Dodging the showers in Edinburgh

We had a lovely rest of the weekend in Edinburgh. Stephen's mum and aunt Audrey came through on Friday and we went for lunch and a mooch around Harvey Nicks and Jenners. We had to curtail the shopping somewhat as it was pouring with rain, so we headed to the Dome and split a bottle of wine. A very nice way to spend the afternoon! 

We met up with Dad & Joan on Saturday. The chaps spent time watching the golf and playing piano and guitar whilst Joan and I meandered along to the Handbag Exchange for a browse. It sells vintage designer bags at really great prices. Of course, I couldn't just browse..... I got a great beach bag for a fiver and a smart leather Burberry handbag for £30 - bargain!

Chad, Stephen and I wandered round the National Gallery for a while in the afternoon. They have the Three Graces there which I hadn't realised. It was about the same time we moved to Malvern that the fight went on to keep them in the UK. They were bought by the National Gallery of Scotland, the V&A and one of the Getty's... which is of course slightly ironic as it was the Getty Museum in Los Angeles that was trying to export them. The figure raised to keep them was a massive (at the time) £7.6M. That would barely get you a third rate Premiership footballer now!

We had dinner on Saturday in Wildfire on Rose Street. Oh my goodness the food and wine were superb! Really fresh ingredients beautifully cooked, great service and a lovely tiny restaurant. We will definitely be going back! 

When we were having dinner the heavens opened. Rain was absolutely bouncing off the pavement. There was a certain deja vu here....Simple Minds were playing the Castle Esplanade that night and the heavens opened just at exactly the same moment they had when we were at the Duran Duran concert! I had tried to get tickets, but I'm rather glad that I didn't manage! Two soakings in 3 days would be too much...

We wandered back to the flat via a bar and a wine shop and met up with Eve and Chad. Evie had been in Chile for a week and was on Chilean time. We looked through the wedding album, drank wine and didn't get to bed until nearly 2am! I woke up at 6am and felt rough. Very rough! Time for another 3 hours sleep and a lot of water.

Lite beer is coming soon...and someone can't wait!

Stephen almost fainted away with excitement when we were on the bus tour. Not because he was overwhelmed with the history of Edinburgh or the fantastic sights on offer. No. He had seen a lorry drive past which proclaimed Miller Pilsner was coming soon. He was so excited he couldn't work the camera to take a photo!

Obviously Miller Lite sales in the US have dropped dramatically since we left in April and in an attempt to recoup some worldwide profit the brewery bosses have worked out where we have now moved to and decided to launch it in the UK...but to call it Miller Pilsner as Lite beer won't sell here. Genius!!

Only came outside to watch the nightfall with the rain

The Twins go to Edinbrgh and enjoy a drink at the Grassmarket

Earlier in the day - Stephen pointing out our seats


Soaked and standing in a torrent

Not looking quite so perky!

How come everyone brought poncho's except us??
You'd have thought the concert was outdoors in Scotland in the summer or something....

The laser show during Ordinary World

Edinburgh photos

In no particular order...

The interior of St Giles Cathedral

A stall on the Grassmarket

The Grassmarket

On da bus

Jenners - probably the best department store in the World (well, in Edinburgh anyway)

Hey! I know where Mr Wrongkindofbeer bought his trousers...

Looking into Dean Village

The Ross Fountain in Princes St Gardens

The classic view of the Castle

The Royal Mile

St Giles Cathedral

Edinburgh Castle from the Grassmarket

Me on da bus

The Scott Monument

I (who has vertigo) once climbed to the top and my knees didn't stop knocking for a week!

The Dean Village

And your telephones been ringing while you're dancing in the rain...

Thursday evening was the big deal. The return to my teenage years. The chance to see Duran Duran LIVE IN CONCERT at Edinburgh Castle Esplanade. YAAAAAAYY!!!!!

We dropped back to the flat to drop off our big cameras, grab the teeny camera, grab the tickets and jackets before catching a cab back to the Grassmarket for a wee drinkie before the concert. It was a glorious evening so we sat outside one of the many pubs enjoying the sights and smells of the Continental market that was going on. Seemingly the Twins came too judging by the fact that the bloke at the table next to us appeared to be struggling to stop his eyes popping out on stalks!! I gave Stephen the teeny camera to take a photo and - I don't BELIEVE it - we'd forgotten to put the freakin' battery in it!! This left us with our phone camera's only. Us...who ALWAYS have a camera...had no camera!

After a couple of drinks there we walked up to The Hub for a bite to eat and a couple more drinkies. For a rather trendy spot I was rather disappointed by the wine selection..."we have white or red madam". What? You are kidding me! Oh well, white it is then. Thankfully it was decent enough and didn't seem to strip the enamel from my teeth....

