Malvern ahoy

We were up at 6am on Tuesday to catch an early flight to Birmingham. It was something of a shock as we hadn't made it out of bed before about 9am (often later!) since we arrived in the UK! We managed though - even if it was a struggle! The flight allowed us some dozing time before we picked up the hire car (or sh*tty tin can as Stephen referred to it!). I had to get the car changed in the afternoon as Stephen was feeling uncomfortable driving something so small when he was liable to turn onto the wrong side of the road. It was the first time he was back that he said he felt uncomfortable driving on the left side - I guess he's gone native in driving terms. I think I probably have too - I'm back to the UK a lot less, so it seems even less natural to me now!!

It has been an intense week back. We've packed loads in! Stephen probably more than me as I've been struck down by two separate lurgies this week which has cut down on my on-site time - although God Bless remote access as I've been able to log on from home - ie near the loo (Weds) and in the warm (Friday). I'm fending off the worst of the cold symptoms with cold and flu remedy. Its the wedding tomorrow and I don't want to be snottery for that...

We've been eating for Britain for the past few days - there have been meals with Kate, Richard and Justine, Julie and Andy and tonight we're meeting Hils and Paul. I may have to starve for a few weeks when I get back to Alexandria!!

I went to get my hair done with my lovely hairdresser Dave this afternoon. It was good to get away from the onset of "Barbara Bush hair" and back to something a little more styled!

Edinburgh - the photos

Walking through Dean village

Princes Street

The Scott Monument

The Royal Mile

The esplanade (where they hold the tattoo)

The star of the show - Edinburgh castle

Postcard perfect!

The Dome and the fantastic Christmas decor

Edinburgh - the return to the place of my birth

On Sunday afternoon John and June drove us through to Edinburgh where we were spending a couple of days with my sister Eve and her fiance Chad. It was the first time we had met Chad, and the first time we had seen their new apartment. Both met with my approval! Chad is really lovely and I'm looking forward to having him as a brother-in-law.

After dropping off the stuff and having a reviving cuppa we headed over to Channings hotel so they could show us the venue for the wedding reception. It was lovely! We're now vying to see who can book the master suite for the night of the wedding. I suppose I should let them have it, but it did look fab in the brochure....

After a drink in the bar, where Chad and I discussed some classy American elements we could bring to the wedding such as a keg stand (where you grab the handles of a keg, are hoisted upside down by your mates, and drink as much beer as you can from the tap), we walked along to Comely Bank to an Italian restaurant to meet Dad and Joan for dinner, then on for a drink in a nearby bar. Everyone was in good form! Dad and Stephen were reminiscing about our wedding when Dad played and sang the 30 minute extended slightly off-key version of Wonderful Tonight...Everyone was laughing at the comedy double act, although I thought I could detect a slightly nervous element to Eve and Chad's laughter! I have promised to frisk everyone for musical instruments and wrestle any microphone away from anyone who looks like they might be about to break into song.

l-r: Stephen, Joan, Dad, Chad, Eve and me

On Monday Stephen and I wandered about Princes Street whilst Eve went to an appointment. We popped into a first floor Starbucks with the most fantastic view across to the Castle. I had to smile when Stephen came back with coffee and cake - only in Starbucks in Edinburgh would they give you a fork to eat your cake with. We are SO refined!! (In my best Jean Brodie voice.)

We met up with Eve at lunchtime and popped into a bar in Rose Street for lunch. Stephen and I both had a cheese ploughmans sandwich (working through the list of foods you don't get in the US!) which came with an amazing amount of watercress on it. I scraped most of it off, and it was the equivalent of a healthy side salad! The downside of Milne's Bar was the crowd of young guys who came in. They had cases so I assume that they were at the end of a stag weekend. They were loud, they were using their cases as curling stones and rolling them across the floor, they were nearly stabbed to death with a fork by an increasingly grumpy short Scottish woman....

