Shop the whole day long

We went out last night (as we do most nights!) and had a delicious meal at Mai Thai, then decided to go for drinks in 100 King as there was a jazz band playing. Well the jazz was hot and the drinks were cold...we stayed probably one drink too many. My head was a little delicate this morning!! Despite that, I struggled on...after a restoring coffee, glazed donut and pint of OJ at the local bakery we came back to the house and rearranged the furniture in the other guest bedroom in preparation for Eve and Mum coming over. We had a huge chest of drawers left over when we'd done, so we went to Corts to see about getting it picked up, and also to see about swapping our brown sofas in the den (which I don't love) for something else. It was really easy (it wasn't dumba$$ Jeff - remember before I left when he couldn't understand 828?!) and they are coming on Friday with the new sofas.

Then we whizzed round to Tyson's to collect Stephen's watch which was back from repair. Whilst we were in the jewellers I had a little look at watches (well it is my birthday coming up!), and saw a really nice Breitling. Which we bought. I now have to do the whole "darling, what can it be? I can't possibly guess" thing on the actual day! But at least Stephen has (for once!) managed to buy me a gift by himself, and ahead of the event!

As if shopping at Tysons wasn't enough, I then went off to Target to get more bedding for the guest room...and bumped into Hils and Paul. Target is obviously the hot Brit shopping location on a Saturday afternoon!! Hils was saying that she had actually just left a message saying, shall we get together tonight, so it saved phoning back! We're off for round two at 100 King tonight...

We dropped in at the car wash on they way back. For $22 a team of guys swarms over your car and wash, dry, vacuum, clean the windows and shine the interior and the tyres. It was really quick - it only took about 15 minutes for the full works! The great joy of having a silver tank is that it doesn't really show the dirt, but its absolutely gleaming now.

One of the differences I noticed between here and NY is that here most people drive SUV's or trucks - practically every second car in the garage at work is one. But in NY people mostly drove saloon cars and when you saw an Escape on the road it looked HUGE in comparison to the other cars. Here it looks tiny! People drive enormous tanks here. I guess we are pretty much real southern country folks round Alexandria!!

Colin is the exception to the huge SUV car thing. He has 3 cars at the moment none of which is an SUV, and he took me out for a spin in his latest addition to the fleet...a Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible. It's one of those retro looking cars - looks a bit like a cross between a hot rod and a hearse!! Anyway, his is convertible and a lot of fun (I miss my rollerskate!) so we dropped the top and went for a whizz along the road to the Iwo Jima memorial (which I hadn't seen before, and was awesome. In photos it looks life size, but it is so much bigger...). By the time we walked back into the office we were looking decidedly windswept! Which we decided is a great way to start a rumour!! (we feel the office lacks juicy gossip!) We moved "Rumpled Hair Affair Wednesday" to Thursday... Have I mentioned our day labelling? We have "Crappy Monday", "Grumpy Tuesday", "Rumpled Hair Affair Wednesday", Thursday is the floating day but is nominally "Is it Friday yet Thursday" and finally "Point me to the Pub Friday".

Thank Crunchie its Friday - I need a rest!!

Well you've probably been wondering what else I've been up to this week, aside from going to NY...we've had a pretty busy week in work with a gaggle of high powered visitors arriving from the UK. Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty manic with running around after them and making sure that they got to where they had to be, when they had to be there!! I honestly think that PA's/EA's should be issued with a foot spa which can sit under the desk. Andy B: if you read this can you see if we can make it standard issue which can be issued along with our IT equipment?? After a weekend of walking around NY the last thing I wanted to do was put my poor, protesting feet into skyscraper heels and run around the office for 2 days!! (My feet were so sore when I was in NY that the thought of shoe shopping almost brought on a fit of the vapours!!)

The visit went well. I was able to roll with the punches when it came to on the hoof changes, and my cat herding skills are once again honed. I got a really nice note from our COO saying thank you, so he can come back anytime!!

My "fixer" skills also came into play on Thursday. Paul W was back in the UK and had a dinner meeting in Malvern, so I'd booked him a car and driver to take him to Malvern, wait and then return him to Farnborough. I got an e-mail from Paul saying "contact Karen. driver ill, running late". After displaying my slightly callous side - "How ill. Puking or Heart Attack?" - and deciding that I didn't need to phone for an ambulance as it was food poisoning, I called Karen. Then there was another message asking me to find a replacement taxi to take him home...which is where the fun began! I only had to call about 6 companies, and Mandy to get some numbers (thanks babes, you were a star!) before I managed to find a company that were able to take Paul home again. Not bad from a few thousand miles away...

