt, Devin, Luke, Amy) Susan sneaks in right at the end of the year!  Hoooray!  She came under the pretense of giving a talk at the Institute of Physics, but I think we can all agree that seeing me is the highlight of the visit!

 Sunday morning I took the tube out to pick her up from Heathrow.  We went up to Great Portland Street to drop her luggage off at the hotel.  Fortunately it was very close to Oxford street so we could spend the day doing a bit of shopping!

 I took her to YumChaa, my favorite tea shop in Berwick Street, then we wandered around such highlights as Liberty, where I fondled the yarn section (as usual, they have ALL the Rowan yarns!)

 And we had fancy tea in their tea room, complete with Christmas themed mini mince pies and a delicious but mysterious jelly (English jelly, Jell-o to Americans) thing with cinnamon flavor.

 We walked around Regent street to see the lights, and of course hit up UniQlo and LUSH!!  Walked to Chinatown, Leicester Square where the Hobbit grand opening was on Friday, Trafalgar Square for some truly weird carols before walking Susan back to her hotel, wet and tired but so happy.

Monday night Susan came to my house for a traditional English dinner of Bangers and Mash.  Don't get excited, that just means sausages (vegan in our case) and mashed potatoes, which I served with a side of stir fried kale.  Yum!  And mango for dessert.

Afterwards we went into the living room to try to get a nice serious photo together, unfortunately we were talking so much and laughing so hard we couldn't really get one.

It looks a bit like that strip of photos you get in a photo booth.  In the third one Susan is recreating a funny high school photo which I don't think I have an electronic copy of (Jennifer?).  I like the last one which is a classic Susan pose where she is clearly explaining something to me in a hilarious manner.  My brother came downstairs and asked what all the laughing and screaming was about but really we couldn't say, it was just funny!

 We did get a semi serious one over here by the fireplace, which is in full Christmas swing now.

My mother and sister sent boxes with gifts, so they are piled up, PLUS the huge mystery present from Chris to me.  No idea.  Also, if you look closely to the right of the American flag is a sweet handmade hand painted Nativity scene Susan's mother, avid reader of this blog (Hello Mrs. Clark!!Thanks for the gift, I love it!) made and sent to me.  It's fantastic!  I'm sure I took a close up photo, but I think it might have been on Susan's camera, which is very similar to mine.

Well, Christmas will be a let down now after Susan's visit, but what can we do? Just get along until the next visit comes around, which I hope will be sooner, rather than later.  Miss you already Susan.

We are spending a quiet Christmas at home, I have Monday through Wednesday off (the day after Christmas, called Boxing Day, is also a national holiday here) so I plan to do ALL the laundry in the house, sheets, towels, heck, maybe even curtains!!  We'll see.  It would just be nice to know that everything was clean starting in the new year.

Hope everyone has a good Christmas, I'll report back soon.

Cheers

Full of Christmas Cheer

Hello Dear Readers,

This weekned we went to our favorite getaway spot in the UK, Cambridge at the house of our good friends Molly and George (and now Katelyn!).  We packed a ton of Christmas stuff into the weekend, spending a good part of the day Sunday making, baking and decorating (and eating!) Christmas cookies. Totally blowing our P90X diet but hey, it's just one weekend!  I've been very good at all my other parties, but I can't resist the holiday feel of a weekend in Cambridge.  We exchanged cookie traditions, me with the dying of the dough before you roll and bake it, Molly with decorating with colored icing.  It's funny you don't think too much about those traditions you have, you think that's juts the way it always is until someone else shakes up your world view for you.

Saturday of course, was devoted to picking out the tree.  Well first I did Pilates with Molly, helped them help a friend move from a 2nd story apartment, had a big lunch and a walk to the Co-op, THEN Chris had woken up enough (they have an amazing guest bed - or ours is just that bad) to go with us to get the tree.

 Katelyn is a lot bigger than the last time I saw her, and knows a lot more words, Christmas Tree being one of them.  George was a man on a mission, and picked out the PERFECT Nordman spruce for them.

He and Chris set it up while Katelyn and I picked up pine needles from the Carpet.  Yes kiddo, cleaning is FUN.  By the way, this is Chris's first real Christmas tree ever, first time picking it out from the Christmas Tree place etc, we even tied it to the roof of the car!!

