5 Jun 07 Flatpack fantastic
This weekend we finished setting up the shelving in the living room, all that flatpack goodness brought to us by Ikea. It looks quite good and best of all having surplus shelving is something we desperately need, as storage space here is very limited. The cardboard box mountain that formed from the move, these shelves and also the bedroom furniture flatpack, has now been bundled up and placed into the brilliant new recycling bin that arrived outside our building today.
The presence of that recycling bin means we no longer will trek bagloads up the road for 15 minutes each time we recycle. Fantastic news!
You may have noticed the absence of proper seating furniture in this room. We are still waiting for the sofa to arrive, which will be at least another two weeks. Also we are ordering one more wardrobe for the bedroom, but after that we will officially be ’settled in’.
21 Dec 06 follow santa!
This past Saturday I had quite a surreal day keeping up with an estimated 620+ ’santas’ touring London pubs and landmarks from noon to midnight! Santacon is an annual dressup event/party that’s picking up participants all over the world, and it makes for an incredibly fun day out! Next year I’ll be sure to wear the red suit, but this time I went with the purpose to take photos imagining 30-50 santas might turn out… Locations visited by the swarming santas included Tate Modern, Camden High Street, Trafalgar Square, Jubilee Gardens (London Eye), Leicester Square fun fair and a few pubs in between. To see a few more photos I took on the day, see here.
22 Sep 06 Love in Trafalgar Square
14 Aug 06 Some pics from last weekend
I forgot to post these to give you a look at the landscape from our walk last weekend near Lewes.
We crossed all these little hills :) That was the first couple of miles.
A beautiful stud with family, scratching on posts.
Taking the escalator up another little hill.
Most sheeps run away, very skittish creatures. This one was kind enough to pose.
20 Jul 06 Out the Window, right now
Just snapped these shots, the view from the front window. No exercising at the moment, just soaking up the sun. (this post is dedicated to Mary!)
19 Jul 06 To the beach!
This time I’ll give in and admit there really is a heatwave happening here! Current temperature is 34 degrees, and schools have even closed early. It’s not a good day to be riding the tube, which fits just fine with my plan to stay inside as much as possible.
Especially since I got a bit scorched down at the beach on Sunday :)
The south-coast beach at Brighton isn’t the closest to London. You can get to the east-coast beaches at Essex in about an hour by train, but we’ve wanted to take a Brighton trip for quite awhile and it’s only an extra 15 minute ride. The train departs from Blackfriars Station which is a few tube stops from home.
We arrived in Brighton around 9:30 and it was already sweaty-hot, even at the shore. Ocean! The water was a gorgeous deep aqua colour… but that’s one long stretch of pebbly beach.
Much of the beach is dotted with canvas lounge chairs you can rent for £1.50, but exploring the promenade and pier was more interesting. Just like any town with a beach, there’s a fair number of chippy’s (essentially a concession with a deep-fryer), pub patios and boat rental outlets lining the promenade.
The pier is where all the fun fair action goes on, it houses a gazebo with carnival games and casino slot machines. I blew about £2 playing a silly coinslot game where you drop your coin onto a huge pile of other coins with the goal of hitting a metal sliding thing that pushes all the coins into an even bigger pile. You cross your fingers and hope the big pile shifts just enough so a bunch of coins (ie. the ‘booty’) will fall out, but odds are rather slim I’d say. You might just win 50p though, never know!
Next destination: Crazy Mouse!
With some (just a little) persistence, Matt convinced me to climb aboard a Crazy Mouse coaster car, a ride which from the ground seemed harmless. We had watched others go round and not heard any shrieking. And it’s not like there’s upside-down loops…
But now we know what the ‘Crazy’ part is: just the feeling you’ll launch off the end of the track and over the edge of the pier, crashing into the water 100 feet below while locked into a coaster car. No biggy :) The cars jerk around so rigidly, too, that you can’t help but imagine that loud snap sound you just heard means you’re strapped into that one car in a million bound to go off the rails. It didn’t.
Later, just beyond the mini-golf course, we caught ‘the world’s oldest operating electric train‘ eastward down the beach toward the sand sculpture festival. Housed under a big tent (so you have to pay to see) are several enormous, impressive sand creations made with a Roman theme. We gasped at the skill, time and patience required to achieve such works of art, then giggled at how erotic - even pornographic - some of the sculptures were! Hey, kids admission is only £4.
Away from the beach we shopped a little in the Lanes, a nest of winding streets with all sorts of shops, and Matt bought me a lovely pink purse :) Had a cursory look at the exterior of the Royal Pavillion and ducked out of the heat into the air-conditioned Brighton Museum & Art Gallery which has free admission but was very entertaining, worth every penny.
We had dinner reservations at Terre a Terre, a vegetarian restaurant recommended as the best in the country. From their website:
Forget everything you have ever read or heard about vegetarian food. Forget everything you have ever eaten at vegetarian restaurants. Dining at Terre à Terre is a culinary experience like no other, with intense flavours, sublime textures and a combination of ingredients that few have the imagination or daring to put together.
The food was great, all components works of art, and definitely the best vegetarian we’ve eaten. My dish was Hot Parmesan Dumpling, with Beetroot Chevre Battenberg served with green olive and fresh leaf smash, brunoise of pumpkin and cumin crecy, lentilles de lait, merlot soft sticky onions and rosemary rub. Sounds pretty good right? Lots of supremely rich flavours, the kind I could treat myself to once a year.
Matt had Terre à Tapas a selection of lovelies, hot & cold, served with garlic & herb focaccia (large enough for one hungry person or two to share). The Tapas samplers were beautiful, but not large enough to keep him from ordering dessert.
All that and we were home around 8:30pm, exhausted and crispy.
7 Jun 06 No Parking
These are two of multiple graphics painted on the drive/sidewalk of a commercial building near Spitalfields Market:
If you park there I’m guessing your car will be cursed!
31 May 06 Barcelona photo album
Yes, the album is uploaded and overflowing with photos of Barcelona’s greatest attraction, the architectural genius of Gaudi!
6 Apr 06 Paris photo album is up
Here’s the link to my Paris photos, I hope you enjoy looking through them! I tried not to overload it with too many iconic Parisian images, but there’s a good dose anyway.
Also I’ve added the ‘Albums’ page that I had on the previous blog, so have a look through those archives if you want to take a visual trip through Ithaca, NYC or Montreal, even :O)
2 Mar 06 First Impressions
Now that the moving clutter has dispersed and we have internet connectivity, it’s time to share some of my first London photos! Too bad there are none of the New Year’s parade which we saw bits of but were too spaced out from jetlag to properly enjoy…
Here’s the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square, which as you know is around the corner from where we stayed for the month of January:
I’d love to have rooftop access from any building overlooking the square as it’s often host to large gatherings, both planned and impromptu. Anyone know anyone who could help with this?
Take a look at my brief First Impressions slideshow (Flickr) for more. All of these were shot in January.
GET FED: