Happy Halloween!

We had Elvis Pie on Monday! It was an ENORMOUS slice of heavenly goo! Oreo cookie base, with a really thick layer of banana and peanut butter, topped with a huge thick layer of whipped cream drizzed with chocolate and caramel sauces. One slice was enough to feed three of us sugar hungry Scottish women!!! I've been wanting to have some since I heard about it, and finally there were enough of us there to actually manage to eat a slice! Yummy!

Mum and Eve had a day in DC yesterday, doing some touristy stuff...going to Dupont Circle, walking Embassy Row, getting tailed by the CIA, going to the zoo, seeing the pandas, seeing the pandas making whoopee...just your typical day in the District!!

We dropped them off at Dulles this evening. So we are all alone and having to talk to one another again....

I carved a pumpkin last night in preparation for Halloween. It was the least fun, supposedly fun thing I have ever done!! It took ages to scrape out the insides (which was a bit yukky and messy), then it took ages to saw out the design...it was looking good when it was done though!

Lee St was on the news tonight. The police had closed 5 blocks down to King Street, and the news team were reporting on the frolics. We went out for a while...it was totally packed with kids and their parents in costumes (yes, all the adults too!!) going trick or treating. S Lee St really is THE Halloween Street!! All the houses were decorated outside and some people had set up displays inside their houses too. The Governor had a whole haunted house thing set up in the garden. It put my single pumpkin to shame!! We've had a steady stream of children at the door since we got back. We were getting them at both front doors at one point...I was beginning to worry I was going to run out of candy!!

My Masterpiece!

The weekend in pictures...

What can I say about this??

At Great Falls

Looking more Great than previously!

Choosing music in Johnny Rockets

In St Michaels

St Michaels was so pretty

Fall foliage at Skyline Drive

Beautiful view...


Bambi!

Hector takes the wheel

Almost Heaven, in Virginia...Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah river...Take Me Home...

Well Mum and Eve certainly brought the weather with them! Not only did it rain constantly for 4 days, but King Street flooded down by the waterfront on Friday night!! We were wondering why there were so many police cars parked with lights flashing, but we soon found out when we tried to walk down to Mai Thai and then discovered there was a lake in front of us!! We had to retreat to Thai Old Town to satisfy our cravings, and it was absolutely delicious!!

After dinner we braved the raging torrents of water flowing down the street, battled against the sideways rain and headed to the Jazz club where we met up with Paul W and Simon (whom Stephen was in California with...) for drinks. The band was Blues and totally fantastic! It was late when we staggered home, still battling the elements.

Saturday was not an early start! But the good news was that it had stopped raining!! Yay! As we'd had so much rain, we thought it might be good to go back to Great Falls and see if it was more of a Great Fall, rather than the Little Trickle it was a couple of weeks ago! It was a lot more impressive this time around - still below normal levels, but a much bigger amount of water. After that we went to Georgetown for a wander. Georgetown was completely packed with people, and it was difficult to walk around. We took a stroll along the canal though, and visited a few shops, and had lunch in Johnny Rockets which is a very retro 50's diner. We had our own jukebox on the table, so we had some fun inflicting our taste in music on others!

We stopped in at Target so Eve could return some shoes (as 8 pairs was excessive!) and there was a huge amount of screaming going on...turns out that there was an enormous queue of people (including hundreds of kids) waiting to see some WWF wrestler...who arrived just about when we did. It wasn't a Beatles-esque reception for our very own Guitar God!!!

We tried out the Jazz bar on Saturday night as well (Paul was there with a couple of visitors), but the band was a little too polished. Very much background muzak jazz, and a bit boring.

We went to the most delightful little town on Sunday - St Michaels, which is round on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Its a totally gorgeous place! Getting there involved driving over the Bay Bridge which is incredibly long (4.3 miles). Apparently if you are a nervous driver (it sways in high wind), you can get an escort over the bridge...I'm not sure how this works, but I'm intrigued...do they get in the car and drive you over? Sit with you whilst you drive? Escort you with their car?

We stopped into Annapolis on the way back. There was a Halloween festival going on down one street, so there were kids and dogs in fancy dress - very cute! Eve and I were starving (Stephen had vetoed lunch as we were planning to go for an early dinner), so when we passed an Auntie Anne stall we were in there getting a soft pretzel before Stephen could object! It didn't spoil dinner though...we had steaks in the Warehouse, followed up by a couple of drinks in O'Connells. The server made Eve's night when he asked for her ID!! Didn't ask for mine though...can't imagine why not as surely I must still look under 21???

