Our Anniversary...Oh, And The Royal Wedding

Well, what a weekend that was! As I mentioned in my last post, Dori and I were heading up to London for a few days to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and since William and Kate decided to choose our special day as their own wedding day it became a double celebration for us.

We left home on Thursday morning, travelling first by bus and then by train as we made our way into the capital. Once in London we headed towards our hotel where we dropped off our luggage and then went back out to see what we could of the last minute preparations for the Royals’ big day. We went first to Westminster Abbey where the crowds were already thronging outside. People had been camped out both there and on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace for a couple of days by then, in order to secure a good view of the events on Friday. The world’s media was out in force, as you would expect, and we saw a number of recognisable faces reporting back to the four corners of the globe.

We were kind of looking for a feasible spot to pick to stand at the next day, and it was immediately obvious that outside the Abbey was not going to be it! So we made our way over towards Buckingham Palace to see what was happening over there, and how many rows of tents there were already! It was busy there too, but a little less frenetic than at the Abbey and we decided that we would look to stand somewhere along The Mall on the following day. We hung around outside the palace for a while, enjoying the atmosphere and watching another large section of the world’s media doing their thing :) Everybody was in a good mood and the atmosphere was already building. After a couple of hours there we realized that we hadn’t eaten properly all day, and so headed off to get a bite to eat, before then going back to the hotel to get an early-ish night before getting up extremely early the next day!

The temporary media centre opposite Buckingham Palace

So, the big day arrived and we got up and washed before heading out a little before 6:00 a.m. We took the tube to Charing Cross and then walked down through Trafalgar Square and on towards The Mall. A lot of people were already there and we quickly chose a spot to stand about ¾ of the way along The Mall. There were some people who had camped out at the front and then a couple stood behind them, but we were right behind them with a good view of the processional route. It was cold, and we had a long wait ahead of us. Luckily, the people we were around were all very friendly and the atmosphere was one of excitement and anticipation. The crowds quickly grew, and before we knew it we were absolutely surrounded by people, and were unable to move much more than just shuffling on the spot. I think we managed to bag our position just in time!!

The procession to the Abbey started at 10:10 a.m. with William and Harry being driven past us, dressed very smartly in their military dress uniforms. We did try to get some pictures of them, and of the subsequent cars carrying the rest of the royal family, and the Middletons, but they were all going just a little bit too fast for us to be able to get any clear shots of them. That was especially so given that whenever a car went past the crowd would get very excited and everyone would be jostled about.

The ceremony itself was broadcast via loudspeakers to those of us waiting along the processional route, with many a cheer going up at various stages of the proceedings. Before too long they were all on their way back towards the palace, only this time in horse-drawn carriages. Here are a couple of snaps of William and Kate, and the Queen and Prince Phillip. Apologies for the quality, but as I said before we were all being buffeted and we were trying to catch a moving target!!

Once the procession had finished we very slowly made our way up The Mall towards the palace. My knees wouldn’t have allowed me to go fast having been stood on one spot for nearly 7 hours, but the huge numbers of people there made that impossible anyway. By taking a circuitous route via St James’s Park, we were able to get ahead of a lot of the crowd and back onto the now-open Mall and walk towards the palace ready for the traditional appearance on the balcony. The crush of people was amazing, but very good-natured. We were able to get reasonably close to the front of the crowd, though not as close as when we went to Trooping the Colour a couple of years back :) Here are another couple of snaps to give you an idea of what it was like.

And then, once the royals had disappeared to enjoy their celebrations, we VERY slowly made our way away from Buckingham Palace and towards our own anniversary celebratory meal in Covent Garden. It was a really great day and, no doubt, one that we will always remember. It was very colourful and the atmosphere was wonderful. Occasions like this come along about once every 25-30 years, so we felt very lucky to be able to join in this time around.

The following day we had some time to waste before heading home, and so we revisited the scene of all the festivities as things were being dismantled and taken away. Here are a couple more pictures that we took that day.

Which just leaves it for me to say that I hope that William and Kate have a very long and successful marriage, and to wish Dori a very happy anniversary!!!

PS Dori has also blogged about our adventures over the weekend, with some other interesting photos. Check her out over at The Yellow House!

Getting Ready for the Big Day

It is now less than 10 days to go before Christmas Day is upon us. Doesn’t it creep up on you fast?! Luckily, Dori and I finished our gift buying a little while ago before it got too manic in the shopping centres. We have, believe it or not, also already wrapped those gifts and they are currently snuggled safely under the Christmas tree. Well, I say we wrapped them, but it would be slightly more accurate to say that I wrapped my present for Dori and she did all the others!

