&...i have visitors!

Visitors mean that it is time for a break and time to take better advantage of where I live.

B, W & J arrived on the 20th (in time to celebrate my mom's birthday). I left Leicester that morning to glorious sun, which was much appreciated after a week plus of rain, and I thought perhaps it might stay for a bit. Alas, no such luck. This is England and it was not meant to last. 

It appeared rain was our lot in what became the wettest April on record in years.

I arrived in London at Victoria and it was nice, so I decided to walk a bit to the hotel. As I hit Hyde Park, it started to rain. Stopping in the rain for a minute to take a photo brought an overly friendly Italian whose rate of talking sped up with the rain. He apparently didn't have any desire to not get wet. Just about the time that I was far enough past the tube station to not turn around and the heavens opened up.

Generally the skies in England just spit, but this was a deluge.

I had to laugh to myself as I got more and more wet. Every time I was close to a tube station, it lightened up a bit and I continued to walk. And then the skies opened up yet again.

At least gold gilding looks amazing in the rain.

More to come.

[A few years ago after I came back from a trip to Thailand, J&R sat down with me and patiently looked through 700+ photos. I had cut them down, but there were still 700+. I was so excited about them--I just kept going. (R had just started dating J so there was serious patience on her part.) In an attempt to avoid the same dazed looks, the photos that follow will obviously just be my favorites and I'll post them separately.] 

&...bored.

There are days when I don't leave my flat and I work a few too many hours without any planned diversion. Today was such a day. I planned a diversion, but had no desire to go out when outside suddenly felt like the cold and rainy part of winter again. On said cooped up days inevitably I reach a point where my brain needs something different. And inevitably that is when the above clip goes through my head.

Again and again.

I'm not sure that bored is the right description for those days, it isn't like I don't have anything to do, but perhaps it is good that I don't have a gun or a blue dressing gown because if I'm honest, the wall did have it coming.

One day I'll be good at learning limits and planning diversions so I can avoid becoming my favorite high functioning sociopath.

P.S. I'll comment on my love of SHERLOCK another day, but suffice it to say, if you haven't watched SHERLOCK yet, go and watch it NOW. For those of you in the U.S. Season 2 will be on Masterpiece in May. Get ready.

&...it was bound to happen.

I think if anyone is going to move to a foreign country from the United States, England is a pretty easy option. They speak English--generally a much more interesting version of English. I think for the most part things went quite smoothly. I feel pretty well sorted and feel like I now comfortably live in England.

That said, there are a number of things that have caused me to retool my MO. One of those things that I've had to adjust to is my refrigerator.

I rented a flat without a fridge--obviously I liked the flat much more than its lack of fridge. This was surprising in and of itself, but I bought a used one that seems to work quite well. (I only kick it every once in a while when I think it is humming a bit too robustly.)

The only issue is size. It fits under the counter. With a freezer the size of a shoebox.

Transitioning from having a full size American refrigerator all to myself to this miniature fridge has been a bit of an adjustment. The bigger transition has been to this freezer. No more Costco trips (let's be honest I don't have a car anyway) and I suppose frequent walks to the store do get me out of my house when I'm in writing mode. 

I like diet coke. That hasn't changed--much to my mom's chagrin. And I like it cold. 

Ice is a difficult thing in this country, rather an almost impossible thing. When I order a drink and they ask me if I want ice, I say, "Yes, please....five times more ice than you think anyone might ever want." And I end up with 5 ice cubes at the bottom of my glass. Not worth it. And there is not a whole lot of room in the fridge.

Despite this, I like COLD diet coke. It is kind of chilly in my cupboard and it's not too bad straight from the cupboard, but i like it COLD. Not enough room in my freezer for ice cube trays and though they do have handy ice cube bags, I have yet to figure out how to get a proper amount of ice cubes out of any ice cube bag without frostbite. So I stick a can of diet coke in the freezer from time to time. 

And if you are someone who sticks cans in freezers on a regular basis, inevitably at some point you will forget and leave the house. And invariably that can will explode. 

Well this time it was canS--plural. Two, to be exact. 

I mistakenly thought for a moment that it might be less of a mess since my freezer is so tiny. Alas, no such luck. The freezer door was frozen shut. I had to pry it open. With a knife. Meanwhile a variety of odd questions skip through my head: What happens if you stab freon? Does anything really still have freon? What happens when I stab my hand and blood spurts everywhere and I pass out? Do I even know the emergency number if I don't pass out? Thankfully, none of these option came to fruition and the finally door opened. 

The frozen diet coke made its way into every possible crevice. Every possible crevice. And every single item that was in that freezer was now solidly frozen together. 

&...so the cleaning began.

Have I learned my lesson? 

&...heart breaking...just a little.