Molly and George's family had brought their old ornaments, including lots of child friendly ones which Katelyn helped to hang up.  Or rather, smashed onto the lowest branches. 

That's one good looking tree!


In other exciting news, last week I was offered a PERMANENT position at Kew as editor of the IPNI website.  I will be working on wrapping up the job I'm currently doing and then my first day will be the 21st of January.

Truly the year of me, best year ever!


Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season as much as I am.


Cheers!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving dear readers!!

I was planning to post last weekend but I spent all of Saturday in the ER and was pooped on Sunday.  No it wasn't me or EVEN my brother, but my poor housemate Monica who broke her arm while running.  She's a real trooper though, and went to work all this week and is doing fine, just a fracture on her distal radius.

 But of course it's Thanksgiving today so I have to post a little something about what I'm thankful for. It's been a pretty awesome year (The Year of Me, if you recall).  Had a great month off in the Spring, found a job, met lots of new friends at Kew and old friends, and of course I still get to live with my boyfriend and brother AT THE SAME TIME.  And we also all took today and tomorrow off so that it's like a REAL Thanksgiving for us, for the first time in a while (I just took a half day last year and no time off the year before).

 I'm also thankful that this year I was able to get my Tofurkey for Thanksgiving dinner with a minimum of fuss (There is Patrick above carving it with the traditional Tofurkey Bread Knife).  I ended up going to Whole Foods and getting two (one for Christmas) only after going to the local whole foods store at Kew and finding they didn't have it in their order book though they emailed me and told me they had!!

Anyway we had Tofurkey roast with vegetables (potatoes, parsnips, carrots and onion with a soy and orange glaze), giblet gravy, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, fresh home-made whole wheat rolls and vegan pumpkin pie for dessert.  Yum!  Nice and small for just the three of us (though Cat and Jeff joined us on the computer you can see there) and still managed to stay within my P90X requirements - just.

Tomorrow I have a full day planned to spend time with friends, visiting the Natural History Museum for lunch, seeing the Hollywood costume exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum and going to a concert there in the evening.

Right now I'm hanging out with Chris and listening to Alice's Restaurant as is my Thanksgiving Tradition.

Hope you all are enjoying the day, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not!

Still kicking it old school, really old, like 1776

Hello Dear Readers,

I'm still here, still kicking.  Two weeks ago I was working really hard for a job interview (didn't get it, oh well) and then came down with a chest cold (I blame my housemate with the chest infection) and I've been working P90X pretty hard (but lost almost 10 lbs and a bra size, pictures of day 30 need to be taken soon).  I was still thinking about all the stuff I wanted to blog and share with you, so here it is.

First up, you will remember that my brother used to have the computer game maker  Ubisoft as a client, and they provided him with the game Assasin's Creed.  When I first moved to the UK and wasn't working I started playing and was totally hooked.  On the 31st of October the latest installment (Set in Revolutionary War Boston - check out the trailer) came out and because Ubisoft knows how crazy I am about the game (not because they like my brother), they gave ME the deluxe pack, complete with figurine and special edition metal case (not even available in the US!!) and George Washington's diary!  Because in this one, as my brother says, you get to be homes with G. Dub.  Awesome.

 How cool is that?  I've been playing the game a tiny bit, but as I said it's been a pretty crazy week.  Even Wednesday when I was too ill to go to work, I was too weak and tired to be able to hold the controller....In the game the date you start is 31 October 2012 and there is something big that is supposed to happen on the 21st of December, so I'm going to try to play the whole game by then, we'll see.

I've also been doing a bit of knitting to get ready for Christmas.  The people who are going to get these I'm pretty sure aren't blog readers (some of them can't even read, but they are 2 years old so it isn't a problem yet), so it's ok to flash it here.

 I'm pretty happy with this cuff made from wool instead of the usual embroidery floss, even Chris approves and he's usually quite the art critic.  I got the idea and instructions from the Purl Soho blog.

Beautiful grey merino and blue silk/cashmere blend.  That's a hard one to gift away!  I've also got some knitting commission from The Sewing Rooms (worked there all day yesterday) which should keep me busy for a bit.