The last two days have been spent trying to catch up with the work I didn't get done due to the visit! Along with a few counselling sessions...I have become Auntie Kerry in work. And being pink and fluffy takes time....I was nearly at the "just get over it, I have work to do" stage today! Hopefully Grumpy Friday will be over and done, and we'll be on Happy Monday next week.

Jacqui is leaving the Inc and going back to the UK at the end of next week, so the girlie posse took her out for lunch and gave her her gifts...just a few fun things to remember us by! We went to the nice Italian restaurant over the road and got the full Italian Waiter treatment...I've never had my hand kissed so much in the course of a lunch!! Maybe wouldn't have minded so much if it had been a cute Italian waiter, but ours was of the middle aged and slightly lecherous variety!!! Sadly, Alyssa missed the lunch as she was off at a customer meeting and didn't make it back in time. Darn customers huh! Tim and Dawn have arranged for us to go on a Ghost Tour of Old Town as her official send off. It's on Thursday so it has become a birthday celebration for me too!

Jacqui and I were fit to burst this afternoon....Rudy had brought in muffins, we had been for lunch, had had Whoppers (like maltesers) and Gummy Worms from her gift package, and then Dawn came round to say that there was going to be cake to celebrate all of the September birthdays. We shared a slice in the hope of avoiding a "wafer thin mint" moment!!

Stephen and Paul B went off to watch the rugby, so by about 3:30 I had the BD end of the office to myself...got a few things crossed off the to-do list, but not as much as I'd hoped...oh, well. I've brought the laptop home so I can at least do Stephen's travel claim this weekend. QQ is going to owe us millions if I don't get on top of it soon!

We got our new laptop yesterday. Yippee!! It's sitting on my lap at the moment....super cool and very zippy. It runs hot though!! My thighs are reaching melting temperature - see what pain I go through just to keep in touch with you guys!

The other (kind of) amusing thing this week was when we came back home on Monday night and found the front door open!!! There had been a thunderstorm a few weeks ago, and it must have spiked some of the electronic dimmer switches we have. We contacted the landlady, who said she was going to get her brother to fix it as he has a property management company and deals with this very kind of thing...weeks went by...e-mails were sent back and forth. I was being nice, but at the end (after about 5 weeks of waiting and mailing) I was rather more forceful. Anyway he called me when I was at the airport about to get on the flight to NY and we agreed that he should contact Margaret next door as she had a key. (He was willing to go that day and I didn't want to say no as we had been sitting in gloom in the den and dining room for far too long!). Anyway, he fixed the lights, but failed to lock the front door when he left, and Margaret only checked the kitchen door was locked... So it was big brave Kerry who had to check the house for intruders and see if the TV was missing, whilst Stephen reassured Margaret (who had popped out to say hello) that it was all okay...Remarkably everything WAS fine! Nothing was missing and no bogey men were hiding in the closets. I did privately call him every kind of twit though...

Oh, and one other funny thing...we have dress down Friday in the office, but Tanner and I were wondering this morning if we had missed the memo that said it was "Wear your jimjams to work day"!! One of the BD managers turned up wearing a singlet and trackkie bottoms. It seems he got stuck in NY last night and didn't have any clean clothes with him...however he lives about a mile from the office, so he could (and should!) really have gone home to change. Seeing white and flabby arms in a singlet was enough to turn stomachs!!

The Big Apple - the photos

Here's a really small sample of the photos we took! I'll post more when I've downloaded them...

Me, in Times Sq

Times Square without me to spoil the view!

The Empire State Building

Sitting outside a trendy bar

With the pint of margarita

Stephen in Times Sq after the pint of margarita

After the pint of mudslide

Stephen, turn around or get out of the shot...On the route of the tickertape parades

Trinity Church

Wall St - did you guess? Just before the heavens opened!

From the top of the Empire State - looking towards the Chrysler Building

Looking towards Times Sq

Having a drink in Bryant Park

The Big Apple

Wow! What a weekend that was! Friday started off pretty manic. Having been out of the office for 3 days there was a lot to do. I'd kept on top of my e-mail thanks to the Blackberry, but there was a pile of stuff to do for people travelling this week, and in preparation for the high level visitors we have in the office this week. To top it all, I was trying to do everything I needed to do on Monday on Friday, as we found out on Friday morning that we needed to stay an extra night as Stephen now had a meeting in upstate New York on Monday morning...it was pretty stressful, but between Colin, Tim and I we got it all sorted. I don't think I actually relaxed until I was on board the flight!