A good friend shared this conversation between her kids:
K: Let's visit Janiece.
D: We can't. She lives across a big ocean.
K: Like the Salt Lake?
D: Even bigger.
K: Let's visit her there. I miss Janiece.
D: Me too.

Ok, even if there was a bit of liberty taken with the account, it was so sweet...so sweet. K&D I miss you too. Thanks D.

&...the joy of small walls for walking and jumping.

Every afternoon the road in front of my house becomes a parking lot as Mums and Dads go on the daily school run. (This also happens in the morning, but to be honest, I'm not generally ready to let the world in that early in the morning.)

There is a small wall in front of my house. The wall is placed just outside my window where I sit at my desk for ninety percent of my life. It is made of bricks perhaps a foot and a half tall and encloses pavers because, heaven forbid, it would be too high maintenance for my landlords to take care of something living. The wall is the perfect size for short legs to jump on and over and walk along. Even shorter legs need a boost and a hand to keep balance. The sheer joy that can come from walking along a brick balance beam whether assisted or not is kind of miraculous.

My curmudgeonly self might get annoyed at the kid who feels that the success does not come until one jumps the wall precisely four dozen times, but it can't last for too long in the presence of such joy.

&...you like it.

Saturday was a glorious day. The chill and fog in the morning quickly burned off, to a brilliant spring day just beginning to burst at the seams. Perfect time to head to Stratford-upon-Avon ("upon" not "on"-- google maps was not friendly to Stratford-on-Avon).

 Anne Hathaway's house. From here we had a lovely walk into town.

 Stratford Trinity Church--Shakespeare's grave inside.

Prayer pillows.

William and Anne.

 Elijah and the priests of Baal above the Bard--my favorite Hebrew Bible story and biblical validation for sarcasm.

All of the painted and stained glass in the church are scenes from Christ's life except for these eight windows. A church docent seemed to be just waiting for me to ask about the windows (they are slowly in the process of replacing the painted windows with stained glass). These windows display the seven stages of man in 6+2 windows--Jacques's famous monologue from As You Like It--leading from birth to death. The docent then proceeded to give me the monologue in his booming brogue, "All the world's a stage. And all the men and women merely players..."  (Ok, technically not a brogue, but I liked the alliteration.)

Camera freaking out and overexposing EVERYTHING. (Anyone have an extra SLR on their hands?) Very frustrating, but thanks to the marvel of photo editing software some of the photos were salvageable, despite this looking a little more like fall colors rather than spring.

Shakespeare's home.

Apparently the Bard's bank.

Thanks to Suzy for the adventure. Later Heni taught us to make fabulous Hungarian Cabbage rolls. MMM. 
Fantastic day.

&....cooking is not an exact science.

Cooking is a bit of an adventure here. Even when they have what I want I just stare at all the options. I can sit in front of a shelf in the grocery store silently discussing with myself whether this brand or that brand might be best for a very long time--really I'm only a little particular. My mother thinks this might cure me of my food snobbery. Not likely.

Most dairy products are quite cheap here. One of my newest finds is 40p (forty pence) for a lovely round of fresh mozzarella (that would be 60 cents). O the things I can do with cheap fresh mozzarella. (None of you would even consider following pinterest directions to make your own were it this cheap in the states. Ok maybe I'd consider it if you could guarantee that I'd have P712 fresh mozzarella skills.) 

&...the magic of 40p. 

I tried to make pizza for the first time in England. While I'm waiting to be impressed by my oven's cookie baking skills, its pizza skills are entirely acceptable. I can make a quick batch of dough and freeze what I don't need (in my ever so large freezer--shoebox size--for real). 

With a little bit of fresh mozzarella yesterday I wanted bbq chicken pizza. Alas bbq sauce is one of those things that I am a snob about and good bbq sauce is not to be had in this country--and I'm not yet ready to try brown sauce. I decided to try Ina Garten's bbq sauce, well kind of. I'm not sure I could even find everything in England and I had no desire to go to the store. 

So Ina's ingredient list looks like this [my substitutions in brackets]:

1 1/2c chopped yellow onions

1T minced garlic

1/2c vegetable oil [or much less rice bran oil--which i love for cooking--no trans fats, high smoke level]

1c cider vinegar [or regular vinegar]

1c honey [or some sugar]

1/2c worcestershire [or Cholula--obviously the same thing]

1c Dijon mustard [or this wonderful grainy hot mustard from ikea]

1/2c soy sauce

1c hoisin sauce

2T chili powder [not the same thing in England therefore no chili powder]

1T ground cumin [a minuscule amount of the super powerful Indian kind]

1/2T crushed red pepper flakes [more]

My substitutions and varying amounts = lazy bbq sauce. Almost the same, right? The magical thing about bbq sauce is that it came together. All in all it was just my kind of cooking experiment. It ended so well, I can't be sure I'll try the real one next time.

Oh and I accidentally thawed turkey, so it was bbq turkey pizza.

&...mmm.