Before I was married, I would just about be thinking of starting to buy presents at this point in the year, and yes I have even done the stereotypical male thing of rushing round the shops on Christmas Eve trying to get those last few gifts :-) But age, marriage and the sheer dread of battling with thousands of other sharp-elbowed shoppers has led to me being much more organised nowadays. So, the gifts have been bought, wrapped and installed under the tree, and the decorations are up around the Yellow House. Talking of the decorations, for those of you that didn’t see them over at Dori’s blog, here are a few pics to give you an idea of what some of our festive characters look like.

The forecast is for the snow to return tonight and over the weekend, so there is the very real possibility of a White Christmas at the Yellow House this year. I can’t remember the last time we had snow on the ground at Christmas. Santa may need a sleigh for real next week!

Remember, Remember

As I mentioned a couple of weeks or so back, we are now in holiday season and they are starting to come thick and fast. After Halloween at the end of October, we celebrated Bonfire Night aka Guy Fawkes Night on Friday. Although not strictly a holiday anymore, it is a day of celebration and one of the landmark days in the calendar.

The day commemorates the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 in which a group of men attempted to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on November 5th. The man tasked with setting the explosives was Guy Fawkes, and it was during the night before the State Opening that he was discovered in a cellar beneath the parliament building with over 30 barrels of gunpowder. He was arrested and later executed (in horrific fashion) along with the majority of his fellow conspirators.

Since that time, November 5th has been marked as a day of national celebration. At one time it was, apparently, a public holiday but that has long since been abandoned. Nowadays, it is marked by the lighting of bonfires on top of which are placed “Guys” (effigies) and by firework displays. As kids we were also all taught the following little rhyme...

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot

There were many firework displays around here over the weekend, both official and unofficial. Whilst they always used to take place on the day itself, most modern public displays tend to be held on the nearest weekend to November 5th. Dori and I were out visiting on Saturday night and saw and heard many fireworks as we travelled to and from our destination. It is one of those nights of the year that I very much look forward to.

Whilst talking of remembering, I would also like to mention that Norman Pritchard passed away recently. Whilst none of you are likely to have heard of him, and indeed few in his home town knew of him either, his legacy has garnered world-wide attention, for he was partially responsible for the design and implementation of Swindon’s notorious “Magic Roundabout”. This junction at the intersection of 5 roads was very revolutionary when first built and still strikes fear into the heart of many a driver today. It consists of a central roundabout with 5 mini-roundabouts around the outside. The beauty of it (if you are experienced at negotiating it) is that you may take several different routes through the road junction to reach your desired exit. Dori has previously posted a video over at her Yellow House blog to show what it is like, and here is another one to give you an idea of this wonderful creation!

A Tale of Two Cathedrals

As I mentioned in my previous post, it was my birthday last week. It was also my mum’s birthday on the same day - strange how that happens every year! :-) For her gift from us this year, we decided instead of giving her something that would probably be put away in a cupboard somewhere never to be seen again, or that would be used up in 5 minutes and forgotten about, we would take her out for a day sometime. And so, as the weather was so good at the start of this week, we went for a little day-trip.

When my mother was a young child, during World War II, she would often spend some of her holidays in Coventry, staying with some distant relatives. She loved these vacations, I guess because the city was so different to the rural life she was used to. It was on one of these visits that her “aunt” took her to see what remained of the recently bombed Coventry Cathedral. During the night of November 14, 1940 the whole city of Coventry had been decimated by a Luftwaffe bombing raid, and the cathedral did not escape from the punishment. Several bombs hit the cathedral and it burned along with a lot of the surrounding city.

My mum has very vivid memories of the sights she saw when she was taken down there sometime afterwards, and of the overpowering smell that still lingered in the air. But, she had never been back since to see either the remains of the bombed cathedral again, or the newly erected cathedral that was built alongside it. So, Coventry was our destination this week!

The new cathedral was designed by Sir Basil Spence and completed in 1962. Although there was some opposition at the time to its modern design, the cathedral is now very well loved, and was voted as Britain’s favourite 20th century building in a national poll. It certainly is an amazing place, and Dori has taken some wonderful pictures which I believe she will be sharing with you sometime soon when she returns to the bloggy world :-) In the meantime, here are a few snaps that I took with my mobile phone that will give you a little idea of what this house of worship is like.

The old....

..and the new...

The tapestry that you can see behind the altar is apparently the largest in the world, measuring 74'8" by 38' and was made in just one piece by Graham Sutherland. The stained glass windows are stunning, and my pictures don't even vaguely do them justice. As we had set off early, we were lucky enough to have the new cathedral almost to ourselves for a few minutes before a group of schoolchildren arrived, and it was an amazing experience to be so peaceful in that huge space.

It was a great day out, and a long-held ambition fulfilled for my mum.

New Look and A Wonderful World

You may have noticed that things look a little different around here today! I decided that after nearly 18 months, it was time for a bit of a revamp. And as we are fast heading towards autumn, I plumped for an autumnal feel. Of course, that means that I will have to redecorate again in two or three months time, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it was about time for a fresh feel to the blog. I hope that you like it.