We were giggling with relief that we didn't try to sneak silently into the country without telling anyone as we were sitting on the terrace enjoying our drinks when a BBC Scotland camera was going down the street panning down the crowd. Look carefully and you'll see Stephen and me sitting there in the background. That would really have blown our cover!!!

We took our seats about 10 minutes into the support act "Florence and the Machine" who seemed pretty good. We didn't get the chance to tell really...about 10 minutes later lightning tore across the sky in front of us and rain began to fall. Stephen was off like a shot down the stairs. I tried to hold on, but I was getting pretty wet so I followed a minute later. By this time everyone was sheltering under the grandstands trying to stay dry. I failed miserably on the dry part... there were a lot of drips from above and I was standing in a torrent of water. My jeans were doing well with the capillary action and I could actually wring water from the sleeves of my jacket. Of course we hadn't thought to bring brollies as it was beautiful when we left the flay. D'oh!

After about 30 minutes the rain went off and the first tuning up noises were coming from the stage. I headed back to my seat determined not to miss a second, and I'm glad I did. IT WAS BRILLIANT!!! They started off the set with Wild Boys with the lyric about "Dancing in the Rain" which we all loved. The whole crowd was bopping and singing along. I didn't care that I was soaked and probably about to get pneumonia I was having a fabulous time! I've been to SO many concerts where I've liked the artist...but this is probably the first time I've been to one where I've LOVED the band since I was 12!! It could have snowed and I wouldn't have moved!

They played all the hits, everyone was singing, Simon Le Bon was doing bad Dad-dancing, Mark Ronson joined them on stage for a bit...the whole thing was simply wonderful.

We headed to Whighams wine bar for a post-concert drink and I took the opportunity to dry my hair under the hand dryer - shame I didn't wipe off the panda eyes. That'll teach me to check the mirror more carefully! I think I was looking so generally awful that I didn't look at details and had a huge wodge of mascara running down my cheek. Oops - just as well I wasn't on the pull!

Tourists R Us

On Wednesday evening we scooted off from work and up to the airport in order to jump on a flight to Edinburgh. OMG - security was a nightmare! Employ more people, people! We stood in line for ages (beside closed lanes) waiting to have our bags checked and our shoes randomly x-rayed. Part of the problem was that the bloke who was randomly choosing folks to have their shoes x-rayed picked a woman wearing very on-trend Gladiator sandals... with around 40 buckles per shoe. What a nightmare! It took her flipping hours to get just one of them off!! There are several problems here in the UK... 

1) we don't hop on flights as often as people in the US so we don't know what is expected of us 

2) they have random checks (ie the shoes) so we don't know what is expected of us

3) because we don't know what is expected of us we wear totally ridiculous footwear!

At least in the US you know that you have to pretty much strip in 30 seconds so you wear slip on shoes and breakaway clothes so you can perform your Chipppendales routine easily.

We arrived on time and jumped in a cab to Eve & Chad's apartment where we dumped the bags, grabbed the brollies and Chad and went out for pizza. We went to the v. trendy Gusto and had delicious pizza and rather nice wine. The boys had more traditional toppings and I went for Peking Duck pizza. Y.u.u.m.m.e.e.e.e.

We were up at the crack of 8:45 on Thursday (it was a blissful lie in!) and after a little brekkie and some working we headed off for the 10 minute walk to Princes St. You know how it is when you're from somewhere and you don't do half the stuff available to you because its too touristy? Well that was me and we rectified that on Thursday!!

We took an open top bus tour round the city and hopped off at the Grassmarket, the Castle and Royal Mile, then visited St Giles Cathedral and walked back down to Princes St via Fleshmarket Close. It was very cool. Lots of photos were taken!! 

My shoe addiction

You will not believe what Stephen did on Saturday! We had gone for a coffee in Worcester as part of our shopping (and photo processing) trip. I had placed my order with Stephen for a skinny latte and a raspberry and white chocolate muffin (one cancels the other doesn't it?), taken the bags and gone to find a table amongst the hoards of folks wanting coffee and shelter from the rain.

Stephen came by and dropped off the two coffees, then went back for the rest....a coke and a toastie for him. Wait a minute...something was missing! He'd only gone and forgotten to get my muffin, the swine!! The line was huge so there wasn't even any point in sending him back to get me one.

I was FORCED to go shoe shopping to get over my disappointment. I got some really cute shoes....one pair of leopard print ballet pumps, one pair of bronze pumps and one pair of gorgeous high-heeled brogues with a very 20's vibe which I thought would go just marvellouslywith my collection of golfing jumpers. 

Oh, they are SO cute!! My newest additions to the collection...

He did go above and beyond the call of duty later on. The weather had been very changeable - sunny one minute, pouring with rain the next - and we had decided during a sunny moment to get the grill on. Of course, by the time we actually came to fire it up it was absolutely pouring with rain. The little superstar actually manfully grabbed an umbrella and went outside to grill dinner anyway. The brave little soldier.... he was getting rather wet, but he didn't complain...much! Only at the lack of beer being ferried out to him.... but there was no way I was getting soaked too!!