Stephen went off to look at guitars and take photos of the castle whilst Eve and I went shopping. We went to Jenners (I LOVE that store) and I tried on a couple of TCU's...and it must be a certain (non M&S) brand that has the type that tries to hide one under each armpit as again, I looked down and the Twins had disappeared!! So I need everyone to keep shopping M&S in order to bolster their sales. If they are the only store to make undies to suit me I can't have them going bust (pardon the pun!).

After shopping we met Stephen, went for coffee, helped Eve choose a wireless router and hit the Dome for a drink before dinner. They have their Christmas decor up and it was blinding! I have never seen so many fairy lights in one place!! We sat down to some serious wedding planning, and hopefully we gave Eve some good ideas.

We all went to a tapas restaurant for dinner. They did Tapas for a Tenner - all you could eat for ten quid. Bargain! We left it to the waiter to decide what we were having and we must have looked hungry....he brought round after round of delicious food. I was so stuffed I could barely move!

The Party

One of the primary reasons for our trip was to go to Audrey's 60th birthday party. Or more technically her 60 1/4 birthday party as she kindly delayed having it to allow us to tie it to a trip home.

We prepared for it in different ways. Stephen went to the football with John and Ewan and shouted himself hoarse. I went for a lovely lunch with June, Jennifer and MinL June then planned to have a relaxing soak in the bath before getting ready. MinL June wasn't feeling too special so I left her snoozing whilst I went to soak. Perhaps as she wasn't well it slipped her mind to mention that I should put on the water heater, or perhaps the water just hit the air and froze, but whatever way there was about 3 inches of lukewarm water in the bath, only cold stuff in the taps and shampoo in my hair. It certainly got the circulation going anyway!!

It was lovely to see all the family together. I can't remember the last time! I was beginning to feel old when I realised that all the kids I last saw when they were knee high were now grown ups!! All the girls had made a huge effort to dress up and there was a fine parade of party dresses on show. Its been a couple of years since I last saw Adele and Ewan and I couldn't believe the leggy lovely who walked in was her! Quite a shock! Jen and Leanne looked gorgeous too! It was great to have a natter with everyone and catch up.

All of the cousins together

l-r: John, Douglas, Jim, Miriam, Alex, June, Linda, Jim and Stephen

The very excellent band

The three wives of Spark
l-r: Me, June and Lorraine

Kissing cousins! Ewan not appreciating getting smackers from Jen and Leanne

The birthday girl!

Audrey on the right with June and Linda
(there are a lot of June's in the family so try and keep up!)

The brothers Spark
l-r: John, Stephen and Douglas

Lorraine, Adele, Ewan and Douglas

Me with MinL June

Posing!!

Leanne, Amy and Jennifer

Mmmmmmm.....cuuuurrryyyyyyyyy

Our first night in the UK turned out to be a later night that we had been expecting. We were both dragging at about 10pm, but Audrey arrived about then and we kind of got our second wind at that point which was bad from a jet lag perspective! Consequently we slept until about 10am after beating both alarms into submission when they screeched to life at 6am. My eyes were firmly superglued shut and it was only by extreme force of will did I manage to waken up at all.

I would have happily have stayed in bed, not least because getting up meant braving the arctic temperatures of the mother-in-laws house! I swear that I saw polar bears throwing on jumpers and complaining about the cold as I ran across the tundra to the bathroom! I made Stephen bleed the radiators in an attempt to get a little more heat into the place. Our room is above the garage so it's always colder, and it has a tiny radiator...and the tiny radiator was only lukewarm for the bottom third...small wonder that I had lost the feeling in my toes! Sadly bleeding them only took the temperature from -40C to -30C so I'm making mental notes to try and plan future visits during the summer months when we stand a fighting chance of getting the temperatures to around -5C.

We went down to the Town Centre shopping mall after breakfast. I needed things from Boots (shampoo and more moisturiser as my skin now appeared to be falling off) and got to the front of the queue to discover that the credit card system nationwide had gone down. Bugger! "Can you pay in cash?" she enquired. "I'll need to come back unless you take US Dollars" I replied. Thankfully I was able to take a loan from Bank of June in order to pay as I had a purse full of greenbacks and credit cards and nothing else!!

