London: The Big Smoke

Two days in London.  

There are things you have to accept if you want to enjoy London - you are going to go home with an very empty wallet, people are going to bump into you - like over and over, and did I mention the empty wallet.

For example, for £210/night you can get a room in a great location, but it'll be a room with a bed in it - like that's it.

Best part was that the pillow kept falling into the window

The threading was interesting and not near as painful as I was anticipating.  I find it sometimes helps to expect the worst when trying a new beauty treatment.  

Threading is all the rage, and Gill got her eyebrows done at Blinc in Selfridges.

You see they take thread and they make kind of a Cats Cradle with it and then they run it along your skin trapping the hair in the thread and pulling it out by the root.  This is supposed to be very precise, trap every hair and doesn't remove any of your skin like wax sometimes can.  

There were 8 chairs at Blinc, and they were always full, and each woman was having every kind of hair removal - not just eyebrows.  Some women had VERY red faces, which I am not sure I would enjoy in the middle of a department store.

Unlike waxing, there are times when you have to help as their hands are full of thread

Wednesday, Gill arrived in London in the afternoon and met me in Convent Garden - as I was exiting the dressing room in COS.  We marched back to Selfridges to get her eyebrows done and drop off my bags from my days shopping.  Then we headed back to Covent Garden and ate at Jamie's (as in Oliver) Italian Kitchen.  It was incredible and we both noted it had been too long since either of us had a bowl of pasta or sat across the table from one another and talked.

During the day, I picked a general direction and went down every interesting street and alley.  London was all duded up for Christmas, and it was fairly spectacular.

A Christmas Story in Handbags

I did occasionally have to consult my map as I wondered - how did I get down here?  I covered several miles each day and was pleasantly sore.

Seriously Cute

There were several arcades and inside are wonderful little stores that don't exist anywhere else.  I particularly like the macaron store, and I purchase a little sleeve of cookies that I am still working through.

This one was FILLED with jewelry - new and old - it was droolworthy

Thursday, Gill and I met up for lunch at Selfridges.  We shared a salt beef Ruben.  The salt beef was from Cork, Ireland.  

We were each going to get one, but then the master said , NO too big - so Gill said, we should share one?  So he looks us over for a minute and says yes, share one - so we did.

I N C R E D I B L E

After lunch we went to Nails Inc for a manicure and pedicure.  The shop was a bit grotty - not clean, over crowded and confused.   But they took us upstairs for our pedicure and turned on Pretty Woman, which caused Gill and I to giggle for an hour - all the giggling caused shaking that could not have made the pedicure easy, but they didn't fuss at us and that made up for everything.

After our nails, we both got ready for our night out - which is why we were in London in the first place.  We'd had our eye makeup done at Chanel.  Gill text me that she'd had to apply more makeup as she just didn't feel her's was strong enough - this is just as I was taking a tissue and trying to remove mine as I thought: too much...too much.

It was a great night with good food.  Always interesting and strange to see people you work with in black tie, but it was a real laugh.  

After 2 hours of sleep, I retraced my steps to Gatwick and flew home on Friday.

In Edinburgh, I saw one of the guys from the night before.  He didn't immediately recognize me last night and once he did, he said, my god you clean up well.  As I approached him in the airport, I shouted, Not so pretty now am I?  We had a laugh and he acknowledged that I was a bit scruffy - which caused his companion to gasp.  I said, no, I know I'm scruffy.

What a nice trip - have I mentioned how lucky I am.

And One More Arty Shot

The Darkness

The darkness is here.  

It really started in October, but it was the time change that  made it obvious.  Right now, the sun comes up at 0839 and it's down by 1526, which leaves us with 6 hours and 49 minutes of light.  

We are currently losing 2-3 minutes per day and counting down to Christmas Day when we will start to gain daylight.  It's very disorienting because the sun comes up and goes down in the South - making a little arch that you cannot help but notice and think, hmm that's wrong strange.

But it is not all bad because for whatever reason it seems to make all light a bit more special.  The air is crisp and incredibly clean - it might be my imagination, but I see colors on the edges of the light that I have never noticed before.

I sort of felt a collective groan, but I think I can prove it.  We had a full moon this week.

Full Moon Behind a Cloud

Full moon emerging

Oh so beautiful

See what I mean?

Mobile Post - Can I do it?

This post is test.  

You see I have been very frustrated that I cannot blog on my ipad.  In fact, sometimes my ipad eats a post that I have already made on regular computer.  So I did some research and found a bunch of people that are just as frustrated as I am, but then I found an app that seemed like it might make this all possible for just $2.99.  