It's raining, it's pouring...but Stephen is still out there flipping burgers!

Gorgeous photos of the happy couple

I have finally, finally finished the wedding album! Yay!! Here's a few of the beautifully retouched photos. Stephen is available for Weddings, Parties, Christenings....all at very reasonable rates!

Do ya like good music? Yeah, yeah!

One thing I am LOVING about being back is the easy access to contemporary music. I was sitting e-mailing in the kitchen with the radio on and making notes of all the songs I need to download to my ipod. Its quite a list! Most of the radio stations have a really up to date playlist based around the top 40 with a few older songs thrown in for happy reminiscing purposes. The radio stations that we listened to in the US tended to be based around the top 40 of 30 years ago with a few contemporary songs thrown in to stop us turning over.

Of course, the top 40 at the moment is slightly skewed by the addition of 20 Michael Jackson songs. We were listening to the chart countdown whilst driving back from Ludlow and had to keep turning the radio over as amongst the great MJ songs were a few of the less great - namely Ben and Dirty Diana. Argh! Not a highpoint!!

I want to keep my green fields and lovely views...

Our little village is in uproar. There has been a planning application submitted to build a private trailer park to accommodate gypsy families on a field just at the outskirts of the village - right across the road from my house. Whilst understanding of the need for this type of site, in this case I am very definitely a NIMBY! Actually, I'd be opposed to any building over there no matter what the purpose...given the choice between looking out over buildings or tree-lined fields filled with sheep, give me the fields anytime!

There was a Parish Council meeting on Tuesday which was absolutely packed out. Opposition to the development is pretty strong and people were putting forward their objections about maintaining the gap between Malvern and our village to maintain our rural identity, the unsuitability of the roads for access to this site, etc etc. All was going calmly until someone stood up and accused everyone there of racism as people kept mentioning gypsies. Erm, hello...the official planning application was entitled "Mobile home site for Gypsy Families"... what were folks supposed to be discussing? One chap took the accusation particularly badly (which was the aim of the accuser) and I did think there might be a punch up at one point, but everyone else handled it well. The official title of the application was pointed out to him, along with the fact that ANY development of this area would be met with the same objections (in fact an equestrian centre was opposed for the same reasons a few months ago). What a to do!

A new toy

We got a new toy yesterday. An iMac! Yay! I managed to get about 30 minutes on it before Stephen threw me off and hogged it for the rest of the evening. I think I may have to get up around 5am if I actually want to use it....

We bought it so that we could do photo-editing properly as it was a bit of a struggle on the laptop with the weeny screen and the slightly inadequate memory. This has Terrawotsits of disk space and RAM and absolutely flies. Which is just as well as we still have the 3500 photos we took on our South Western vacation to sort through. I still think there are some I haven't properly looked at.... This could be our lifetimes work!!

Mmmmm...Reeces

I got a lovely surprise when I got into work on Monday. There was a box on my desk which had come airmail from the USA and it was full of Reeces Peanut Butter cups and Reeces Pieces (or Peeces?). What a treat! It was the only American candy worth eating and its rather like Marmite in peoples reaction to it - you either love it or hate it! It was a gift from Gracy, my American counterpart - now thankfully on the mend from her argument with the hood of the taxi cab!

We spoke today and were laughing at the fact it was 'lets all moan at Kerry' week. The Reeces really helped! There is nothing like a big mouthful of peanut butter and chocolate to soothe the urge to go Postal.... Gracy - you have saved a lot of folks as well as my mind! Thank you!

The Expat/Repat Gathering

The Ladies wot lunched - me, Hils and Jude

Owen and Amanda

Paul takes his place at the head of the table. Oops should have brought a higher chair!

We got together with some of the Brits from the Washington office for a 4th of July BBQ yesterday. It was so good to catch up with everyone again, and talk about the good old days of DC life.

The boys did an absolutely sterling job of cooking all the food on the BBQ's...or at least cremating the sausages (its not a BBQ without a cremated sausage is it?). At one point there was so much smoke coming from the BBQ's that we couldn't actually see the men!!

Goodwood photos

Former F1 driver Alan McNish chatting before he gets in his car


Loud and fast

A few folks having a spot of lunch

David Coultard's Red Bull car from last year

A great Garden Party - Lord March's house in the background

The McLaren F1 car

Captain America - Peter Fonda on his Easy Rider bike

We saw a supercar...

...or two!

Nick Mason (Pink Floyd drummer) looking a little tense before his drive

The F1 Paddock

The Red Arrows gave a stunning display

The Morgan Aero

and the Kerry-sized version (its a pedal car!)