The flight was packed, but incredibly short, so we were on the ground in New York before we knew it, and in a taxi on our way to Manhattan a few minutes after that. (Stephen had decided that we should only take carry on baggage, so I packed light - but more of that later!). The hotel was great! It was a little boutique hotel on 46th Street just half a block from Times Square. We arrived in time for their evening drinks reception - very civilised!! After a quick change we headed out to take in the sights, and hit a bar...maybe two! We went to a nice pizza restaurant for dinner, and started off with drinks. Stephen had a pint of margarita and was just about conscious for the resent of the evening!! We had a laugh...the table next to ours left a tip which drew the interest of all the waiting staff...there was a dollar bill and a pile of coins - mostly cents - and a note written on a napkin. Staff were coming over to take pictures on their camera phones and take a look...we managed to sneak a peek at what was written..."This is your tip. We are Germans. Sorry" were scribbled on the napkin. On a table of 4 in NYC a note and $1.50 doesn't really cut it as a tip!! When we came to pay (and leave our generous 20%) we scribbled down "We're Scottish. But even the notorious tightwads of Europe tip better than the Germans". As I said, there were pints of margarita involved in this evening, so we thought we were hilarious!!


We were up bright and early on Saturday and went for breakfast at Maxine's deli. I had forgotten just exactly how huge portions are in a NY deli! I ordered corned beef hash - which was a huge portion and came with breakfast potatoes and 3 fried eggs, as well as a portion of toast. It would have fed a family of 5 for a week!! The waiter was very charming though. He gave us some good tips about what to see, where to get show tickets, discount coupons etc.


We decided to get the underground down to South Ferry, wander about down there, walk the Brooklyn Bridge, wander back towards Midtown...the best laid plans and all that...we got into the subway to discover that the line that goes to South Ferry was undergoing refurbishment so we had to get off half way and get a bus which was a complete scrum, it was packed, I was staring into a BO laden armpit, there was a squawking kid near us...10 minutes of torture! We jumped off as soon as we could which was at Battery Park. It turned out to be quite an emotional time. There was an eternal flame and a sculpture, which had previously been located in the Plaza by the World Trade Centre, and had been damaged in the attacks. I was really welling up reading the inscription...


We walked from there up to Trinity Church and Wall Street, which was when our plans went really haywire! It started to rain... then it started to pour...then we took cover in a nearby Starbucks and waited for it to stop. And we waited, and we waited....we finally decided that if we were to walk the Brooklyn Bridge we wouldn't see anything anyway, so we ran for the subway and headed back to Macy's for a bit of retail therapy. After all, what else is there to do in NY when it's raining? (Okay, so we could have gone down the culture route, but shopping seemed more fun!) When it finally stopped raining we escaped Macy's and headed up 5th Avenue, taking loads of photos as we went.


We asked the Concierge at the hotel for a recommendation for dinner and she sent us to the most fantastic steak restaurant on Park Ave. The food was amazing! And again, would feed a family for a week! We were reminiscing about the last time we were in NY with Philip and went to a really nice steak restaurant and managed to get our waiter fired! The waiter had said he was new and had only been there a couple of nights. Most of the meal was uneventful, then we got to dessert. Stephen and I split a cheesecake and Philip ordered something typically New York. I can't remember what exactly, but I know it involved a soda syphon...coz the waiter managed to spray me with the syphon instead of spraying it into the glass!! I was laughing it off, trying to mop up my top, my plate, the table...but about 5 minutes later (and halfway through a shift) the waiter came over to say he was leaving... I guess hosing down the customers with a soda syphon didn't go down well with the boss! Anyway, this meal was uneventful...aside from the fact it was freezing in the restaurant, and there were a couple of girls making out outside the picture window!

After dinner we walked down to the Empire State building and went up to the observation desk for a nighttime view of the city. It was amazing. Truly magical! It was nearly midnight when we came down, so we just walked along to Times Square to take in the atmosphere and then went to bed. No going to swanky bars for us! It was late, we were tired, our feet hurt...we are officially old!!

Sunday was a beautifully sunny day, so we whizzed on down to Brooklyn Bridge and walked halfway over to admire the view of the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty. Then we got the subway to Grand Central station and worked our way up 5th Avenue to the Rockefeller Centre, had a rather nice lunch in the rink cafe and went to the "Top of the Rock" to the observation deck for a daytime view of the city. The elevator ride to the top was cool...it was glass-topped and they had lights up the lift shaft so you really got a feeling of speed as we whisked up the 70 floors.

