Royal Wedding

Pete and I were in Central London the day BEFORE the big wedding and took some pictures of the celebratory decorations etc.  You can view them on Facebook (whether or not you use Facebook) by clicking this link.

We went to our friends Phil and Melinda's house that morning for a full English breakfast and viewing party.  Great time! 


Pete and our friend Liz in front of Phil and Melinda's house

 Our friend Hannah and some inside decorations

 They made corsages for all the women!

 A really fun time!

London Canal Cruise

On Sunday Pete and I went to Camden for a canal cruise. It was a gorgeous day and I felt like a boat ride, and neither of us had been on the canals before. We went through the London Waterbus Company (click here for website) and it's just a 2 mile journey from Camden to NW London, near Paddington Station. Also would make for a really nice walk.

I'm no photographer but here's some pics I snapped on my Blackberry, as usual, of the really lovely day.

SUCH a different view of London than we normally see!

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Camden has an amazing selection of food, so we had dinner afterwards and Pete selected badly.  So this is the Nutella crepe he bought himself after dinner to cheer himself up.  (It worked).

I didn't do this on purpose

I just looked down and the eggs were happy.

Make-your-own pizza

We had Rob over on Friday night for a long-overdue dinner. We did MYO pizzas and the fellas were very cute, all proud of their finished products.

I made the sauce and used a bread mix (sorry Dad) to make the dough. We had three kinds of cheese, sausage, bacon, onions, spinach and mushrooms to work with. I definitely recommend doing this for a casual dinner with friends. It's a lot of fun.


We were stuffed afterwards, but for dessert we made one batch of this "Nutella Mug Cake" (which wasn't as good as it sounds).

Rob was skeptical, to say the least. Love the face.

Brighton Weekend

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Last weekend Pete and I went down to Brighton. I'd never been there before and we had a great time! We went for my Christmas present, which was a pasta-making lesson at Jamie Oliver's shop Recipease. It was awesome!

The lesson was at 5pm on Friday and we lucked out with a gorgeous day on Saturday too. Great little getaway.

Rob and The Shard

The other day my buddy Rob and I went to see how "The Shard" is coming along. This London high rise will be the tallest building in the city when it's completed, towering over Canary Wharf which is the current tallest building.

I had to sit on the ground to try to get in Rob + the current top of The Shard. I took this on the west side of London Bridge Station, after several other attempts in other spots.

Here's what it will supposedly look like when it's done. Kinda crazy.

Happy Pancake Day!

Last Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake Day. It's the day before Lent starts and the UK tradition has to do with using up the ingredients that weren't allowed during Lent.

We went to Pete's parents' house with his sister's family, where his parents made the traditional pancakes for us all. They're more like what I think of as crepes - very thin and they often roll them up.

Toppings we had were:

• bananas
• Nutella
• sugar and lemon juice (the traditional topping)
• chocolate sauce
• golden syrup
• cream
• maple syrup (our wedding favors!)
• apple compote

It was really fun.

North London Day

I feel really adept at a lot of parts of London, including Central, East, South East and most of North East. But last week I went to some parts of North London that were new to me.

No pics on the map this time; I didn't take any that day.

View North London trip in a larger map

I did this whole trip on buses (6 to be exact).
Home to Walthamstow
Walthamstow to High Barnet
High Barnet to Brent Cross
Brent Cross to Archway
Archway to Tottenham Hale
Tottenham Hale to home

I have yet to explore most of North and South West London. But I will.

South London Day

A couple weeks ago I spent a day visiting both my old South London stomping grounds and also exploring some parts of South London that I'd never been to. A day on buses is, like, my favorite thing! Check out this Google map I made of my day. Click on the placemarks for info and some pictures.


View South London trip in a larger map


My day:

South Woodford - tube to Stratford
Stratford - bus to Blackheath
Blackheath - hung out with old buddy Joe
Lee Green and Lewisham - past my old house and neighborhood
Lewisham - bus to East Dulwich
East Dulwich - bus to Denmark Hill
Denmark Hill - decided I wasn't ready to get on the train home, so went way south instead, on a bus
Penge - got off the bus at the wrong place, walked way over to East Penge station to find out it was the wrong one, walked over to West Penge where I could get on the Overground train to the city, texted Pete from the train and planned to meet him, but had to kill some time so got off at Wapping (north of the River)
Wapping - quaint area I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Still had to kill time before meeting at Canary Wharf, so took the bus through CW to Asda at Crossharbour
Crossharbour - got a sweater for £7 at UK's Walmart, then back on the bus to Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf - to meet my handsome husband for dinner
Then home the boring way, on the tube.

Be nice to me

I gave blood yesterday.

Pete and I regularly donate blood, mostly motivated by the fact he is O- (a universal donor), as I tell everyone, he "has a moral obligation to give." It's pretty fun.





Neither of us is squeamish or has any problems doing it and mostly we find the other "regulars" are the same. Plus you get free tea and cookies.




Pete thinks he is so special for being an O-. You should see him swagger in to those school gymnasiums.

One of my favorite things about it here

The little "dot" sprinkles are called Hundreds and Thousands.

I finally found egg nog

At least, I guess it is. I searched for it during the holidays to no avail. Then I spotted this at Tescos recently. I bought one but haven't been able to get myself to try it yet.

These are juice box-sized cartons, btw, and not refrigerated. ?

Valentines Weekend: White Cliffs of Dover

On Sunday when we left the resort we went to Dover, to see the famous White Cliffs. Typical English weather (gray, rainy, windy) and it was really beautiful.













We tried to take a picture of us in front of France (across the sea there) but mostly it's yet another close-up in which my husband is handsome and I'm .. not.




And ten points to anyone who gets this reference:

Valentines Weekend: Canterbury

A little slideshow I made of our Saturday in Canterbury. We loved it there - definitely a place to visit if you can!

Valentines Weekend: the ribs

There was a beautiful pub down the road where we had dinner our first night. They had a deal where if you can the entire ribs platter, you get a free chocolate ice cream sundae. Say no more to my husband!

I wish it was a clearer picture, but it is that whole huge thing, hanging over the side. This is an enormous plate.


My face while he was eating.
He didn't stop, and said he could even eat another rack of ribs when he was done. I have NEVER EVER seen such a huge strip of ribs. And it was resting on top of a whole plate of fries.
Well, it WAS a tasty sundae (I was granted a bite).

Valentines Weekend: the place

My Auntie Joyce and Uncle Rob gave us a Valentine's weekend away as a wedding gift. We had THE BEST time. We were in Canterbury, in Kent.
Above is the main building of the resort (!), and a video I took of the beautiful lodge we had for two nights!



That main building had a beautiful, huge reception area with two roaring fires, a snooker room, a pub, and a restaurant. Sadly we didn't have time to use any of those, but we did go in the pool.

This pool was smaller so Pete did 60 laps!