Stephen snuck off into work first thing this morning, so we headed off to Skyline Drive (via the donut shop) as soon as he got back. It was a really beautiful crisp, blue sky day, and it showed Shenandoah off to perfection. It was utterly gorgeous. The trees have begun to turn their autumn foliage colours and the woods were a patchwork of greens, yellows, oranges and reds. And as a bonus, I spotted two deer in the woods just as we were getting ready to leave. It took Stephen a few meters to slam on the anchors after my cry of "Look! Bambi!!", so we had to drive on and turn around to see them. They were still there when we got back (thankfully!) so we got loads of photos. In fact, they were still there when we passed again (after driving on and turning round to the correct direction). Loads of cars had passed and not stopped...unbelievable! I guess they didn't see them!

Po'Boy update - still in the fridge, uneaten. There is now an embargo on doggy bags....

Some serious retail therapy

After a bit of dithering about in the morning (it was raining and miserable and prompted a few "what shall we do?" moments) we decided to head off to Potomac Mills Outlet Mall for some retail therapy. This place is HUGE and full of bargains! After a fairly slow start we finally hit our stride...boy did we hit our stride! Eve bought about 6 pairs of shoes and boots (which, Colin pointed out, was more shoes that Colin owns! He doesn't get the female shoe thing....but this is the man with 3 cars, so pot-kettle-black springs to mind!!). I limited myself to one pair, but would have bought more if I'd seen boots I liked. I think I need to go and buy a couple of pairs of "sensible" boots that I can wear in the snow and freezing temperatures that people tell me are coming in January...

We went for dinner in Southsides last night. Which was yummy! I had a Po'Boy...or rather half a Po'Boy...the other bit is in a box in the fridge. Mum promised she would eat it...but its still there!! (This is why I don't get doggy bags normally!). Eve's left over pasta and half a pizza are in there too....I'm sure it'll all be scampering round the fridge in a few days time!

As mum and Eve were heading into DC to do more of the Smithsonian, I headed back into work today. I'm not sure whether it was a good idea or bad...would people sort out their little problems if I wasn't there, or would I be left trying to sort things out on the hoof, using my blackberry? I don't know! Anyway, it was pretty busy. I am Kerry the Travel Agent as well as Sister Mary Kerry (SMK)...all have done is travel bookings this week! One secondee is going to get a slap if he doesn't start acting like a grown-up instead of a 4 year old!! It has been a long time since I met anyone so totally NOT in control of his own sh!t!! Talk about needing a nanny! He said he didn't get a copy of his itinerary, when in fact he had about 5 copies, he just didn't realise that's what they were!, then he "lost" his itinerary, turned up for the flight 15 minutes before he thought it took off and tried to check in with the wrong airline!! Needless to say he missed the flight. Grrrrr!!!!

SMK was in session for a good bit of this morning too...Colin was in a right stinker this morning. He was quite the Ogre!! I'm going to have to place a bulk order for Reeces Peanut Butter Cups - they are everyones favourite candy...and they eat more when stressed and grumpy! Colin practically wiped me out of them (and I bought 2 HUGE bags at the start of the week!). He was hoovering them down by the handful!

The travellers, accompanied by Prof McSnecktor, did quite a few of the museums today (including the Spy museum which they thought was crap!). It has been completely rubbish weather for the past few days though- raining and fairly cold - so not brilliant weather for walking about. We need the rain. We're suffering drought conditions in Virginia (and in other states) - it has only rained a handful of times since we arrived at the beginning of July, and this is the first prolonged rain we've had... The forecast is for it to get warmer and sunnier over the course of the next few days though. Good for sightseeing, if not for the water table! We're aiming to take the water taxi to Georgetown tomorrow, go to Annapolis and Eastern Shore on Sunday and also to Skyline Drive on Monday. Fingers crossed that it stops raining for then...

Our first visitors arrive!