I guess not that much did happen in two weeks, though sometimes it seems really long.  Today I am heading up to South Kensington on my bike, it is a gorgeous day so far, sunny and no clouds.  I'm going to meet up with my friend Aurelie from the Natural History Museum and go to Whole Foods to get a Tofurkey in time for Thanksgiving.  This year I'm taking BOTH days off, woo hooo!  So any of you State-side want to give me a Skype on the day I'll be here, basting a Tofurky in low-sodium non fat soy sauce - yummy - and listening to Alice's Restaurant and NPR all day long. And, you know, playing a little Assasin's Creed - it is very patriotic being set in the revolution and all.

Cheers!

Are those reindeer playing leapfrog?

Hello dear readers,

I have about three projects on the go, as per usual, but when the weather turns wet cold and fallish, I'm often inspiried to cast on a few quickies.  Fortunately Patrick and Chris both asked me for some knitted items which is fairly usual so I pounced. Patrick originally wanted an over the top ugly Christmas sweater, but I told him he'd have to get the wool and it's a bit pricy.  I also pointed out a pattern to him which I thought would be better than ugly Christmas. So this weekend I pulled out some of the lovely bluejeans yarn I got at Kerry Woolen Mills and some white Cornwall wool from my friend Toad's destashing and produced this gem:

Look closely, no those Reindeer aren't playing leap frog.....  I have one on the front and one on the back so that when he rows in next weekend's race everyone can see them.  Fun!

I'm also making some slippers for Chris out of the same yarn from this pattern for those that have Ravelry.  He's very fussy so I hope he likes them, I'll keep you posted.  Felting is a bit of a dark art so they could turn out to be any size......

And yes, we've just completed week 2 of P90X.  Don't want to jinx it, but I'm down 7 lbs from the end of September.......

So much excitment I can hardly stand(it)

Hello Dear Readers,

Well well well, life is certainly like a box of chocolates.  Except not for me and Chris, because you know we are still committed to P90X and not eating sweets. I think a lot of people here think we should be comittted soemwhere else, but we'll have the last laugh when we look like supermodels.  Ahem.  ANyway, very eventful week in the Lindon in London household. 

Wednesday while at work (around 10 am) I got some garbled messages on Gchat from Chris, about how Patrick ate some shellfish the night before, was throwing up and had a sore throat.  Warning bells went off in my head, as shellfish allergies are very common, so I was trying to contact Patrick to make sure he was all right, direct him to the ER and meet him there ASAP.  It turned out he was on a train to Charing Cross, which was easy for me to get to, except that he wasn't on a London train to Charing Cross, but coming from Folkstone, way out south and east in Kent, and was in the middle of nowhere.  The conversation on Gmail went something like this (I may be exaggerating slightly for storytelling effect, but only slightly)

Patrick: Sore throat, throwing up, had seafood.  Might go to ER, might try to get to London.
Me: Where are you
Patrick: On a train comign into Ashford
Me: GET OF THE TRAIN NOW YOU FOOL, YOU FOOL.  What if you go into shock and stop breathing between stations? no one can do anything for you!  GET OFF THE TRAIN NOW AND GO TO THE ER!  I'll look up hospitals for you! There is one there, get a cab to it as it's far from the station.
Patrick: Yeah, I don't feel so well, maybe I should get off the train........
.....Long Pause.....
Patrick: Ok in the cab to hospital
.......Pause......
What is our doctor's name again? Need it ASAP
......Pause of 3 hours in which I'm sure he's gone into Anaphalactic shock and died and no one will know how to contact his family, or he's died of waiting in the ER due to NHS cutbacks, or it's nothing and he forgot to tell me and is in London by now.

Fortunately he texted me around 4 to say he was ok now, on the train home and he didn't need me to come get him.  Well he didn't say all that but that's how it turned out.  Apparently he does have a shellfish allergy (See? I was right to jump to the worst conclusion! I knew the signs!) and they had to Epi pin him twice when his resting heart rate (normally around 41) went to 140 in a matter of 15 minutes.  Phew.  So he came home and I stayed home to take care of him in his weakened state, and even watched Ghostbusters with him, thanking my lucky stars that he had the good sense to call his sister and then listen to her when he wasn't feeling well, otherwise I would have spent the evening very differently. 