Today’s is just a short post, to show you this little video that I put together last weekend. I was browsing through some of our old photos and thought how gorgeous some of the places we have visited look. So, I put a few of the pictures together and set them to some appropriate music. The photographs were all taken by either Dori or me (mostly Dori) and are mainly nature shots. This is the first video that I have uploaded to our new YouTube channel. We hope to post some more videos in the near future, of our travels and other stuff. So, bookmark it now! :-) Apparently this video won’t be available to watch in every country because of copyright issues, so I apologize in advance if you can’t see it.

Anyway, here it is. I hope you like it.

If you don't see the video above, then click here instead to watch it on YouTube.

Random Monday #3

So here we are again. Another Monday, another Random Monday post. By the way, Happy Labor Day for those of you celebrating it :-)

Today’s mind scrambler is:

When was the last time you drove “out of town”?

Now, I am going to have to interpret this question to stop my answer from being extremely mundane! As we live in a small town with just a few local shops and a couple of supermarkets, going out of town is a regular occurrence and a necessity on an almost daily basis. Strictly speaking, the last time I drove out of town was on Saturday when we went to get ourselves a KFC, which was a mistake in itself but that’s a whole other story!

Before that, we did, of course, go to London a week or so ago, but we travelled on the train and the question does specify driving. So, the last time that we actually drove somewhere else was a couple of days after our London trip. It was a Bank Holiday here, and we decided to go on an impromptu little drive around after visiting another fast-food outlet (maybe we should look at our eating habits!!). We ended up going through the northern part of Wiltshire and over the county border into Gloucestershire, and then on into Oxfordshire.

This led us into the Cotswolds, with its beautiful scenery and lovely golden coloured buildings. It is so picturesque around there. We didn’t have a camera with us on the day, but we will have to go on a photography mission one day soon so that you can all get to see how gorgeous that part of the country is. We drove through Lechlade, which was bustling with cars and people out enjoying the holiday, and on through Burford, before looping round back towards home past Cirencester and back into Wiltshire. It was a very nice change to do something a little different, and we saw some stunning panoramas in just that short time. As I say, we will have to take you all along with us the nest time that we head that way!

But, we never actually stopped anywhere on that drive, so I don’t know if I have even now really answered the question properly. Where did we last drive to that was outside of the surrounding area, that wasn’t for work purposes and where we actually stopped and got out of the car? I will admit that I am struggling to think of the answer here. Give me a minute....

Five minutes later....
Aha! It took a while but inspiration has finally struck!! The last time that I drove out of town, with a purpose, was to collect Dori from Gatwick airport after her visit back home to Georgia. Now that was back at the beginning of July, which says to me that we need to go on a few more trips out before the weather turns much colder – I won’t say wetter because that would just be silly :-)

So where have you driven to lately? I would be interested to find out. As always, leave me a comment and we will see if anyone has a more interesting answer than an airport!

Friday Favourites

Sometimes as a blogger inspiration is somewhat lacking when it comes to deciding what to write about, well it is for me at least! So, I was racking my brains this morning trying to think of what I could share with you all. Dori has already described, in wonderful detail and great pictures, our trip up to London last weekend for what we thought was going to be a visit to the theatre but ended up being a delicious meal, a walk around Covent Garden, a visit to the Science Museum and a bit of relaxation in Hyde Park. So, what else can I write about today?

Looking around the room for inspiration, my eye fell (not literally you understand!) on our DVD collection, and I had what passes for a brainwave in my head. So, today I am starting yet another semi-regular series on this blog – Friday Favourites, and yes I am spelling it like that :-) Now, as with everybody, my favourites come and go and change over time and with my mood, so there may well be different subjects appearing in these blog entries under the same topic. For example, my favourite song very much depends on whether I am feeling happy, sad, optimistic, melancholy, etc.

Anyway, the first in this series is my favourite TV show. Now there are many shows that I could have plumped for under this title, from way back in the 70’s as a kid when I was watching the Banana Splits or The Six Million Dollar Man or Star Trek, through the 80’s and 90’s with Inspector Morse or The Simpsons, and into the new millennium with current shows such as Brothers and Sisters or Monk. Some of you may also remember that I wrote a guest post on Dori’s blog about the cancellation of Eli Stone, which I thought was a wonderful and original series and was ditched way too soon.

But the show that I have decided to highlight today, and which is my first Friday Favourite is The West Wing. It is one of a very few shows of which I have the full DVD collection. I may tell you sometime what the others are ;-) The West Wing premiered in September 1999, which incidentally was also the month when the moon was knocked out of Earth’s orbit at the start of Space 1999, but I may be getting a little sidetracked there! The show ran until May of 2006, clocking up seven seasons and 156 episodes. It won countless awards including three Golden Globes and 27 Emmy awards.