Mum and Eve arrived safe and sound on Sunday! There was a bit of confusion over the flights...BA seem to have been being naughty and combining flights over the past few days. We were tracking the flight on both the BA and Dulles airport flight tracker...BA was saying 1 1/2 hours late, Dulles was saying on time (but we assumed that was because it wasn't in their airspace or something), then just after we set off for the airport their flight number disappeared from the Dulles system (I love my Blackberry for it's Internet capability!). There were a lot of confused people waiting for passengers and (of course!) no-one on the information desk to ask! I did find a colleague who had just flown in on the Virgin flight with his wife and kid (I think he was kind of surprised to see me!)...eventually the weary travellers appeared from customs at about 11pm. By the time we had found Stephen (who was in the car listening to baseball), loaded up the luggage, driven home, done the tour of the house, made a cuppa...it was nearly 1am before we got to bed!


We were up pretty early considering we were up late the night before. We headed off for a bit of a drive round Old Town, then hit Target for some retail therapy (everyone is overwhelmed by the general inexpensiveness of everything in the store!). We did more retail therapy in Pentagon City Mall, then headed off to Arlington Cemetery. It was the first time any of us had been, and it was a very beautiful, calm, well tended place. We walked around all of the must-do places...the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, the Eternal Flame marking JFK's grave...

Not looking our most glam!! Windswept and squinting at Gravelly Point.

The Eternal Flame

We headed out for dinner at Chadwicks, but after all the walking, the early start and the late night we were all pretty exhausted! We all pretty much collapsed at about 8:30! Mum and Eve were in bed at about 8:32!

We were back into work on Tuesday and Mum and Eve did the walking tour of Old Town, wandering up and down King Street doing some light shopping as they went!


Rodger, Bridget and baby Henry leave for the UK en-route to Australia tomorrow, so we had a really nice leaving lunch for them today. Hils came along too, and sent a text saying that I was to save a seat next to someone "normal"...well the best I could do was Colin and I, but I think that's about as normal as it gets in QQ!


Whilst we were stuffing our wee faces, the intrepid explorers were hoofing it round DC. Monuments, Museums...they did it all! They took Prof. Hector McSnecktor along with them too...he had a great time as you can see from the photos! He also gathered quite a lot of interest as he was being taken around!!


Everyone is exhausted tonight, so Mum and Stephen have gone off to forage for food. Actually they have gone to Chicken Out for a roasted chicken and some sides of coleslaw.

Mum and Prof. Hector McSnecktor with Abe Lincoln...

At the Capitol Building

Eve with Hector at the Capitol

Stan and Ollie make it home

I had an exceedingly enjoyable evening last night. Not that I want to make Stephen jealous, but whilst he was in San Diego I was having supper with a male model ...and his mum, dad, brother and several other people, but that kind of spoils the effect that the words "Supper and Male Model" have on him!! One of our colleagues is heading off to Australia with his wife and baby to set up the QQ Australia office, so Hils and Paul had a farewell supper last night. Jude was also there, and also flying solo like me as Patrick was back in the UK this week. It was the first time I'd seen her in ages, so it was good to catch up. And to complete the party, there were Hils and Paul's two sons - Simon (the model) and Chris. We had a huge amount of fun, drank a few glasses of wine and told some really funny stories about the characters we had come across....including the one about the person who invited everyone for dinner, announced that dinner was ready, took them to the dining room where the pizza boxes were lined up, and proceeded to thank God for his wondrous bounty....

Stephen is back from his trip to California. From what he's been telling me, it's a miracle that they actually made it to the airport. It seems their navigation skills were pretty non-existent (hence driving 100 blocks in the wrong direction in LA!). Add to that the fact that Simon booked them into a hotel on an industrial estate in San Diego which was on the flight path of the Naval Flight Academy (Top Gun) which were doing take-offs using full afterburner (extremely noisy - I can testify as I was on the phone to him when one flew over and I suffered partial hearing loss!), it was probably more like a road trip by Laurel and Hardy than by two intelligent professionals!

They arrived back here at about 4:30 and sat down to watch the Rugby World Cup final. I had taped it for them (they nearly got the preceding programme "Lusty, Busty Housewives" - don't you just love pay per view?) so they were able to watch it "as live". There was a lot of shouting, especially when the England try was disallowed. Sadly not England's day today...

I've spent the day doing laundry, vacuuming carpets and cleaning bathrooms in preparation for Mum and Eve arriving tomorrow. Although I shouldn't have bothered spending so much time cleaning our bedroom. It was immaculate...then Stephen went in and unpacked his case. It's maybe not quite so immaculate now!!

Someone is in LA LA land!!

