April 22, 2011
Today is the first day of a four-day weekend - very exciting! We're not doing much - staying put and enjoying the gorgeous weather. We had been thinking about going to Scotland, but it was too expensive by the time we got around to booking. Also, there's no DLR service out to us this weekend, which makes getting around the city quite difficult. So we will enjoy our BBQ and backyard! The statue I chose for our backyard arrived yesterday - I'll try to post some pictures of the yard soon!
I enjoyed last week's episode of Supernatural - the premise being that one of the angels went back in time and acted as the lookout on the Titanic so it never sank. But now Fate (or one of the three fates) was going after all the descendants that should have never been born. This season has been hit and miss, but this one was pretty good.
Just read Daisy Goodwin's My Last Duchess. It's about an American heiress in the late 1800s who marries an English duke and then has to figure out how to fit in with English society. It was alright - I enjoyed the read, even if I figured out all the "secrets" very early on. The ending felt a bit forced, and I would have been happy enough with an alternate ending, but the period detail was good, and it's nice to imagine living in that world of huge wealth!
April 18, 2011
Happy Birthday to my niece Elizabeth! She is one today.
Just finished reading Miriam Toews' A Boy of Good Breeding. I saw a fair bit of myself in the mayor, though hopefully I'm not quite that neurotic. :) A nice fun read though, and nice to read something Canadian!
April 17, 2011
And once again, apologies for the long delay between updates. I've been going through a creative lull, so finally decided I would just get the update done, and borrow this (lovely) template from another site. I'll try to go back to making my own next time!
So there is a long time to catch you up on. First things first, work is still going well, though busy, and Todd is still looking for work unfortunately. He's had a few interviews over the past couple of weeks, so even though none of them were successful, we are definitely noticing that things are picking up.
Let me back up all the way to my last entry, at the beginning of December. December was a great time, as it usually is. We hosted two small get-togethers, one for our Canadian friends, with a full turkey dinner, and the other for some of my friends from when I lived here before. The weekend before Christmas, we went on our anniversary trip, which ended up being more of an adventure than we had anticipated! We flew into Munich on Friday, though our flight was delayed by snow in Munich. Which was great, because it meant we had proper winter wonderland for our time there! We had a great time exploring the city and the various Christmas markets. On the Saturday we took the train up to Nuremburg, where we went to the Nazi Party rally grounds, and the Christmas market there (can you think of two more diverse activities?). On Sunday, we went to a palace in the city and the art gallery. Pictures are on Facebook.
Now, on Sunday evening we were supposed to fly back to London. However, while we had been away, there had been a lot of snow in London, and Heathrow was closed. They didn't know how long it would be before it reopened. After some research and discussion, we found out that the Eurostar was running, so we decided to make our way to Paris instead and try our luck from there. We took the overnight train from Munich to Paris, and spent a bit of time there wandering around Montmartre, before going to the train station and finding out our train that evening was cancelled! Luckily, Eurostar was paying for hotels, so we stayed the night there, and went back to the train station for 6 am, as it was going to be first come, first served. We managed to get on the first train back, although the only seats left were tip-down seats in the space between the cars - not very comfortable for the price we'd paid! We finally made it back to London late Tuesday afternoon.
After all that, and getting sick besides, we were meant to go to Oslo between Christmas and New Year's, but decided to cancel. So we spent a very quiet Christmas break, after attending Mass at Westminster Cathedral, just recovering from our illness and the trauma of travelling in Europe in the snow!
Early in January, we visited the Geffrye Museum to see their "Christmas through the years" exhibit, and went to the Globe Theatre for a lovely Winter Wassail concert. We also saw a production of Matthew Bourne's Cinderella, which I was a bit disappointed with, mostly because I expected it to be more ballet-ish than it was. Both of the kittens got fixed.
In February, we went to see Million Dollar Quartet, and the Donmar's production of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which was great. We also went to the 1-year reunion party for the Olympics - the London party, at least! In March we went to see a few shows in Wimbledon, touring productions of Jekyll & Hyde and Hairspray. I hadn't seen Jekyll & Hyde for AGES, so it was nice to see it again, even if the production was pretty boring. Michael Ball is still in the Hairspray tour, so it was great to see him again. Most recently, we went to a pub version of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged, as well as the press night of the new show Betty Blue Eyes. The show was pretty good, and it was just neat to be there and see all the celebrities (for Todd and I, that means Stephen Fry, Jimmy Carr and Andrew Lloyd Webber). Outside of theatre, we took a course on cupcake decorating one day, which was a lot of fun! The results can be seen here.
Also at the beginning of March, we took a week off and went to Malta for a short holiday. It was one of the countries in Europe I hadn't been to yet, so we decided to check it out. We stayed in St. Julian's, a suburb of the capital city of Valletta, and spent our time exploring Valletta (the co-cathedral there is AMAZING), visiting the ancient capital of Mdina, and making the rounds on the smaller island of Gozo, including some very ancient temples (older than the pyramids!). The weather was a bit windy and not that warm, unfortunately, so swimming in the sea was definitely out, but it was a lovely relaxing time. We stayed at the Le Meridien, and enjoyed the pool and very yummy hotel restaurant. Pictures from Malta are also on Facebook.
Yesterday, we took the train down to Arundel to see the castle there. It's a very pretty little town, and aside from the castle, we visited the shops, had a yummy lunch, saw the cathedral and a couple of churches, and took a stroll down the riverside. You can see some pictures of the castle (well, mostly flowers) here.
Okay, I think those are the highlights for now. I've been missing home a bit, particularly when it's birthday time for my nephews Ethan (March 17th), Caleb (last Friday) and my niece Elizabeth (tomorrow) - we would love to be there with everyone. But Todd's parents and grandmother are coming out in early June, and my mother will be here in July, so we don't have too much longer to wait for some visitors.
It is absolutely spring here - we've had lovely weather, and the flowers are blooming in our backyard. We recently bought a BBQ and patio set, so are spending lots of time outdoors with the cats.
I hope spring has come to you as well, and hopefully my next update will be sooner (and shorter!).