I also had to tackle phoning the airline to change the flights. Just trust my luck to get the dumba$$ on duty!! It took 40 minutes to change both our flights most of which was spent in silence with an occasional question and then the background noise of a keyboard tapping v.....e....r.....y .....s....l....o....w.....l....y. Then there was the difficulty with "South". As practically every US street address contains North, South, East or West I can't understand why its so difficult to understand what I'm saying!!! I need to get an American to teach me how to pronounce it "properly"....there must be some way that I can mangle the vowels to make it understandable!!!


The UN was going into session on Monday and George Dubya was flying into town. Traffic was gridlocked around midtown and there was a cop on every intersection directing traffic. It was total chaos and there was so much honking of horns you were nearly deafened after a block!! I dropped past "The Rock" and stopped off to get a coffee, and found that the lovely outside cafe was dismantled and they were in full swing building the ice rink!

Top Guns

For the past couple of days I've been at the BD meeting held off-site in one of the hotels in Alexandria. There are only 5 women attending and we have (at times) found it pretty hilarious!! We did introductions on the first morning. Rudy kicked it off and asked people to give a brief resume...as we went round the table it pretty quickly became apparent that most of the guys had been aviators, some were naval aviators....but almost to a man they had flown something! And the tales were getting more elaborate as we went round the table...who was shot down, who was shot down more than once, picked up by a carrier and ended up drinking the marine corp under the table, who had flown a washing machine into combat and still managed to single-handedly win the war.... Even the 3 naval bods were getting in on the action - if someone had ditched into the water, you can guarantee that it was the naval bods little boat that had picked them up! This was willy-waving to a degree that I have never experienced before!!! The air was thick with testosterone!

Tanner and I had done our bit, and we were onto another tale of heroics from the fly boys when Tanner wrote me a note saying "I didn't give my background - oops" and I replied "well, I didn't either. It wasn't interesting cos I didn't fly F-18's". I was proud to say that I wasn't able to do willy-waving, but I was able to do reasonably funny and got the biggest laugh of the intro round...

But can you imagine the comments after this hour of machismo when we ladies went to the ladies?? Alyssa was so funny..."Oh my god, look how huge mine in, its way bigger than yours"...

Anyway, these are a bunch of guys who have tales to tell. One of them flew the planes in Hot Shots (the Top Gun spoof), another was a test pilot...too many tales to tell! Interesting guys. Very respectful of us ladies. And all with names like Chip, Zim and Wolfie.

We've been out on the lash with them for two nights now. Tonight was a little more sedate (well we left early, so it may have degenerated by now!), but last night was pretty boozy. We went to O'Connells (the Irish bar on King St), and I had to do the obligatory flirting with the Irish manager to get us a table with a view of the plasma TV screen so we could watch Scotland winning at rugby. As the bill was pretty huge I hope that we get a decent table next time we visit!!

Crafy

Hey, it turned out to be a bit of an expensive weekend! Not only did we buy a laptop and book a trip to NY, but we took a run out to the outlet mall in Leesburg, and went via the stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap guitar store...where Stephen splurged on a Stevie Ray Vaughan custom Fender from a bloke who looked like Alice Cooper, but without the makeup. It was a bargain apparently! About half the price of what we would pay back home apparently... It was just as well that the stuff I got was such a bargain! I popped into Michael's which is a craft store, to get a couple of autumn wreathes (people go big on decorating their doors here), and came out with a party bucket (to fill with ice and stuff beer bottles in), wreathes, garlands, ribbon, florists wire, wire cutters, battery operated fairy lights (the Xmas stuff was coming in and I couldn't resist some of it!)...I got loads of stuff and all for about $40 as all the autumn stuff was about a quarter of it's original price (and its not even really autumn yet!). Bargain!

The outlet mall was pretty good too! Although I didn't go overboard here...just a few things from the Yankee candle company. Their large candle jars were $15 which I thought was a bargain - even for here.

Start spreadin' the news....

I've just booked flights and hotels.... we're off to the Big Apple next weekend!!!

Smiles

Well the samosas were a success! I don't have scales yet, so I had to kind of guess the quantities for some of the larger ingredients (like the potatoes), so the filling would actually have made around 30 samosas - but I ran out of melted butter (and time!) so I had to make do with less. I left Stephen with the simple task of taking them out of the oven whilst I went and had a shower and got ready....he was maybe a few minutes late taking them out!

The rest are in the freezer

Paul cooks a pretty excellent curry! It was great to eat something with a bit of a kick to it. Hats off to the chef.