For the few of you out there who might not know, The West Wing chronicles the ups and downs of a fictional Democratic administration in the White House. Starring Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet, the show also featured Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Rob Lowe, the late John Spencer, Richard Schiff, Janel Moloney, Dule Hill and many others.

The dialogue is consistently sharp, funny and very well written. Like many West Wing fans, I prefer the first four seasons of the show which is when Aaron Sorkin was still the main writer and creative driving force behind it. But right up to the very last episode, this show never failed to deliver a combination of incisive writing and great acting. I am constantly remarking to Dori how some current situation in the world reflects what has already happened on The West Wing. For example, they solved the Israel/Palestine situation many years ago on the show, and we currently have the two sides in talks as you read this post!

As another example, way before the 2008 Presidential election, the show’s writers modelled their own Democratic candidate on a relatively little known Senator from Illinois (Barack Obama) and the Republican candidate on Arizona Senator John McCain. I guess they really did have their fingers on the pulse of Washington politics!

I love this show for its realism, its humour, its drama and its message of hope. And, when I have the time, I love nothing better than to sit myself down on the sofa and watch episode after episode after episode. Bliss.

Is That Rain I See?

It was a typical English summer’s day yesterday, i.e. wet and cold! Today is no different, and it has been much the same story ever since mid-July. It seems that nowadays we no longer get hot and sunny weather in July and August, instead we have to deal with floods and downpours. The best weather, such as it is, appears to be more likely to appear in April or September than in the summer months!

Anyway, as the day was a wash-out, and since we hadn’t been to the movies for a couple of months, Dori and I made the decision to head on over to the multiplex and catch a film in the afternoon. Now, as we are both big kids at heart we were quite keen on seeing Toy Story 3, but it is still the school holidays over here, and we thought that it might be a little packed out in there. So, instead, we plumped for “Salt”, starring Angelina Joile and Liev Schreiber.

If you don’t already know, Jolie plays a CIA agent and the film follows a “Bourne Identity” type line, with her character on the run and the audience left to work out if she’s actually a good guy or bad guy. It won’t be winning too many Oscars come next February, but it was certainly an entertaining and diverting way to while away a couple of hours on a wet Wednesday afternoon :-)

In other news, I forgot to mention that I became a great-uncle a couple of weeks back. I mean, I already was by virtue of marriage, but this new arrival was to my brother’s eldest son. They are calling their little bundle of joy Macy, or possibly Macey – the lines of communication have been a little fuzzy! Baby and mother (and even father!) are said to be doing well. I can’t quite believe though that my brother is a grandfather – it only seems like 5 minutes ago we were both in school! Time, as they say, does indeed fly.

Walking In A Summer Wonderland ?!

They say that Christmas comes earlier every year, and that is certainly the case this year. Dori and I went into town on Monday to get a few essentials, as well as a new shower head as the old one has been falling apart on a disconcertingly regular basis lately. In fact, thinking about it, our plumbing system as a whole has been a menace ever since we first moved in to the Yellow House. During the 6 years we have been renting here we have had a new cistern, repairs to the bath as it was leaking through the ceiling downstairs, a brand new shower, a new washing machine, several replacement parts for the immersion heater and a few dripping taps. Dealing with the landlord/property agents has been a nightmare at times, and so nowadays, as long as it is not going to cost us too much, we tend to do any running repairs ourselves and save ourselves the hassle!

Anyway, as I was saying, we were in town doing our little bit of shopping. We had finished up and were on our way back to the car park when I happened to glance at the window display of a shop to my left. And what did I see? A Christmas tree, faux presents, a Santa and Rudolph blow-up thingy (!) and some random Christmas crackers. I must admit that for a second there I did a mental flip, thinking “what month is this?”. But, yes, on checking with myself I found that we are still indeed in AUGUST!!! Yes, August! I fully expect the shops to be crammed full of Christmas decorations and the like by October time - a mere two months or so before the festive season, but August!? Seriously? The kids here haven’t even gone back to school from their summer break yet! Grrr.

Of course, it is not just Christmas that comes around early. There are Easter eggs in the shops before New Year’s Day, summer clothes are on the racks whilst the snow is still on the ground and Valentines cards have to battle it out with the Christmas cards for shelf space. I guess that looking ahead is no bad thing, but surely it is better to first enjoy and relish the season that you are actually in. I don’t want to be thinking of buying Christmas gifts in summer (though it has felt more like winter here lately, but that’s another story!), just as I don’t want to be buying in BBQ supplies in January!

Weekend at the Yellow House

I hope that everybody who celebrates it had a great 4th of July. Coming from two places, as we do, Dori and I get to celebrate the holidays from both places, which is great. We can celebrate Independence Day, as well as Bonfire Night, Memorial Day, St George’s Day, Thanksgiving and all the others. There is nothing like a good excuse for a celebration :-)

On Sunday we cooked burgers, corn on the cob and beans and bacon and had a great eat-out meal – although we actually had it indoors for one reason and another. As a Brit, I guess I shouldn’t really be joining in on 4th of July celebrations, but what the hey! It was a good day.