Here he is eating the nice healthy recovery dinner I made for him, complete with Tim Tam for dessert.  Aww, poor little fellow.  Sigh. I do wish baby brothers weren't so much trouble!!


Something Patrick would never do for me is take me on a long cycle, but when I heard a friend was cycling to Brighton this weekend I jumped at the chance, not least because I was assured it wasn't a group of serious cyclists and I wouldn't be left behind.

Well we took this route (approximately) intending to leave at 9:45.  By 11:00 we set off, two of our members were told it would take 30 min to cycle to the starting point (it took 60) and one of them had the chain fall off their bike.  Not even out of London (in Tooting) another member sprang a leak on their tire, had to replace it, and eventually we had to cycle to the nearest bike shop so he could buy a new tire (the old one had a bulge at the rim).

 The driver of the bus you see behind you insisted on coming over to help us, apparently he is a avid cyclist and prides himself on changing tires very quickly.

  Finally, we set off in earnest, climbing one of the first hills of the trip.  I made it cycling all the way, but another girl had a 60 year old bike that would only go into 3rd and 4th gear, and not between them very well either, though she is so hard core she managed to mostly keep up with the rest of us just the same.  Slowly we wound our way south, meeting up with a lot of hills along the way (Chipstead road did me in at the Church, mostly because I forgot that I had front gears as well) and stopping off at the Dog and Duck for lunch and our first pee break (baked Potato with Beans for me).  It was already 4 and we were just under halfway......

  We passed Wakehurst Place (part of Kew gardens, I'm hoping to convince Patrick to cycle out there with me sometime) and up the infamous Turner Hill (made it up that one all the way, thanks to my front gears, and singing Gangnam Style to myself).  All this time we knew we would have to climb the infamous Beacon hill, but I wasn't looking at the map so I coudln't know what kind of progress we were making, how much longer it would take, or how I would fare.  Unfortunately in Ardingly my front gear stopped shifting, so I was stuck in the middle set, ok for going up hills, but that's about it.  It started to get dark (we had lights) and we kept pushing on through dark windy country roads until at last we could see in the dying rays of the sun, the hulking mass of Beacon Hill.

Well I was determined to get up that thing, and started out ok, doggedly pushing one leg then the other, able to navigate only by my lights and the reflective line in the center of the road.  On the one hand the pitch blackness meant that psychologically I couldn't see ahead of me, so I just kept pushing on.  On the other hand it was completly dark, and I was by myself (one cycling buddy had sped ahead to meet us at the top, the other two were lagging beghind, the last pushing her bike from the very start).  I kept going, singing all the songs I knew, telling myself that I WOULD tell Patrick I didn't have to push my bike. 

Finally there was a bit of a plateau, and a clearing where I could see the twinkling lights of West Sussex below (far, far below), and I thought I was nearly there, even with one gear out of commission.  Then a car went by and I saw how much more there was.  I caved. I walked the rest of the way, in the total dark and silence.  The total empty darkness, quiet, and contemplative silence only defeat could bring, as I trudged up and up and up, sure the hill would never end and I would spend all my days, like Sisyphus, pushing this old heavy hybrid bike, alone, up the hill.

Well of course it did end, and my friend Malcom told me that he had done it in 12 minutes, and that he had been waiting about 7 minutes for me. So I hadn't been walking for 30 minutes like I thought, but probably only 5, and I had made it nearly 1/2 or 3/4 of the way up, no way to know for sure.  But I did it.  And I'm DAMN proud of myself, it's my new benchmark for acheivemnt.  I did Beacon Hill, alone, in the dark, with half my gears gone.  I can do anything!

We did get to Brighton eventually, though we didn't touch the sea as we had planned, too tired out and hungry (it was 8 pm) so we sat at The Railway Bell pub next to the station, drinking and recovering until 11 when we caught the train home. 

Much to my dismay, I found out that trains don't run from Clapham Junction ot Putney that late at night, so I had to cycle the 2 miles back to Putney when I got there at 12:30 am.  Much to my pleasent surprise, It hardly took me any time, and I even enjoyed it and managed to carry my bike up the stairs at the end of the night.

So that's my tale of my first ill planned and ill executed cycle to Brighton.  But I did do it, and now, I can do anything.  I just need to summon up the energy for my P90X Kenpo workout this afternoon......


Cheers