So here we are trying a post on the go...

I arrived at my hotel room in London extraordinarily pleased with myself.  

It was Tuesday, I'd come down for an industry dinner on Thursday.  I came early to try and recruit some people.  Unfortunately, I learned after I bought my ticket that none of the people I wanted to meet with were available.  This meant I was in London for 2 days with nothing to do.  

I then made all of my flight connections - in fact they all landed early, then I took the train from Gatwick to Victoria Station, Victoria tube to Green Park, Jubilee tube to Baker Street and then I walked 6 blocks to my hotel - it took me less than an hour!

I checked into my hotel room - I have stayed at No. 10 Manchester Street.  I think it's a very good location in the Marylebone (the most misspelled neighbourhood in London apparently).  I had forgotten how small the rooms are in London as it just had a bed in it with maybe 18 inches between the sides of the bed on either side.  There isn't even a place to put you suitcase without blocking the way to the door or the bathroom

I was pleased to get a text from Gill saying that she wanted to join me for dinner the next night and she thought maybe she could find time to join me for a manicure and pedicure on Thursday.

Right, now I am off to find coffee and then get my eyebrows threaded - I know I've never had it done either.  It's fairly nerve wracking because I am very particular about my eyebrows, wish me luck.

Thurso Thanksgiving(s)

Oh where, oh where has November gone?

Living in another country during 'American' holidays is always just a little bit weird and sometimes can be lonely.  But what usually happens is the expat community plans something - and this Thanksgiving was no different.

I was lucky enough to have 2 Thanksgivings.  On the actual Thanksgiving, I went over to Jason and Lynitia's house, and we had a huge meal with all of the traditional stuff.  Jason makes these brussel sprouts that are just about the best thing you've ever eaten - really, he does.

Lynitia made a cranberry, date, orange cake that was scrummy and only rivaled by her pumpkin and cream cheese pie.  It was fun listening to the trials of trying to figure out what an appropriate substitute for crisco might be - took 3 very frustrating attempts to get the pie crust.

I could have stopped there, and it would have been a perfect Thanksgiving, but the STUDS [spouses traveling under duress] had planned a much larger event for Sunday.

I had planned ahead and my source (aka Ma) had sent fresh pecans and corn syrup so I could bring pecan pies.  I also made my Auntie's cranberries - used port since I didn't have any red wine on hand, and this was a very good substitute.

I also made from scratch (no cans) green bean casserole - I made this for 60 people, which is what we were planning.  This required a lot of cooking - storage of food in the garage and an entire day of chopping and stirring - feels like Thanksgiving.

We were lucky enough to get to use the Blue Door Diner, which is owned by a Texan.

See the clocks: Thurso, Sydney, D/FW

We started the meal with Kyler reading out the meaning of Thanksgiving.  He was awesome.  Now I say this and you all might hmm that's nice, but there are really almost no words to explain his performance. He had planned and written up this very concise meaning and then he belted it out - BELTED IT OUT.  

There was a moment where I thought I might wet my pants.  

And THE FIRST SETTLERS...

After dinner, everyone sat around and talked and then walked around and filled up our 'to go' containers.  

Come on, it's Thanksgiving, there had to be leftovers.  

It was fun to see everyone's 'traditional' Thanksgiving food.  With 4-5 different kind of sweet potatoes, you were bound to find the one that reminded you of family.  We also enjoyed explaining to the Brits that marshmallows were supposed to be on the vegetables.

This year, I am grateful for this incredible experience in the unique place with these crazy and interesting entertaining people. 

Chainsaw's Inspiration or Madness?

To give you the full experience...

They call him chainsaw

On the way to work, there is this bit of curvy road that winds down and across the Forss River.  It is here that a place called Forss Cottage sits.  This place is very distracting because not only is it a tricky bit of road, but there is always something unusual to see.

A guy everyone calls Chainsaw lives at Forss cottage and as far as I can tell, all he does is carve wood with his chainsaw.  When you get used to his style, you realize the entire wooded area is filled with his sculptures.

Notice the hoist for large items

He also moves them around and you can sometimes see them on the other side of the road - again not good for your driving concentration.  

He seems to like to move the couple having intimate relations on a snowboard the most - you never know what tree it will be hanging from.

Hmm...

On some very rare occasions, it is completely obvious what it is that he's carved.

I love her flares

On other occasions, you have to use your imagination. 

I think Chainsaw lives alone

The other week the local paper did a piece on Chainsaw. Apparently, he is working on a chess set with human sized pieces.  The journalist asked Chainsaw why are you doing it and Chainsaw said because I can.