As we ate our celebration food, we also watched the men’s final at Wimbledon. Not unexpectedly, Britain’s Andy Murray failed to make it into the final and so it will be at least 73 years now between the last British finalist and the next! Both the men’s and women’s finals were a little one-sided and were decided in straight sets. But both were won by true champions of the game, and congratulations have to go to both of the deserved winners – Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. It has been a great Wimbledon fortnight this year, with many a cracking match – not least the longest tennis match ever. And there was not a single rain delay in the whole two weeks, which is a very rare occurrence indeed! The Wimbledon fortnight is my favourite two weeks of the year, as I have mentioned here before, and this year was no exception.

Of course, this year I also had the added distraction of the World Cup taking place simultaneously, over in South Africa. On more than one occasion I found myself watching the football on the TV, whilst having my other eye on the tennis on my laptop! It’s not easy – even less so when you are also tweeting about both events at the same time!! Who says that men can’t multi-task!

Talking of the World Cup, we are now at the semi-final stage having seen some shock results in the quarter-finals. What was looking like a Brazil-Argentina final has now totally been thrown out of the window after both teams were eliminated in the last round. The quarter-finals also saw the end of the last African team in the tournament, as Ghana were beaten by Uruguay in a penalty shoot-out. This now leaves Uruguay plus three European teams in the competition. Tonight sees Uruguay take on the Netherlands, and then tomorrow Germany will play against Spain. The winners will meet in the final, to be played on Sunday.

Other than the sport, it has been a relatively quiet time at the Yellow House. Dori is now just about recovered from the jet-lag and we are slipping back into our routines. It is good to be back together again :-)

We have a wedding reception to attend on Friday, so that may prove interesting as it is being held in a hotel that we have been trying to find an excuse to visit for a long while. LOL You may hear more about that on one of our blogs at the weekend!

I hope that you all have a good week.

Welcome Home

Dori is back home. Yay!

I drove up to Gatwick airport yesterday to collect her. As with the outward journey, it meant a ridiculously early start for me - before the birds had even begun to clear their throats! Gatwick is further away than Heathrow, about 40 or 50 miles more, and Dori’s plane was due to arrive at 7a.m., so it was a crack of dawn start to the day.

The weather here for the last week or so has been glorious. In fact I can’t remember such a long stretch of unbroken sunshine for a very long time. So, it was a pleasant ride up to the airport (if driving along the motorways here can ever be said to be pleasant!), with my iPod choosing the music as I went. The sun rose as an orange ball as I left home, but was very soon shining brightly as I sped along the motorway.

I arrived at Gatwick at nearly the exact time that Dori’s flight was due. We are both very used to that journey, having made it countless times when we were both flitting back and forth across the Atlantic before we got married. So I knew roughly how long it would take me, and I arrived at pretty much the time I anticipated. It was a little chaotic when I arrived at the terminal as they are currently making changes to the road layout there, and have moved the drop-off point to directly in front of the car park entrance. Cars were going in all directions! Anyway, I manoeuvred my way across one lane of cars, and slipped quickly into the car park, leaving the mayhem behind me.

Having parked up, I walked over to the terminal and began my wait for Dori. The plane landed just a couple of minutes later, and so I anticipated a further 45 minutes or so for her to deplane and go through immigration, baggage claim and customs. An hour and a half later I was getting a tad worried! Thankfully, Dori then appeared at the end of the corridor. Apparently it had taken forever to get through immigration because they only had 2 people working there trying to get 2 or 3 plane loads of people through! But all was well :-)

We said our hellos and then made our way back to the car, and onwards back to Wiltshire. Sometimes the journey back from Gatwick can seem like it is taking forever, and yesterday was one of those days. Having to travel around the M25 (the inspiration for Chris Rea’s “Road to Hell”) doesn’t help!! For those that don’t know, the M25 is a ring road that encircles London, and is always extremely busy; and sometimes, as yesterday, at a complete standstill. So, it took much longer to get back home than it had for me to get up to the airport.

But, get back we did, and Dori is now fast asleep upstairs as I write this, trying to catch up on her missed sleep, and recovering from the jetlag. She had a wonderful time back home in Georgia, and I am sure she will be blogging about it all for you very soon!

In other news, apparently the World Cup is still going on, but I forget who is doing well and who is doing so abysmally poorly!! :-/ Maybe I will remember before the next time!

The Yellow House Garden

As you may have seen in her last post, Dori is having a great time back in Georgia and has taken some wonderful photos of her surrounds. I love how green it is around there and I know that Dori has been enjoying some lovely walks along the local nature trail there.