Stephen flew out to LA with Simon (the chap from the UK) yesterday, so I was left all alone last night. I spent the entire evening catching up with Dancing with the Stars. I had last weeks AND this weeks to watch, so there was a whole heap of sequins and marabou feathers going on!! It was a 4 hour marathon (cut down because I could fast forward through the thousands of adverts) and by the end I was ready to hit the floor...which was a shame as I had to hit bed instead. I couldn't get to sleep - probably overstimulated by all the lurex, diamante, heaving chests and fake tanner!! Worse still I woke at 4:30 in the morning...so a few people in the UK got a surprise when I began replying to their e-mails! I managed to doze off - just before the alarm went off, so I was not in the most chirpy frame of mind first thing this morning!!

It seems that Stephen and Simon had an interesting morning...they had an appointment in LA and Simon put the wrong address into Multimap...taking them to 1000 Wilshire Blvd. Stephen said he knew he was in trouble when it cost them $6 to valet park the car! He was joking (or I hope he was!) that the guy said "Hey, you guys got a gun? No? Do you want one? You'll need it..."! Anyway, it seems that 1000 Wilshire is some kind of hole in the wall Chinese take-out, and the guy pointed out their mistake.... They managed to get the car back before it was stolen or they were shot and began the long 13 mile drive back umpteen blocks to get to 11000 Wilshire....which was a short drive from the hotel they had been staying in!! Of course, they had driven the 13 miles to 1000 Wilshire during peak rush hour in LA (which is even worse than DC peak rush hour!) and were running really late for their appointment....

Of course, all this had nothing to do with the fact that they had been out the night before! When I phoned Stephen last night he was in Hooters - or at least that was what he was admitting to...I suppose it is possible that marabou feathers, sequins, heaving chests and fake tanner also played a part in his evenings amusement!! They were heading down to San Diego this afternoon, hopefully without incident!!

"Please turn left at the lights"

Congratulations are in order. Stephen and I are now proud owners of our Virginia drivers licences!! We have cleared the last big hurdle of the move... As ever, it was more time consuming than it need be, but we're getting used to standing in line...

We had been well warned about the queues at the DMV, so we got there for 7:30 in time for it opening at 8:00, and were in the queue for it forming outside at 7:45. Just as well it wasn't too nippy this morning! We got our numbers, and took a seat...it didn't take long for my number to be called and after a slight wobble about some of the reams of paperwork I was asked to bring, it was time for the vision test. Look into the machine and read the letters - easy! The lady on the counter looked really surprised when I told her I wanted to take the full test, not just apply for the learners permit...there was a lot of "are you SURE you want to take the FULL test today" - but I persisted! I mean, we were there now, we weren't coming back unless we had to!!

As my number was first, I was called first for everything. After waiting some more I was called over to take the knowledge test. Its a computerised multiple choice test in two parts. It started off with some tough questions...Is your name A) Kerry B) Amanda C) Betty D) Wilhemina... I was thankful to get that one correct!!!

The first part of the test is road signs - you need to get 100% in this to pass. If you don't pass then you have to wait 15 days before you can re-sit. You will be pleased to know that we both got the necessary 100% - no sweat! American roads signs are really, and I mean REALLY, literal!!!

The second part is road knowledge - you need 80% to pass this. We had been swatting up on "The Book" for a couple of days before, so we should be pretty hot on the answers. I was! I got 100% in mine. But it seems that Stephen was faring less well! He did seem to be sweating a lot when I left the testing booth, but I thought that was because he was wearing a jumper. No! It seems that by the time he got to Q14 he had got 4 wrong!!!! You need to get 20 out of the 25 questions correct to pass, so he was really panicking that he was going to screw it up and have to come back in a couple of weeks time!!! Thankfully he managed to turn it around, get his brain in gear and get some questions right!!

About 15 minutes after this (at about 9:45) I was a proud possessor of a drivers licence - without having taking the driving part of the test! If it hadn't been for the fact that I had to wait on Stephen I could have been out of there before the really nerve wracking bit! (What is it about the word "Test" that turns you into a wreck? I mean, I've been driving for 17 years, and even if I drove up the wrong side of the street blindfolded it would make me a better driver than most of the people on the road here!!) However, when he went up to get his photo taken for the licence they rumbled me, and I had to hand the licence back and wait for the examiner....and wait, and wait....we waited about 1 1/4 hours before he actually appeared to take me out!! He was a lovely chap, and after checking I knew where the wipers and indicators were - or working, or something - and after a mild panic on my part because I couldn't find the switch for the headlights at first (they're automatic - I don't need to know!!!), he got me to reverse out the space, drive once around the parking lot and head for the open road....

