Gray Day in England

Mad Men Season 3 just began here. In one of the first episodes there is mention of the brand London Fog. The Englishman states that London Fog is a myth, there isn’t fog in London. February is here and Tuesday we had one of those gray days complete with fog that makes people yearn for spring. I ran out for lunch in the spit, that annoying type of rain that’s just enough to mess up your glasses. There was a young woman standing in a closed doorway, must have been on her break. She was layered up as folks do here in the winter, chunky shoes, socks, tights, skirt, sweater, huge scarf, coat, all in drab colors. The only thing visible was her finger tips peeking out of her fingerless gloves and her face. She was smoking a cigarette and reading a book in the spit. Forget the postcards with Big Ben on them, with the gloomy gray weather, she looked the way people expect it to look here.

Wow

Me and a few of my colleagues from the UK are attending some training and meetings north of Las Vegas.  We couldn't believe our luck that we were able to get a great deal on a direct flight from Gatwick to Las Vegas, and even better, the plane was practically empty.  Have you ever seen a plane in the air like this?  Everyone had the opportunity to stretch out and catch a few ZZZs once the plane got off the ground.  The luck turned when we arrived in Las Vegas and the pilot announced that the weather was EXACTLY the same as it was at Gatwick, cold and pouring.

It's a new day today.  Mr. Sunshine, please come out and play.

Frozen Britain Begins to Thaw

Finally the ice and snow were getting slushy. It’s been a skeleton crew at work for over a week now and it will be nice to see more faces. Friday night it rained and when we woke up Saturday, almost all of the snow was completely gone. Except for a piece here or there, it would be easy to wonder if it was all a dream.

Friday evening a colleague and I were talking about our trip to the States next week where I was assuring her that at least we would see some sunshine there since we were headed to a desert city. Then we looked at the forecast and believe it or not, it looks like it will be overcast and possibly rainy the whole time we are there. How can this be??? Well, the sun is out today so I need to get out and enjoy it. That may be it for awhile!

Winter Walk

When I saw L from the B&B on New Year’s Eve I mentioned that I had been walking quite a bit. Now that she is fully recovered from her broken leg she was hoping that we could walk sometime together and made a plan to meet yesterday. The sun was out but it was still pretty arctic. I threw on some warm clothes and took the train to her house. On the way I stopped at the local grocery store to buy some fresh yeast that H requested. As I was checking out of the insanely busy store, the clerk asked me if I was going to be doing some baking. I explained that my husband would be doing some later. She laughed and said, “He could come up here and start selling in our car park after we run out”. It was definitely looking like that was going to happen.

When I got to L’s she was all ready to go in her full-length dress coat, fur hat, and her bag packed with a thermos of coffee and the dreaded mince pies. I say dreaded because I don’t like them and was happy for Christmas to be over so I could stop declining them. Now they were back. I was glad to see that she did have some proper snow boots. I made sure she was okay walking in this weather. After her dramatic spill last year, I didn’t want to be responsible for her falling again. She had one of those walking maps that H and I couldn’t understand and suggested we use it to follow this 8 mile path. I was comforted to see that she even though she is a local, she didn’t understand the map’s directions either. We got about a steep 5 mile walk in before the sun started to set, even past an ostrich farm.

A Brolly in the Snow

Brolly (short from umbrella) - a word that should make it's way across the ocean...

The blizzard of ’10 hit the UK today. H’s work was closed and so was A’s school. Thanks to the wonders of technology, my day charged ahead but just from home instead of an office. At lunch I trudged (seriously trudged with no traction) to the small store nearby to pick up some of the essentials. The bread shelves were bare and the store was very busy. I saw more than one person with an umbrella as the snow was at its heaviest.

What amazes us is that we pay a lot of money every month to our local council (local government body) for things like trash removal, etc. but our street which is not rural will be untouched by a plow or anything.  The sun will be our only snow removal system!

I did get out for a walk first thing this morning.  It was peaceful and beautiful.

Same Trail with Snow

Christmas miracles do occur.  With little coaxing A went for a winter walk with me on Sunday.

White Christmas

The winter weather has been more severe in the Southeast than usual. There’s a skeleton crew in the office due to the pending holidays and also because of the weather, a lot of people chose to work from home. My day always starts to get hectic about 2pm when America wakes up and Monday was no exception. I had calls back to back to back. As I chatted on the phone, members of the skeleton crew came by one by one to wave goodbye to me as they left for the day. I wasn’t in any hurry since I was taking the tube home and thought I was the safest of all. H called me around 7pm to say that he and A had gone to the grocery store and had been stuck in the car for about 2 hours trying to get home as the snow continued to fall. I joked with him later that if I would have thought quick enough I would have called him back with some awkward conversation topics to hit her with since she was a captive audience. All those things you want to seriously talk to your child about without them being able to exit a room wait for a good snowstorm!

I headed to the station around 7:30pm and service was suspended. H had told me that I better call the B&B to see if they had a room available for the night. I called and found out that L was stuck in a neighbouring village after sitting in traffic for three hours and that P had had numerous knocks on the door from people looking for rooms. L told me to go on to the house though if I needed to. They would find a place for me. I appreciated the gesture but I just wanted to be home. What’s crazy is that the train journey is eight minutes long but to walk that would probably be at least two hours in good weather. At the last minute they decided to send one train down to London before service was cancelled. We all cheered as we boarded the train. I think I got home a little before 10pm and was so happy to be there.

No, I'll Walk

Oh, I feel so virtuous in the mornings when I decide to walk to the train station instead of taking H's offer to drop me off in front of the station.  Look at me!  I'm saving the environment!  I'm making healthier choices!