We finally managed to order another laptop today (hurrah!). No more arguing over who's turn it is to use it! We got to the "*!$£ it" stage where we couldn't be bothered trawling round 20 stores again so went to Dell and placed an order. Easy, peasy - why didn't we do that 2 weeks ago?!

We bought the laptop at the Pentagon City mall, so after wandering about for a bit, buying some make-up, having an iced tea etc we headed back to the car, via the payment machine for the car parking. It came to $1.50 so I tried to feed in a $5 bill...it spit it back out...damn it, nothing smaller so I fed in a $10 bill. It liked that...but then spit out $8.50 in quarters as change! My purse is now bulging, and Stephen was laughing hysterically! Thank God I didn't feed in the $20 I had!

Work was not all doom last week! We did have a few minutes (about 7 actually) of relief... Jacqui is leaving us in a few weeks to head back to the UK, so we thought we needed a photo of the BD girlie posse. We grabbed our resident Mario Testino (aka Stephen) from his office and at his insistence, headed downstairs for our photoshoot. Alyssa is really funny, really quick...there was a group of guys walking past staring...and she was "Hey, we're shooting a calendar. We're June". We dissolved into laughter - caught by Mario....

The BD girlie posse... L-R Tanner, Jacqui, Alyssa and me!

The secret revealed - how I manged to be the same height as the leggy lovelies!

Don't panic Mr Mainwairing!

Don't panic!! I'm fine!! It was an interesting couple of days, but I've survived, not killed anyone (although I was sorely tempted on Friday, but that's a story for later!) and am still smiling!! But a big thanks to those of you who have sent me hugs, funnies and pictures of George Clooney & Brad Pitt to cheer me up.... I went out and got pretty hammered last night - any stress was pretty much gone after the 2nd glass. And by the time we staggered home after the 5th or 6th glass I was laughing about the whole week!!

I was helpless with laughter at one point in the evening. Stephen went up to the bar and came back holding a pint of rat's piss lite and a sample bottle...oh, I wish I'd had a camera! It was actually a mini carafe so he could top up my glass. I don't know why they didn't just give him a fresh glass - maybe they figured that I needed the amusement factor!!

Oh, and for those that asked - I'm pretty sure that it really was a "dude in a dress" in the elevator...the broad shoulders and bandy legs all added to the impression!!

We're going round to Paul's tonight. He's apparently a great curry chef so, as we was tormenting me with tales of the curry (and bacon sandwiches) he was eating whilst back in the UK, he offered to whip up a little spicy something for us tonight. I thought we shouldn't go empty handed so we've just been round all our favourite shops picking up naan bread, poppadoms, chutney and ingredients so I can (try and) make vegetable samosa's. I will let you know how I get on!! The recipe makes about 20 so they had better be good.....

Dude looks like a lady...

Oh, the sights I've seen....Stephen and I had been down getting a coffee in Starbucks and were riding up in the lift with this other couple. Nothing interesting going on. We were quiet. The guy was yabbering away, and it wasn't til the woman answered that I really took notice of them....she had a voice which was deeper than Barry White's! She was totally a dude in a dress!!!! Was it "wear your wife's clothes and wig to work day! and we missed it?

I discovered an old lady hair this morning. These are the fine hairs on your face that somehow become an inch long without you noticing! I swear, I spend a LOT of time examining my face in minute detail, so I would spot an abnormally long facial hair...but I didn't! I think they sprout overnight. It can be the only rational explanation!

And talking of abnormally long facial hair, I attacked Graeme with a pair of scissors yesterday... No, don't panic - he is unharmed - and on his way back to the UK tonight. He was sitting on my desk waiting to go off and do his demo when I spotted a beard hair which had escaped the mowing which had taken place prior to him coming over. And you know when you see something, then can't stop looking at it....well this hair was so distracting I had to take action!! It was for the good of the company...I didn't want the people at the demo to be watching Graeme's stray beard hair instead of the clever stuff they were showing them!