....well the back streets around the DMV anyway. I think I was out for about 5 minutes! A couple of left turns, a couple of right turns, change lane a few times, go through traffic lights, avoid the police car that had pulled someone over for speeding and back to the DMV to park. NO PARALLEL PARKING!! I had spent about an hour on Sunday practising parallel parking the enormous tank, and they didn't ask me to do it!!!

When I got back inside I was immediately accosted by someone asking what Gilbert was like as an examiner. He was there with his grand-daughter to take her first test. She looked absolutely sick with nerves!! I was able to reassure him that Gilbert was a good guy, it was an easy drive, there was no parallel parking..."No parallel parking? I made her practise that about 60 times yesterday"...so I was not the only person in Alexandria out making their neighbours nervous!!! We had a laugh about that (she still looked like she was going to hurl though!). Gilbert called Stephen at this point...and said "you can give this back to your wife" and handed over my new licence. Stephen did actually say "Did she pass?".... as if it was in doubt!! Anyway, the nice grandad and grand-daughter were giving me the thumbs up (from him), and a smile from her.

Stephen nearly missed the Stop sign on the way out of the DMV (my fault for not telling him it was there!) and practically had to do an emergency stop! But after Gilbert peeled his face of the windscreen, the rest of his drive passed without incident! So after more thumbs up from grandad we scarpered before they could decide we had to take it again!! I think it took about 4 hours from the time we got there...and that's a long time to sit there in a state of nerves! (I probably also looked like I was going to throw up at points! - but strangely I look relaxed and tanned in the photo - not strained and green!!)

Great Falls, great shopping, great result!

Sister Mary Kerry was doing overtime last Thursday! I think I did about 3 hours of counselling in the morning...I was pretty tired by the end of the day. Talking someone out of quitting is emotionally draining... I was even more tired on Friday as I had been up feeling a bit ick during the night. I think there was a bug sweeping the office as about 3 of us were stricken with it. I got home and had a quick nap on the sofa..for 2 hours! I barely woke up long enough to go for dinner, before falling back into bed!

I was livelier on Saturday! I was getting my hair cut and the grey ones eliminated and, as my appointment was the same time as the rugby, Stephen dropped me off a little early. Just long enough to spend some time in the Nine West outlet shop trying on fabulous shoes!! There was a sale on....need I say more?? I still can't get over how cheap things are here compared to back home!

Stephen had called in the rugby on pay per view, so he had Rudy and Simon (a visiting UK bod) round to watch it with him. Thankfully the neighbours were out as I believe there was a LOT of shouting! England are through to the final, so I guess we'll be doing the same next week....and I had been planning a trip to the horse racing - never mind!

We took a run up to Great Falls National Park on Sunday. We were amazed that you only have to travel a few miles up the Potomac outside of DC and you are into amazing scenery. Great Falls was actually slightly less than "Great" yesterday. There has been a severe water shortage here and the river was way down on its usual level. The falls were therefore more of a trickle than a roar! It was still beautiful, but I can imagine that when the river is full of melt water at the beginning of Spring then it will be awesome.

The area around Great Falls is exceeding posh! There are some totally awesome houses out there. I am not kidding - there was one that looked just like the White House - but the White House on steroids!!

Looking towards the Washington monument, from the GW Parkway

Stephen's next car! I would need a stepladder to get in it!!

Great Falls

Great Falls - looking slightly depleted!

Downstream

The water isn't always as low. The high water marks showing the depth of floodwater since the 1930's. The river is about 90 feet below this at the moment.

Gordon Ramsay has nothing on me!!

I think I can totally give Gordon Ramsay a run for his money! Both in the cooking stakes and (as my sous chef will testify) in the shouting, swearing and abusing people stakes!!!

I have made the curry base sauce. (2 1/2 hours yesterday). I have cooked the chicken in a special blend of oil, spices and sauce (1/2 hour today). I have combined both of the above, added some other ingredients and made a chicken Madras (1/2 hour today). So 3 1/2 hours over 2 days to make a curry.....but by 'eck it was worth it!!!!

It was a long (see above) and complicated process, which took place in a tiny kitchen...and Stephen was not doing well at keeping up with my requests to clear things out the way, give me things, find me ingredients....! As I was juggling multiple pans, ingredients and a new recipe he's probably lucky to get off as lightly as he did!!!