Except when it's freezing cold and there's ice on the sidewalks and I shuffle home in the winter dark cursing to myself the whole way. 

Hopefully it all evens out.  ;)

Rainy November

I dropped A off the other day and had to stop and take a picture as the autumn colors are fading fast.  Today I drove through the picturesque village of Winslow with a co-worker.  Unfortunately it was pouring or I would have made him pull over so I could take pictures of some of the thatched roofs.

Once Again, On American Soil

I am in Utah for work this week. I have visited this area probably 25 times and while I have seen snow on a number of occasions I don’t think I have ever seen it really rain. As I was looking forward to the dry and sunny desert air, it looks like rain is in the immediate forecast.

That Machine

I mentioned that the house that we just moved into has one machine in the kitchen that is a washer/dryer combo and just as I suspected, I hate it! The washing part is good but the drying part, well, it doesn’t really dry, it steams. Things come out not quite dry and smelling kinda funny. It’s also very small.

We do have a way to hang clothes out outside, so I do that as often as possible, but that relies on nice weather. About a month ago, it was sunny and I put some clothes out on a Sunday afternoon and then headed to the grocery store. When I got to the grocery store, I was walking towards the building when the wind kicked up and I looked at the sky and it looked like rain was inevitable. I felt like I was in the middle of a disaster movie because my first thought was, the clothes outside! Cue me running back to the car, driving like a maniac back to the house screaming the whole way, it’s gonna rain! Getting home to tear the laundry off of the line and take it inside to safety. Dramatic? Yes, and not the way I want to feel about laundry. I fought the urge of course, went in the store, and came home to clothes that were soaked and on the line in the rain.

As I type this, it’s Sunday morning, and I’m drinking my coffee looking at the weather forecast which is predicting 70% precipitation today. I’m missing my dryer.

Reading Festival

I’ve always heard about the infamous Reading Festival, and couldn’t leave the UK without experiencing it. Some might say I still haven’t experienced it since I didn’t buy a weekend pass to camp and attend all weekend, but to my critics, I am too old and too fond of indoor plumbing to be down with that.
I bought day passes for A and me back in March. She was very excited, especially since it was her 14th birthday yesterday. We were very lucky to have beautiful weather with just a few sprinkles. I know people regularly go to the festivals and wade through the mud if that’s the weather, but I can’t imagine what that would be like. The beautiful weather meant that people were all over the place just laying out in the sun instead of just crammed in the tents.
We had a great day, seeing a lot of bands including several American bands like Jack’s Mannequin, Fall Out Boy and Kings of Leon. I could have spent the whole day just people watching. The festival fashion was interesting, with wellies being a requirement.
It’s interesting that a country that is so into health and safety would sell firewood at a festival so the campers could build bonfires right outside of their tents in very cramped quarters. That with all of the alcohol being wheeled into the campsite seems like a recipe for disaster. Our feet were killing us as we started the long walk home along the Thames River to our car and A, looking at the tents said if she had to spend the weekend in one she’d probably cry. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Settling In

Not much has been happening here. I’m adjusting to a new job with the same company and we are all settling in to the new house. It’s unanimous, we love it. Last Sunday A and I left the house early to go to our favourite pick your own farm. We picked some tayberries and raspberries. I was planning to make some homemade sorbet to take to our old neighbors. It started sprinkling as we were picking and then it really started coming down. I was standing there in the freezing rain in disbelief that this was July!

As you can see I did make sorbet and I did try to take it to the old neighbours but they weren’t in. I was kind of glad because it was a little on the tangy side. H said I needed to warn them before they tried it!

We are in the process of planning our trip to Scotland next week. Can't wait!

We're Having a Heatwave

It is supposed to get up to 80 degrees today and I'm staying in a third floor hotel room that has no air conditioning and just one window that opens out about five inches. I got a bonus surprise last night when climbing into bed and finding no top sheet on the bed, just a quilt. This is common in the UK and it drives me mad. As someone said at breakfast this morning, they went to bed early thinking they would get a jump start on a sleepless night. The humidity is stifling.

The Hottest Day in the UK

Yesterday I was outside trying to clean up where the broken greenhouse that has recently been taken away was so we can do some gardening. I was shocked to be standing outside with the sun directly on me sweating in the UK! I read this morning that yesterday was the hottest day so far this year (70s).

Spring

Having now experienced it in full in the UK, spring has become my favorite season. I’ve always loved autumn but it doesn’t have the same punch here. Everywhere we’ve lived in the U.S. you have such sweltering summer days so not only is the autumn color beautiful, but the break in the heat is a welcome change. Because summer just doesn’t get that intense here, it is much more dramatic to see the beautiful flowers and the almost unbelievable early spring green emerging from the depressive and gray winter.

A New Attitude

The mental shift that happens with the coming of spring never ceases to amaze me. We were at a garden centre on Sunday picking up some potting soil and herb seeds and looking at these flats of flowers was an uplifting moment. Funny how mother nature can get away with some gaudy color combinations!

Knowing that the journey to and from work will soon be in sunlight is a wonderful thing. Since I was in Australia all of March last year this will officially be my first March in the UK.

A Sunny Day

Last week, we had two snowmen in our backyard. Maybe it was H making a lovely lemon cheesecake with summer berries or B bringing the sun with her today as she visits us from the American South, but the landscape has definitely changed.

I'm ready for the weekend!

More Snow

While H and A both had nowhere to go early this morning, me and Johnny Cash (courtesy of iPod) made our way through the snow to some seriously delayed trains.

Snow Day

A. is off with her pals enjoying a snow day. Here's a link to an article about the travel disasters in London due to the snow. It's not much by midwestern standards but with no salt on the roads (just some dirt is all I can see), the side roads are pretty treacherous.