The birds

I took this (fairly self-indulgent, but short) video when Pete and I were in Bournemouth at a park with lots of swans and birds around. The swans were huge and 'friendly' to the point of being scary.

Ten points to the first American who knows what the cute thing is he says.

Weekend away

Pete and I had a long weekend at his parents' little place near Bournemouth. Last time we went was a super hot weekend in May - this was very different! Hardly anybody was around (as opposed to the packed summer beaches last time) and it was FREEZING. But it was great to be away and we had some very clear crisp weather our first day, which is always a joy when you're in England.



We got there at 1am on Saturday so I was amazed when I woke up later that morning to this beautiful view out the front window.





It's in such a great spot, right on the water.




My sister bought us shirts when she was in Nantucket and we both wore them all day. Pete wasn't excited wearing about matching shirts, but I think they are GREAT!

Some pretty sights we got to see during the weekend..

Below is a slide show of these plus more pictures for the truly interested (or bored).

By the sea, for a minute

I took the day off on Friday and went to a lovely seaside town called Whitstable in the county of Kent. It was really nice and relaxing, but after about an hour I think I saw the whole place. So on Saturday morning I took the 1/2 hour bus ride to Canterbury (of the Tales) and had a look at the cathedral and some of the other area views.

I made this short video slideshow of some pictures I took on my phone as I went along.



Click this link if you'd like to see a larger version on YouTube instead.

Fruit: Good; Cake: Great; Fruitcake: Nasty Crap

The English love their cake. They loooove it. Where American grocery stores might have aisles of, say, toothpaste, English grocery stores have aisles of different types of cakes.

Christmas has its own cakes, confusingly referred to as "Christmas pudding". A lot of these appear to be of the fruitcake variety, which also confusingly, the English seem to love. I was amazed to see that the Christmas cakes were out already when I did my shopping last week. I thought they must expire before Christmas, so I checked.... September 2010.

For the few of you who haven't seen Jim Gaffigan's humorous thoughts on cake, watch the video below. The classic and applicable fruitcake bit starts around 4.20.

They just have no idea

At this conference I went to recently, the hotel served a snack of cold pancakes cut in half with jelly to put on top. And my friend Sarah likes to order pancakes for dessert at this restaurant we've gone to. They're not on the breakfast menu - they're on the dessert menu.

Weird England.

Welcome back to my honey

Last week Pete and his buddies went on vacation to San Francisco. They had a great time! I took some pictures of them when they got back to Heathrow but none came out. Anyway I had to put up this cute one of Pete making a face at me, and the only other one is this blurry one of us on the tube ride home. He's tired but still so cute at 3am California time after 15 hours of traveling.

English countryside

On Tuesday I went to Birmingham for work, and took some scenery video out the train window. It seems like the second you step out of London, it's all just country.

Welcome to Leytonstone

I moved to Leytonstone East London 4 weeks ago today and I'm getting to know the area, mostly by bus. Joe's a walker though so today we took a stroll around the neighborhood behind my house and the High Road that I live on.

Like a lot of London, it's a mix of beautiful old buildings and junky fried chicken chains.

Southeast meets East

Joe deigned to cross the river and come up to East London to see the new flat today.




We relaxed on my rooftop patio eating donuts and we took a walk around the area.










I made him read Where the Wild Things Are, which he'd never read. You can tell he has an MA in Creative Writing as he studies it intently.

Italian English

Pete makes sauce now (thank you very much). Here's the first dish of macaroni he made. I'm so proud.


And yes it's good!