The stress levels peaked when I began to blend the base sauce. It was the first time I had used the new blender and I was taken by surprise by the force of the liquid hitting the lid. Thankfully I had a hand on the top...but even so I still got a liberal spraying of garlic, ginger and onion sauce over my top and the counter. But thanks to the precautionary hand and the reflexes of a cat I managed to avoid totally redecorating the kitchen with it!!

The end result was pretty scrummy! It tasted pretty much like Indian Restaurant Madras...its just that in an Indian restaurant I would get to drink Cobra whilst someone else does the hard work!! I have extra base sauce left, so I'll freeze it and that'll save a couple of hours next time!

We're all Scots together...

It was a busy week at work, which is why I've not had much chance to post. I was always told that there were peaks and troughs in terms of how busy the office is - so far it has been all peak and no trough! I need a trough soon - just so I can catch up with myself a bit!!

It was Jacqui's leaving do on Thursday, so we all went on the Old Town Ghost Tour and then onto Gadsby's Tavern for dinner. The tour was interesting - Alexandria was founded by a couple of Scots, and when one of them built his grand house he had a cat bricked up in the walls to ward off bad luck. Apparently this was an old Scottish tradition...but not one that I'd heard of! (I had to check the Internet later, and it's true!) Alexandria was also the first place that anyone ever referred to the leader of the US as "Mr President" - to George Washington who was on his way to New York for his inauguration. And several presidents spent many an hour supping in Gadsby's tavern...whichever President it was that made the butt-groove in the chair I sat on at dinner didn't do a great job of making it comfortable! It was a really nice night. But we're all going to miss Jacqui....

We had got Jacqui a lovely photographic print of the Jefferson memorial at sunset, and we also made her a T-shirt which we all signed. Tanner took a lot of ribbing as she had signed in prime position...right over the boobies!! Jacqui is modelling the T-shirt in the photo here.

L-R: Rudy, Rog, Ryan, Dawn, Tim, Jacqui, Rob, me, Tanner and Stephen

It was my birthday on Thursday too, so it was a bit of a double celebration. Thank you to everyone for the cards, messages and gifts. It made my birthday really special to hear from you all. Because otherwise it was heading down into the mire at a couple of points!! The BD meeting was a highlight - things need to change!! (Andy Toft - you should be proud of me!! I actually sounded like I knew what I was talking about to Paul!!). And I have become the office Agony Aunt... Rudy calls me Sister Mary Kerry (pronounced in American like Sister Mary Carey). There was a lot of counselling required this week - again Thursday was a highlight!!

We have been pretty tired when we get home from work, so we've had 4 straight days of staying in to eat!! This has not happened since we've been here (unless Stephen has been away, in which case I eat in). At least the new season TV has started, so we've had something to watch before we collapse into bed...All you "Strictly" fans would be in 7th heaven - the first week of the show it was on 3 nights on the trot for 1 1/2 hours each time! I think it's down to 2 nights a week now (I've taped it, but I've still to watch it), and there are two strong contenders - a Brazilian Indy Car driver and an actress - her name escapes me but she is a Cheetah Girl (or something!). Bruno and Len are judges on the show here, so I guess they must spend all their time flying backwards and forwards between London and LA...

We had our yukky brown sofas swapped out in the Den, for some much nicer cream ones. It meant I had to work from home (or telecommute as its called here) on Friday whilst I waited for the delivery guys to arrive. It was good to be able to get some work done without interruption in the morning, but by lunchtime all hell was breaking loose as HRG (our travel bookers) told me that the credit card was declining and they needed to issue e-tickets for someone traveling to Australia on Sunday....Arrghhh!! I got on the phone to the Hd of Procurement in the UK, and eventually managed to get it sorted out, but it took hours and about 10 phone calls....my stress levels were pretty high by the time I was done!

Stephen making the lovely new sofas look untidy!

We went out for possibly the worst dinner in the world on Friday. We were in desperate need of spicy food. I fancied Mexican, but we stumbled across the Old Town Indian restaurant first....They made pakora which were pretty good, but the rest of the meal was dire!! Stephen had a vindaloo which tasted of burnt chilli powder, and I had chicken tikka which came served on a metal tray which looked like prison issue. You know the kind of thing with little compartments for the different types of food...it tasted like prison issue food too! Then they charged us a totally ridiculous $8 for each bottle of Kingfisher. We won't be back!! So it's just as well that one of my birthday presents was a cook book - How to make curry like an Indian Restaurant (thank you Richard!). I'm currently making the secret curry base sauce...I will let you know how it all tastes later!