Since Dori has been gone we have finally had some decent weather here, the first in a long while. It was so nice yesterday that I had to get out into the garden to enjoy it – these opportunities are far too rare! I thought that I would take a few pictures of my own to share with you all, showing some of the flowers and bushes here at the Yellow House.

I’m am far from being an expert in the identification of plants, so forgive me for not doing so here, The only ones that I do know in our garden are the roses, and we have a surprising variety of colours given that our garden is tiny. The first I will share with you is this lovely deep pink rose.

We also have a few lighter pink, and almost white, roses in the Yellow House garden.

And, of course, we couldn’t live in a Yellow House without some yellow roses to go with it!

I love the deep yellow colour of this rose, and the reddish tinges to it. We did have some lighter yellow roses, but those that have already bloomed have started to turn already, so I will have to wait to see if any more bloom to get some photos of them :-)

Other than the roses we also have other plants and bushes in the garden which will, by me at least, remain nameless! Here are a few...

If nothing else, these pictures prove that we do sometimes get nice, cloudless weather here in Wiltshire!! Let's hope there is plenty more to come.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Bon Voyage

We had an early start to the day yesterday. Dori was going on her trip back home to Georgia, and so we had to get up at the break of dawn to make our journey up to Heathrow.

The last time we made this trip was back in November, and it was dark and pouring down with rain. Thankfully this time, the change in seasons meant that it was already light by 4:30 when we woke, and the rain stayed away for most of the day. We drove up to London on the M4 motorway, and made very good time in reaching the airport. We like to leave extra early to ensure that any delays don’t prevent us getting to Check-In in plenty of time, and also to avoid the worst of the traffic.

So, we arrived in plenty of time at Heathrow and went to have breakfast at one of the cafes there. It was a French restaurant, but we both had a traditional English breakfast – sausage, bacon, eggs, mushroom and toast (although fried bread would have been more traditional). It was very good, and very filling :-) We then had some time to kill before Dori had to go through security and hence to her boarding gate. We are both quite used to killing time at airports now, and so we went and found somewhere to sit and I read a book as Dori checked through her bags to make sure she hadn’t forgot anything. I took this picture as we sat there as I thought the roof looked interesting.

I would have taken more photos, but I didn’t want to look like I was casing the joint!!

It soon came to the time when Dori had to make her way to the boarding gate. We have had plenty of emotional goodbyes in the past, as we have had to go our separate ways for months on end. So, this small separation of 3 weeks is child’s play for us :-) We said our goodbyes, and then Dori went off through the security area. I waved her off and then made my way back to the car, and onwards back to Wiltshire.

The journey back was almost as easy as the one up to Heathrow, with no major problems traffic-wise. In fact, the journey went so quickly that I was back at the Yellow House before Dori’s plane had even lifted off of the tarmac!

I have just spoken to Dori on the phone, and she had a good trip over. The journey time was almost an hour less than scheduled, which is always a nice surprise, and she tells me that she sat next to a very nice French lady on the way over. She is now looking forward to spending some relaxing time back in her hometown.

I will miss Dori whilst she is gone, but will be consoling myself with lots of World Cup football, Wimbledon tennis and having the whole bed to myself! Now, I just have to try to find out where it is that we keep the kitchen....

Rolling Back the Years

It was while we were having our recent spring clean that I came across a relic from the Ark – my old vinyl records. They had been tucked away out of sight, and out of mind, for a long while and so it was quite a surprise when we uncovered them the other day.

I’m not exactly sure when the last one was bought, but I guess it was sometime in the late ‘80s, and flicking through the collection was like taking a step back in time to that decade. The ‘80s were when I was at my vinyl buying peek, as before then I was a kid with not much cash to spend on such things, and after that time it was CDs that came to the fore, before the digital revolution of music downloads. So looking through my record collection I came across names such as Queen, Wham, Eurythmics, Altered Images, Kate Bush, The Bangles, Belinda Carlisle, Dire Straits, Billy Joel, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, ... and the list just goes on and on. Many happy memories, of spending hours in my room playing whichever was my latest fave record over and over again, flooded back.

It is interesting that despite growing up on different sides of the Atlantic, Dori and I have a shared musical memory of the ‘80s. Many of the biggest bands of that time were British, and there was a lot of crossover from one side of the pond to the other. There were though, a few bands/artists that, naturally enough, Dori hadn’t come across before. One of those was the band who made the very first single I ever bought. Or actually, to be precise, the joint first single I ever bought as I actually purchased 2 at the same time.

The band in question was Bad Manners, who were a ska band from North London led by the unique Buster Bloodvessel, and the song was “Walking In The Sunshine”. Here it is...