We went out for a curry on Friday. Nothing beats a good Scottish curry I tell you! We had pakora - fantastic! I would happily have had that for starter and main. They were SO good! The service was good and slow too...time to digest between courses as opposed to the "Ready. Set. Scarf." thing that we have in the US. The drinks order turned into a comedy of errors though. I had forgotten that wine comes in white or red only and had asked the waitress if they did Pinot Grigio. She said they did, and brought me over the wine list to look at. They did PG, but only in bottles so I changed the order to 2 glasses of house white (one for me, one for June). About 5 minutes later the waiter appeared with the lager for Stephen, the coke for John and 2 BOTTLES of Pinot Grigio.... Needless to say we sent it back. When we wanted a refill they came back with 2 lagers... I was beginning to worry that our waiter was actually Manuel and Basil Fawlty was in the kitchen trying to revive the drunk chef!

Homeward Bound

Despite the planning and packing that took place the night before we left, the last minute stuff had us in a total panic in the morning so we decided to go to work and just leave early to get everything sorted out. A much better idea!!

I had arranged to share a car with POQI to the airport as we were all flying back to the UK at the same time - although on different airlines. By the time we had gathered laptops, cases, cameras and suit carriers together and put them in the trunk there wasn't a great deal of space for POQI's luggage. I said a fervent prayer that he was travelling light!! My prayer was not answered!! He came down with 2 large bags...luckily they managed to rearrange everything so that it fitted, but it was tight!!

The driver dropped us outside the Virgin check in and I was carrying 2 laptops, a handbag, a shopping bag and pulling a case to the kerb when I managed to fall over my trousers or my own feet and landed knees first on the edge of the kerb. I could feel myself begin to go and there was no way I could stop myself! I had no hands free to save myself. I couldn't drop anything (laptops are more valuable than my bones!) so I just had to hope it wouldn't be too painful! Thankfully I didn't rip the trousers and I wasn't bleeding. I just had two scraped knees...thank goodness I wasn't planning to wear dresses to either of the two functions we were going to. Scabby knees are SO 30 years ago!

Security took hours (well it felt like hours!) and there was a 6 mile hike to the gate which took ages as I was limping...I was in need of the comfy seat and the G&T when we got to the lounge! The flight was fine. We both managed to get a decent amount of sleep. Well, if you can call it sleep...I kept waking up when one of my limbs would go to sleep due to the contorted position I had got into! They took it in turns to torture me during the flight...

After a brief 4 hour stopover in Malvern (during which I hit the M&S 20% off spectacular for a few busenholsters) Mum dropped us off at Birmingham airport for our flight to Glasgow. We were both quite relieved to see the plane had engines rather than giant rubber bands. We'd only paid GBP 5.99 + tax each for the tickets so weren't sure if we'd have to pedal to get it airborne!! Having taken a lot of flights in the US and gotten used to the slick operation at security here we were both amazed and amused how long it took to go through in the UK. People had to ask about every item... "Do I need to take off my shoes? Do I need to take off my belt?" In the US you're half stripped before you get to the x-ray machine because if you can't get all your kit off in under 30 seconds people are tutting. Stephen and I are now highly proficient quick-change artists should the need for a career change ever arise...

My coffee has ears! Stephen gets to grips with a giant cup.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...chilly!

We're packing tonight for our trip to the UK. I had an e-mail from Mum outlining the fantastic weather forecast for the next few days in the UK, and it made me go and reassess what we were taking. Out went the tops, in came the jumpers!!

We're got pretty cold weather over here tonight too. It's forecast to be -2C, but with windchill it'll feel like -8C. Brrrrrrrrrr. Time to cosy up and put the fire on.

The name is Bond...

Stephen had to go and get his ears syringed again last night. He was totally corned beef again - only 4 months after having them excavated with a pick and shovel last time....I must introduce him to Q-tips!

We went to see the Bond film immediately after and he was complaining to me that the soundtrack was too loud. This from the man who always wants to turn it up! He can now hear the beating of a butterflies wings at 3 miles!! The film was really good - but its not a Bond film as we've come to expect it!! There was no "The name is Bond. James Bond", no gadgets, no Q, no Moneypenny.... there was certainly plenty of high octane chases, fights and Daniel Craig looking mean and moody...which kinda made up for the lack of traditional elements.