We went out for dinner with Graeme last night, but to be honest I was tired and not really my sparkling best! I'd had a really early start yesterday...At 4:30 AM I got a phone call from the security company saying that a high temperature alarm was going off in the office suite. Not being terribly awake I kind of grunted at them for a bit, then asked them to call someone in the building to check to see if there were flames licking the ceiling and to call me back if there was a problem... of course I then lay in bed awake and worrying about whether I should actually get out of bed and drive to work. I had just about decided that I would when the phone went again at 5AM. It was a the security company again, to tell me that there was a high temperature alarm going off in the server room in the suite. Ah-ha more information that last time...or maybe I could process what I was being told this time! Being more awake I asked what people normally do in this situation and was told "disregard it"! So I did! I didn't have the access codes for the server room anyway, so there wasn't a great deal I could do. Colin gets in at 6:30 so I e-mailed him to check it...and sure enough the alarm was going off...and he didn't have access either! We had to wait for Tim, the new receptionist, to get in before we could switch it off. Dawn bought be a latte to compensate - the security company had tried calling her first and she slept through the ringing phone!

I didn't get much (actually any!) sleep from 4:30 onwards, so I was completely shot by the time we finally left the office at 5:45. I was getting a little grumpy...especially when Dawn (who starts around 10) came in at 5:00 and asked me to put through a proxy request for the BD off-site meeting next week, and that she would e-mail me the agenda and attendee list as well as leaving me a hard copy. This was fine, absolutely no problem with doing things that need to be done. So I waited a couple of minutes...no e-mail...so I re-typed the attendee list to get things going...still no e-mail...so I thought, sod it...I'll re-type the agenda (which had different topics/speakers every 20 minutes or so - basically it was a LONG and detailed agenda!)...then I pressed submit. Dawn then wanders up and says "oh, did you re-type it already?" Well, yes..cos it had been 1/2 hour since she went back to her office, and I'd been in work for 10 hours at that point and awake since 4:30 (thanks to work and Dawn's self-confessed ability to sleep through earthquakes!) and I was really, really ready to go home!! It's easy to forget when you're a come in later, work later person that after 5pm the work earlier, go home earlier (in theory but it never happens) person is pretty brain dead!!

Would you credit it?

We finally have a US credit card!! Yippeeeeee! We had applied to our bank and to another card company where you become a member and you are pretty much guaranteed to get one!

When we went to the bank to apply we were chatting with the Asst. Manager and he said it was really unusual that people would be refused a card, but that we might not get a huge limit. So...it seems we are really unusual!! The bank turned Stephen down as he had no credit history here, and we hadn't had an account with them long enough. There is a bit of a chicken and egg situation here, because without a credit card, how do you build a credit history??? I am still waiting on my rejection letter...they phoned me to find out why I didn't have any credit history, so there is a minuscule chance that I may have been able to persuade them...it would be really funny if I got a card from the bank and he didn't!! Chevy Chase bank is a bit of a "local bank for local people" and don't deal well with "incomers"!! But the other card company have ridden to the rescue and I'm now able to do things like book holidays/flights/hotels....as well as hit the handbag shops!!

Art, 'amburgers and airplanes...

We started the day by popping along to Firehook bakery for a donut and skinny latte (I'm hoping one cancels the other!) and then wandered along to the Arts Festival on King Street. There were stalls all the way from the waterfront to Washington Street - about 7 blocks of artwork on show. The artists had actually come from all over - some were local, but others we spoke to had come from Washington state on the west coast and all states in between. There was a huge variety of styles and mediums on display, so we had a a great time wandering up and down and up again... We picked up a couple of fantastic pieces, so it was a rather expensive morning!

Looking down King St

Some beautiful glass pieces - but SO expensive!

After dropping the artwork back home we popped down to 5 Guys for one of their renowned burgers. They've been voted best burger in the Washington area for about the last 6 years and are listed in the good food guide. I do have to say the burgers are good - and the fries are made from proper potatoes with skin on. You are even told the provenance of the potatoes. I believe it was a variety from Idaho today.... The only problem is portion control - we got a large fries to share and it was enough to feed about 6 people! There was a cup of fries (think grande latte size cup) which sat in a pretty large brown bag which was half full as well. We barely made a dent in them!

Feeling extremely full we rolled out to the car and up to Gravelly Point (which is the place at the end of the National airport runway). It was totally packed with people! It's a really popular place which brings out the big kid/plane spotter in everyone...even me!

The Husband Has Landed

I had a pretty easy day! I had a lie in (til 8am - wow!) and then decided that I should scrub the shower before I used it (I don't know - it made sense to me at the time!)...so I was there in my jimjams scrubbing away at the tiles for 15 minutes (its a big shower!) before I had really woken up!! Sleep cleaning (or half-asleep cleaning) is great - you're finished it before you realise what you're doing! The rest of the house has also had a good hoover and dust and is back to "Showroom shine" conditions....which is as well, cos we've had our first UK visitor to the house! Graeme is over to give a demo of equipment this week and flew in on the flight just before Stephen, so Stephen grabbed a lift back with him and dragged Graeme in to say a brief hello and give him a tour of the house (we've both worked with Graeme for years). Stephen was quite fresh after his flight as he had managed to wangle an upgrade to Upper Class - lucky so-and-so!