Actually, one midly amusing thing at dinner was the couple a couple of tables away (ie the only other couple). Obviously on a first date. Talking about his property, her property, his travels in Spain, the fact that it was Columbus Day, him giving a bit of history about Columbus...and her saying "So, did Columbus move here with his family?". Honestly.....!!!!

Saturday was a busy old day. We started out watching England beat the Aussies at rugby. Then we went for brunch with some guys from the office and some visitors over from the UK. After that we dashed off to buy a new ipod for me (long story - one for later!) and a blender (for the curry sauce), then we went to "Art on the Avenue" in Del Ray. There always seems to be something like this going on here, and these events are always really well attended. There were 10 blocks of stalls selling arts and crafts, plus about 4 stages of music, plus food stalls etc etc etc. We had a really great time wandering around for a couple of hours.

Art on the Avenue - one of the Bands

When we got back from that I was feeling a little inspired, so I did my Fall decoration of the front steps - with pumpkins and everything!! My neighbour has done the whole Halloween thing already, but I won't be carving my pumpkins for a couple of weeks... They are predicting a pumpkin shortage because of the drought, but there seems to be plenty - they are just smaller than the ones you see on TV!

My Fall Collection!

I've been bettered in the decor stakes...just wait til Xmas. You'll be able to see my front steps from space!!

Sunday was a lovely day. We got together with Morag, Simon and the girls and went to the Scottish Heritage Fair which was being held in one of the local parks. There were stands selling jewellery, Scottish memorabilia, pottery, artwork. You could trace your Clan (we were going to join Clan Douglas as they had the best picnic!) and there were some traditional Scottish foods on offer...Crab Cakes, Hot Dogs, BBQ and Plantain Chips!! I was looking forward to Haggis and Scotch Pies, but sadly it was not to be!!

There were Pipers....

...and rides in a buggy pulled by Clydesdale's

Morag and Lizzie

So cute!!

The battle enactment - Scottish Laird against English Squire. The Scots won by 3 falls and a submission...

We met Morag and Simon in the evening too and had a fantastic night! Drinks, Thai food and a really, really good laugh...

Today is Columbus Day holiday, so I got to have a much needed lie in. I slept till about 9am which is totally unheard of! I've been tired, so I guess I needed it! We did breakfast at Denny's...it would be a "Fat Boy" breakfast in the UK, but seemed to be the diet version here! Everyone in the place seemed to be having the Grand Slam breakfast - bacon, 3 eggs, hash browns, sausage, toast, pancakes and maple syrup. There was probably more - the plates were groaning with food. It made our eggs and bacon look totally scrawny!!

Another drink?

As it turned out we didn't managed to hook up with Hils and Paul on Saturday night. Their son came over for dinner and they didn't manage to make it out. Not that that curtailed our partying though!! We had dinner sitting on an outside table on King Street, went to Pops for a wee ice cream and then we hit O'Connells for a couple of drinks...well a couple of drinks was the plan anyway! We go there often enough that we get good service on the drinks front (a glass of wine isn't so much a glass as a bucket!) and I'd taken a big group of people there for dinner a couple of weeks ago, so we were about halfway through our 2nd round when the barmaid leaned over the bar with more drinks, going "here, take these, on us". Well we're not going to turn down free booze (we are after all Scottish!), but by the time I'd drunk my third post-dinner bucket of wine I was pretty relaxed...as a newt!!

I was pretty tired on Sunday (as I was dragged from bed at about 7:30) but I soldiered on! We did yet more shopping (Michaels for frames, silk flowers and other decorative stuff, and Bed, Bath & Beyond for some practical stuff - a big saucepan, kitchen utensils etc), then we popped into 5 Guys for burger and a sack-full of fries...MmmmmmMmmmmmm! We decided that we need to eat in occasionally now, so I cooked a vast pot of chili and a vat of bolognese sauce for the freezer. I need to try and find oxo cubes as there was a slight lack of beefy taste to the chili...it was pretty tasty otherwise, so I'm sure that we'll get used to oxo-less cooking!! It's strange the things that you can't find here - like oxo - and yet you are offered a choice of about 10 varieties of Philadelphia cream cheese!