Wow, that was a long time ago. Ironically, with the title of the song being about sunshine and all, the video was shot on a very grey day. It must have sounded like a good idea at the time when they were thinking about how to shoot the video – “I know; we’ll go down to the coast and have lots of shots of the band messing about on the beach” - only to be scuppered by the traditional English weather!! :-)

If you are at all interested, my other first single was “Shut Up” by Madness, which contains one of my favourite lines of lyric – “I’m as honest as the day is long - the longer the daylight the less I do wrong!”. I guess I was a bit of a ska boy back then. :-)



Aah, memories! I would love to know what your first singles all were. Drop me a comment and let me know!

Spring Clean

As Dori mentioned on Saturday, we have been having a bit of a Spring Clean here in the Yellow House this last week or so. We have also been doing some rearranging of the furniture, which always freshens up the feel of a place, don’t you think? It is almost like we are living in a different house after just moving a few items of furniture from one side of the room to the other! :-) We both like the new layout, and it seems to be working well so far.

We have also taken the opportunity to get rid of some old junk that we are never likely to use again, as well as some books and DVDs that we will be donating to charity. It is like clearing out all the old stuff frees up the space for new, and better, things to come into our lives – physically and spiritually. Right now the house feels almost spacious, which is some feat believe me! The spring clean has given the whole place a fresh and revitalising feel to it, and I think we both feel better for it :-)

On Monday we also had a filing cabinet delivered, which was another driver in getting everything cleared out and rearranged. Sadly, the cabinet came as a flat-pack and I had the task, with help from Dori, of putting the dumb thing together. You may guess that I am not a fan of self-assembly furniture! LOL I am a complete klutz when it comes to anything practical like that, which may be a little surprising when you know that my brother is a carpenter/joiner. I guess he got the practical gene and I was left with the brains and the beauty ;-)

Anyhoo, I set about trying to fathom the instructions to assemble the cabinet. To be fair, I have seen many worse instructions than those given. These at least had diagrams that (mostly) showed what should be done and what went where. We did have one panicky moment when the cabinet had been assembled to the point that the sides, back and top were all fitted, and the runners for the drawers had been screwed in and then we looked at the diagram and it seemed to suggest that the runners had been put in the wrong way round. Eek! As it happened, the diagram was wrong and we were right, so the crisis was averted.

It was a hot day, and for a klutz it was hard work. But after about 3 hours and having stabbed myself at least 4 or 5 times with a screwdriver, the thing was complete! Hurrah! It is now sitting in the corner of the room, having already been almost filled to overflowing with various bits of detritus and paperwork from elsewhere in the house. Today is a shredding day, as we will be going through all our old files to see what we can get rid of and free up some space in the already groaning new cabinet.

Onwards and upwards!

Back to London, the Thames and the O2

In my last post I shared some pictures of London taken from the Thames river, and as it happens we travelled a similar journey yesterday. We journeyed up to London in order to see the Michael Jackson Exhibition at the O2. As I have mentioned before, we were due to go to one of his “This Is It” concerts at the same venue last summer, but MJ’s tragic and untimely death prevented us from achieving what had been a long-held ambition for the both of us. As a small compensation for missing out on seeing Michael in concert we decided that we would travel up to the O2 on the last day of the MJ Exhibition.

And so yesterday we rose early, well early for a Sunday anyway, and prepared for our day out. I managed to see a little of the start of the Australian Open men’s final as we got ready, but it was obviously not going to be Andy Murray’s day. Still 74 years and counting since the last British male winner of a Grand Slam tennis tournament! Maybe this year at Wimbledon or the US Open? Time will tell. Anyhoo, I was talking about our trip.... We left home about 9:45 which should have left us plenty of time to catch the train up to Paddington, but unfortunately we had forgotten to bring enough coins to pay for the parking while we were gone and so had to turn back towards the Yellow House after 5 minutes and go all the way back to get some more. This meant that our time window for catching the train was getting very narrow indeed! So, it was a race into town to go and get parked, and then a mad dash to the train station as the time ticked away. We arrived breathless at the station just as the tannoy announced that our train was waiting at the platform. So we ran again up the steps to the platform and jumped on the train, relieved that we had made it in time.

The journey into London was much more relaxed! We always enjoy travelling this way, as you don’t have to worry about the driving, or the other idiots who drive like crazy, or about getting parked at the other end. As the old adverts used to say here, we “let the train take the strain”. :-) Once we had arrived we headed towards the tube station. Normally we would take the tube all the way to the O2, but unfortunately the line that goes there was shut for engineering works yesterday, as were a lot of other routes. So we had to be very inventive with how we got to Greenwich. We took the tube to London Bridge (via Elephant & Castle) and then walked over to London Bridge pier in order to catch a Thames Clipper – a catamaran river-taxi – that took us all the way to the O2.

This trip on the river, although once again on a very cold day, was much more comfortable than the one I spoke of previously as we were inside this time and not sat freezing our wotsits off on the top deck! Here are a couple of videos that Dori took on our trip from London Bridge to Greenwich. The first shows the approach to Tower Bridge...