As Stephen wasn't dropping to the ground with exhaustion we walked down to King Street for dinner. Which, you will be relieved to know, we managed to have without the company of the Phantom Pizza Flinger!! AND I managed to get a glass of "water" without having to resort to strangulating my accent! (or perhaps I'm so used to strangulating my accent that I've not noticed I'm doing it now.....)

There was an Art Fair taking place, so King St was pedestrianised and there were little stalls selling art work, photographs, sculpture, glass work...I think it was produced by art students and their lecturers, and was amazing. A lot of it was closing down when we got there so we're going back this morning for a proper look around. We were just beginning to walk home last night when there was a bright light and a big bang - they had advertised a fireworks concert to celebrate "the end of the Arts Festival" but hadn't put a date on the ad saying when it was. As the festival finished Sunday I had assumed that that was when the fireworks would be (although I thought it strange to have a concert and fireworks on a Sunday). It seemed I assumed wrong!! At least we had only gone a couple of blocks so we were able to rush back to see them. And they were worth rushing back for! They were "Awesome"!

Girls just wanna have fun!

I have survived a whole week of driving to and from work....no crashes, no dings, no scrapes of the alloys. The chauffeur arrives back from the UK tomorrow afternoon for which I am glad! I think I still need practise to be totally comfortable driving here... simple things like changing lanes can be challenging! Americans are really bad at not using their indicators, or noticing when anyone else is! They just dive across lanes into the tiniest of gaps and expect that you'll let them in! Yesterday I had to resort to smiling and waving at the car in the next lane when I was in the queue at traffic lights in the hope that they would let me in! Today I had to endure some idiot tooting at me for actually giving way at a yield sign when there was traffic coming! I think that he maybe thought I should pull out into fast moving traffic when there was actually a car bearing down on me from 20 feet away doing 40!!

It was a busy work week. Its the end of the AP and the Business Development report had to be produced. Its something I did in Malvern, so producing the figures wasn't an issue...but taking the written input from the BD guys and trying to mould it into a report was a major task!! Thankfully Tanner was really great - left me to it when I was coping and ridin' to the rescue when I needed help (I provided the candy to get us both through!). What with booking travel and the five thousand other things that were going on I barely had time to have a wee! I was getting into work for 7am and leaving about 5:30, bringing work home and then working til bedtime...I am so glad that its the weekend. I need a rest!! And a lie-in!!

It has been a good week in terms of getting to know people! People are generally so busy, running about and out of the office that I've not really had a good getting to know session with many people. But Tanner and I had a great laugh when we were doing the report, chirpy Colin is back from his vacation in Tuscany and distributing hugs (to me anyway!), and Dawn has popped down from the other end of the office for a chat a couple of times. So barriers are coming down and I'm settling in fine.

My slight OCD was coming to the fore the other day...when we went to hunt for the laptop on Monday we stopped in at a Bennigans for lunch as Stephen was starving. I would actually have bounced, but the waiter was over in seconds and Stephen was busy ordering before I could express my desire to run for the hills!!! It needed a good clean and a lick of paint...and I my skin crawled when the couple at a booth near ours politely asked the waiter to remove a used band-aid that someone had stuck to the wall. My stomach turned over....

Thankfully Chadwicks was a lot more palatable! Hils and I went down for dinner last night (both of our hubbys were back in the UK so we felt we simply HAD to go out for a girls night!). We had an outside table to enjoy the nice breeze (but other than the breeze I don't know why we bothered - there is only a view of an abandoned warehouse and a car park!). The waiter was slightly over attentive...surely he could see that we were talking and hadn't looked at the menu at all...we were compelled to order off-the-cuff the 3rd time he came back after trips with drinks/water (sorry - I mean wadder) and kept enquiring whether we had decided yet. Then we had about 20 check backs to make sure we didn't need anything. Honestly, he was totally interrupting the flow of chatter! Hils is really great company and we laughed so much - perhaps the waiter was wanting to join in the fun! We've decided to make it a weekly get together...we'll consider letting the boys come along too (occasionally!).

All the nice girls love a sailor

Wowee! If ever you want to feast your eyes on hundreds of American sailors in their whites (think Richard Gere here!) then go to Annapolis! It is the home of the US Naval Academy and an utterly gorgeous place - really pretty (even of you take the eye candy out of the equation!).