Buffed and polished

We had a rather fun night in the weekend office on Friday! There were UK folks over, so we met up with them, POQI and Andy and Marie. The band were great! I was dragged up to dance, so I even got to shake my booty which I haven't done for a long while!! My head was slightly fragile the following morning though!! Obviously powers of recovery reduce greatly when you're over 25 and when you're breathing down the neck of 40 they are almost non-existent!!

I had an appointment to get my nails done at 11am so I walked along as fresh air is a great healer. I was pretty thrown when I got to the salon and announced I was here for my appointment. "No you're not. Not in this salon." Ferck! I know I had booked a salon in N Lee St, so where the heck was it if it wasn't this one??? I didn't have the phone number so, panicking slightly, I carried on hoping I'd find it soon. It didn't take long thankfully - it was only a few doors away. I got a warm welcome and Linda (a really lovely Asian lady) set to work. I had a moment of fear when she pulled an implement that looked like a drill out of the drawer and plonked it on the table. In my weakened state I couldn't figure out what it was for and what she was going to do with it...I had pictures of her drilling tiny holes in my nails! Thankfully it was nothing more sinister than a rotating file!!

An hour and a half later I had a beautiful set of silk nail extensions, French manicured to perfection. The only thing is the tips are a lot thicker than my real nails so I'm having to get used to not being able to do things - like unfasten the strap of my watch - that I would normally take for granted. I am now reasonably buffed and polished ready for my UK trip.

Stephen picked me up after my appointment and we headed round to Tysons for lunch and shopping. The traffic was horrid! Parking was a nightmare! We were later than we normally are going round so perhaps that was the reason. That, and Christmas shopping of course! It seems to be in full swing...Christmas music and all!

Stop! Don't shoot!!

We were just flicking though channels on the TV this morning and paused at a nature programme showing a frosty field with a deer standing in it. Then the camera pulled back to reveal two guys in camouflage jackets, one of whom was peering at the deer through the telescopic sight of a rifle. Thankfully there were too many branches in the way and he couldn't get a shot. Bambi's daddy was safe. I was shocked! I know that they like their hunting over here, and that they have programmes on most hobbies (scrap booking, quilting, decoupage etc) but I was still extremely surprised to see a TV programme that was about taking out defenceless animals!!

High Brow or Low Brow?

In a futile last minute attempt to look more groomed for my forthcoming visit to the UK I went to get my eyebrows tamed at lunchtime today. The South American lady who wrestled them off my face was really lovely, if a little brutal! I wasn't braced for the ripping off of the first strip. YEOWWWW!! Holy cow that hurt! I contemplated doing a runner at that point, but realised that mismatched eyebrows would look worse than the hairy caterpillars that resided just above my eyes. Carole was pretty swift - the waxing was over pretty quickly...then the plucking began. Now, how bad can plucking be? I pluck hairs every day. Its no biggie. Except when your skin has been highly sensitised by having the hair ripped out by the roots!! It was 15 minutes of pain, but the end result was worth it! I have perfectly groomed brows, and all for the bargain price of $10!

Ottawa - the photos

Le Chateau

The tin spires of Notre Dame

The National Gallery

Looking back towards Ottawa

The Parliament building

The Great Hall of the Museum of Civilisation.
Fantastic architecture.

They have a great collection of totem poles

Well, we had to take a photo of Our Street...

Thawing out after a chilly morning

The old and the new hotels reflected in the Rideau Canal

Even the Canadians are excited about the new President

The House of Commons

Wonderful Gothic architecture in the Parliament building

The library of the parliament building

The Senate chamber

The (lack of) view from the Peace Tower

"Why aren't we in Florida??"

Arrgh! A spider! Outside the National Gallery.

The National Gallery building

The interior of the gallery

The Parliament building in sunshine - but oh, so cold!

The Centennial flame

"Why the &%$# aren't we in Florida???"
It's oh so very cold!!!!