And this second one gives an idea of what it is like to travel the Thames. You get to see a mixture of old and new buildings, as well as some old industrial buildings that have been converted to new luxury apartments. The skyscrapers you can see in the background towards the end of the video are at Canary Wharf which is the modern centre of London’s financial district.

It was a very enjoyable half-hour trip along the river, and we agreed that we will have to do this again sometime in the summer.

We arrived quite quickly at Queen Elizabeth II pier just alongside the O2, disembarked and made our way over to the arena. After the rush earlier in the day, we now found ourselves with a little time to kill before our allotted time to enter the exhibition came round. Sadly not quite long enough to grab something to eat though! There are some great restaurants at the O2, many of which we have yet to sample. Before we knew it though, our time had arrived and we made our way into the exhibition.

The MJ Memorabilia Exhibition was just great. There were so many personal items there, as well as films, photographs and paintings of the great man. It was so sad to see some of the footage of Michael, and to see the little sandwich boxes that his children used to pack for him when he was in rehearsal for “This Is It”. But there were plenty of uplifting exhibits too, such as his handwritten lyrics to “Beat It”, plenty of his stage clothes and some items taken from Neverland. We were in there for a little over an hour but the time flew by – a sure sign that you are having a good time!

The exhibition was fantastic,and I felt that it was fitting that we got to see it at the venue of what would have been his comeback concerts, and indeed what was the site of his final public appearance in the UK. We would both so dearly loved to have seen MJ in concert here, and judging from everything I have seen both in the exhibition and in the “This Is It” movie, those shows were going to be something out of this world. Nothing could make up for missing out on that experience, but visiting this exhibition has gone a long way to healing some wounds and helping me to reconcile that some things are just not meant to be. The world lost a kind and gentle soul last June – a true Legend.

For Dori's view of our day out and of the exhibition, click here.

Snow Day!

As Dori mentions in her post today, we have had significant snow here overnight, and it has continued to fall during today too. The weather has been on a cold groove since a little before Christmas, but this week has seen it get even worse. Most nights have seen a very sharp frost that has made everything look like it has been placed in an ice-box. On Monday, which was my first day back at work since Christmas, our car refused to start and I had to call out the breakdown service. The verdict was that the car battery had met its demise and had gone to meet its maker. So, the New Year started with a £70 bill for a new battery, and a late start to my working week which was exacerbated by the fact that the delay meant that I was then driving into the office during the peak of the rush hour. Ho hum, things can only get better.

The snow started late yesterday afternoon, and the forecast was for anything up to 16 inches of snow in some areas of southern England. The reality was that we got about 3 inches or so where we live by the time I woke up this morning, but even that was enough to cause traffic chaos. With the snow still falling heavily, I was fearful that if I did drive into the office then I may not be able to make the return journey later in the day, so I rang to say that I would not be able to make it in – and by the sounds of it I was far from the only one in that situation. So, today is a Snow Day! Yay!!

Dori and I decided to have a walk out to see what the conditions were like around where we live, and to take a couple of pictures to share with you all. The wind was quite icy, and we both had our hats pulled down around our ears, and our scarves pulled up over our mouths. It was like a scene from “Scott of the Antarctic”! :-) I hope that you like the pictures.

The snow continued to fall quite heavily up until lunchtime, so it is now deeper than you see in the photos, and the forecast for tonight is for possibly more snow followed by a very severe frost. So the conditions tomorrow are likely to be even more treacherous than they have been today! I brought some work home with me yesterday, so I will work from home tomorrow if I can. At the moment there is no sign of this cold stretch ending anytime soon, and there may be another heavy snowfall at the weekend.

It may be time to barricade ourselves into the Yellow House and just wait it out until the thaw!!

Yellow House Merchandise

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when we were visiting family and friends over in the States at Thanksgiving we handed out some homemade gifts and cards. You have already seen some pictures of the cards we made, and I thought now would be an appropriate time to share some photos of the gifts too. I say appropriate because the gifts were all calendars, and I am sure that you have all been hanging up new calendars this last week – or wondering when and where you will be getting one for this New Year!

These calendars weren’t entirely homemade as such, but all the photos were our own, as were some of the backgrounds, and we laid out each page of the calendars to our own design too. We then got them printed up by a company in Belgium. We made calendars to two different designs – one as a wall calendar and the other as a desk calendar.

Here are the pictures of the pages of the wall calendar.

And here are the pages of the smaller desk calendar.

                   

        

        

         

The lighting wasn’t the best when we took the photos of the pages and some are a little blurry – but you will get the idea!

We very much enjoyed putting the calendars together and we are hoping to take some more photographs during this coming year that we can use for more calendars for 2011. All being well, those will then be available to buy from our blogs sometime in the autumn. Unfortunately we cannot sell the ones for this year because we don’t have the image rights for some of the places that we have photographed.

Now, I have to go and plan some photographic expeditions with Dori !! .