Lots of people had said "Go to Annapolis, it's lovely" and hey, they were right! We spent a really great afternoon wandering around. There was a craft market on the first street we hit, and I got the most fantastic glass plate with copper fused into the glass - really really pretty. There were people demonstrating swing dancing, people jamming playing jazz...something going on everywhere you looked. We then followed the trail of uniforms back down towards the harbour and had a meander around gazing in awe at the selection of boats, from little weeny dinghies to yachts that Roman Abromavich would be proud of!!

We even (despite the crowds) managed to find a spot for lunch. I was longing to have a giant tub of the most delicious looking ice cream that I had seen in, oh a day or two....I was practically drooling at the huge array of ice cream flavours (we were sitting near the counter so I had a great view), but I was sensible and had a panini instead. Ho hum, how dreary!

Pretty....

Just a great view!

The main street, looking towards the senate house

Do we want this one?

Or is this one more suitable?

All the nice girls love a sailor...including these three!

We headed back home late afternoon as we had arranged to go out with Hils for a drink and food. Her hubby is back in the UK this week and as a frequent QinetiQ widow myself I know it can be dull without company - especially on a Holiday weekend. We had a great laugh, and didn't get to bed til very late! Talk about burning the candle at both ends... we were back up at 7:30 the next day ready to hit the road again!

Monday wasn't quite so exciting in terms of visiting places of interest. We spent the entire day driving from one Best Buy to another trying to find a laptop as it was the Labor Day sale. We visited 6, plus a Circuit City, and in each one had to have a long conversation with rent-a-geek about the merits of having 2 Gigs of RAM over 1 Gig, the type of processor....it went on..... when we had done the polite small talk we would then discover that the laptop they had been trying to flog us (which we knew we wanted anyway) wasn't in stock...nor was our second choice...nor the 3rd choice! Then we discovered that the final store didn't have any of our choices but the 3rd store we had been to had loads of the 3rd choice laptop ... but we hadn't asked about it at that store! I lost the will to live at this point and we decided that we would save the replay for next weekend. As long as one of the stores within a 40 mile radius has one of our choices I'll be happy!!

We did manage to find time to call in at a guitar shop and a craft shop (keeps us both happy!). Stephen spent a while playing a PRS and pondering whether or not he can afford NOT to buy one! I went into Michaels and discovered a treasure trove of crafting materials! Everything you could imagine, plus more!

I was a big brave girl today! I drove home...all by myself! I have to admit I had been a big baby when it came to driving over here. I wasn't comfortable with driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and the US drivers all seem pretty oblivious to what is going on around them. They almost never indicate and when they are indicating, it's because its been like that since the car left the showroom...Anyhow, after a few weeks of being driven around I was able to take the plunge (otherwise I would have to walk to work as Stephen is flying back to the UK today!). We did a circuit of the block on Sunday, then a round trip to work. Stephen wasn't gripping the seat in terror so I guess it was all okay...although he did say he had his eyes shut the entire journey! So after only less than an hour of supervised, hand holding I was left to fly solo! It's not so bad. I just need to remember not to try and depress the clutch....

On the trail of the lonesome pine

We had a lovely day today. We didn't manage to get anything booked for this weekend, so we decided to do day trips instead...and today we went to Skyline Drive which is in the Shenandoah National Park and follows the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles south from Front Royal. We didn't do the entire route...as we stopped at every vista point to exclaim of the utterly gorgeous views it would have taken us about a week to do the whole thing! We did about a third, and marvelled at the utter tranquility, fantastic views and cool, fresh air...

There was ample wildlife as well...eagles soaring majestically overhead...the most enormous butterflies flitting about the flowering bushes....and bambi! We had just pulled out of a parking spot after admiring a breathtaking vista and noticed that the car in front had stopped in the road, and after a few seconds of wondering why he had stopped I noticed a fawn and her mummy munching on leaves just by the side of the road. By the time we had got the camera out they had begun to move away, so all we got was a rather blurry shot of bambi and bambi's mums butt!!

We stopped at a rather quaint rest stop for lunch and saw the cutest thing (and I didn't have my camera with me so I'll have to describe it). There was a lot of bikers in the park, roaring about on their Harleys, and some had pulled into the same rest stop. One had the most cute little chihuahua...all dressed up with a little biker helmet complete with goggles, and a little jumper and bandana!!! It seems that bikers rather favour "handbag dogs" as there was a biker with a Yorkshire terrier down on King Street last night!