Pete's Pancake Party Pictures

Regular old pancakes that Americans know and love are quite a novelty in England. They're the stuff of hushed whispers; Brits have seen them on Friends and hope one day to be able to experience for themselves. Pete was over yesterday and requested we make them, which we did.

I'm a pancake mix girl all the way - Bisquick itself seeming a bit too involved, what with its eggs AND oil needed. But there's no pancake mix OR Bisquick around here, and making them from scratch with, I don't know, 5 ingredients was a quite a job.


His first batch! He was super cute and excited to make them for the first time. We made plain, blueberry, and chocolate chip.


Also it's hard to find maple syrup here, but I had a little bottle that my friend Rob bought me at some "North America shop" he went to. (Note: add to shopping list for trip home in July).


Observant readers will notice that yes, that is my laptop in the kitchen and yes, I appear to be on Facebook while making the pancakes. (Oh dear.)

Anyway, overall quite a success.

Yorkshire (or Oh the Accents)

Yesterday for work I went to Wakefield in Yorkshire to visit our National Operations Centre. It was my first time up there, and it was almost all countryside out the train window all the way there. Which is bizarre.

Lots of people from the North come to the HQ in London where I work, and their accents are totally different to any in the South. I always think of Dickon from The Secret Garden, but I can't really think of that many famous people with a proper Yorkshire accent.


Watch The Four Yorkshiremen (perhaps "the" classic Monty Python* sketch).


*OK, Monty Python made it famous, but yes I do know that it was first seen on the pre-Python 'At Last the 1948 Show' starring John Cleese and Graham Chapman.

Rainbow

Out my living room window this evening.

Central London Saturday

It was about 80 degrees and sunny in Central London today. And also insane. Here's a 19 second video I took of what Oxford Street was like today.

Bournemouth

Last weekend Pete and I went to his parents' caravan in Bournemouth, which is on the south coast. It was a GORGEOUS weekend, and the caravan is immediately on the water, which was great. I have never seen so many people on a beach!






















The only thing I bought in Bournemouth was these super-cute Mr Happy bandaids. We didn't have any cuts, but I made Pete put one on then gave myself a matching one. (He's a good man, isn't he).

The Week London had 4 Cacopardos

My parents and sister came to visit the last week of May. My parents have never been to the UK before so it was a big experience for sure. They saw lots of sights, spent some quality time with my boyfriend (and his family!) and got to know about my life here. We had a great week and I'm so glad they came.

SARAH!!!

My dear friend Sarah has been away from London since the beginning of December. She's been home in Scotland dealing with being sick for months, but was finally well enough to take a trip back this weekend to see her flat and her friends. Hooray!

Sarah meets Pete! These two know all about each other but she's been gone the whole time I've been dating him! She used to call him "her favourite person I never met". :) We spent a beautiful Saturday in Covent Garden.

Here's Sarah standing next to some Twilight stuff. We took this picture for my sister, who Sarah has never met, but who recommended the movie to her and now Sarah loves it. Yay, another one of them.

She and I spent Sunday at the BBC, going to see the taping of a show. Lots of fun, if you don't mind the 4 hour queue!

Sarah went back to Edinburgh this morning but has her one way ticket back to London for June 1st.

Crystal Palace (not Superman's)

I didn't have much to do on Sunday, and it was a really pretty day, so I decided to take one of my local buses to the end of its route and see some South London neighbourhoods I haven't seen. The end of the line is Crystal Palace, which is an area named after a former landmark called the Crystal Palace. This huge palace that was built for the 1851 Great Exhibition was put there and then destroyed by fire in 1936. In its place now is a park, with some weirdly out-of-place stone remnants still there. Very cool though.



Click here for more info on The Crystal Palace)

No family party, but a huge chocolate egg

Easter seems kind of different in the UK - not quite as big a family holiday celebration at least. I kept hearing people talk about Easter eggs though, and I had worked out that meant a chocolate egg (and not a dyed colored egg or a plastic neon hollow one like I thought at first). But it wasn't until Pete gave me my very own Easter egg this weekend that I found out what they are. Awesome.





So they don't dye eggs or have Easter baskets, but these chocolate eggs sure make up for it.

Saturday on the Heath

Pete and I spent yesterday at Hampstead Heath, which is an 800-acre park in North London. It's beautiful and we had a lovely day for it.



The handsome shadow in this picture is Pete.

















Look at this crazy animal! Some onlooker said it was some kind of Mandarin duck or something. I've never seen anything like it.













You can't really tell from this picture, but you can see the London skyline from parts of the Heath, including here.



When Lauren and I came to London in July of 2007, we came to the Heath hoping we'd see Russell Brand who jogs here. No luck either time.