A trip to the big city!

I seem destined to get barely enough sleep at the moment! We had to be up at 6am yesterday to catch the early train to London - and you know how grouchy I can get! I don't do mornings - especially not that early in the morning!! It was fine once we were on the train with a cuppa and a bacon toastie (tea is the great healer - of my grumpy mood at least!).


The grumpy mood quickly returned when we got to Paddington though. There was an enormous queue for taxis so we decided to go for the Tube. BIG mistake. HUGE mistake. We didn't have enough change to pay for tickets in coins, so we had to wait in the truly enormous queue for the ticket machine which took cards and folding money, only for it to break down when we were next but one in line. So...off we trudged to the back of the next enormous queue to stand for 10 minutes. I got really, really narky when the first ticket machine suddenly sprang back to life and there was a mad dash to get back in line. We stayed put rather than risk being trampled to death in the scrum! All this hanging around (and the fact that the train was late getting into London) meant that the 11am flight we had booked on the London Eye was looking rather precarious - given that we also had to dump our suitcase somewhere beforehand! Thankfully there are stairs down to the Tube at Paddington, so I didn't have to suffer the panic attacks that escalators of that size bring on, and Stephen was spared having to knock me unconscious!! That spared a couple of minutes at least!


We dumped our suitcase at Charing Cross station and trotted on down to the London Eye. We got there just after 11 and joined the queue and were "flying" by 11:15. It was a wonderful experience. London looks rather fabulous when you're in a perspex bubble circling by the Thames!!



After our flight we retrieved our suitcase (and came face to face with Steven - the winner of Masterchef - pushing his bike out of the back of the station!) and hot-footed it up to the Strand Palace for a quick freshen up before we headed across the road to The Banquette at the Savoy. Its a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and Marcus Wareing is the executive chef (not that either of them were likely to be making my carbonara personally!), but its not as expensive as his other restaurants...apart from the wine which was extortionate!! It was a very nice ambiance - which was changed slightly when a pensioners outing arrived and asked if they could be fitted in for a quick lunch before the matinee of Fiddler on the Roof....


Both the tables of 4 either side of us were filled with chattering ladies (most of whom I would guess were over 70, but aiming for the look of Joan Collins in Dynasty, but with more make up, and bigger gold earrings!). The ringleader was sitting next to Stephen on his left, and her sister was sitting on the table to his right. I could deal with the "Mary, have salad and french fries"..."Mary, I TOLD you to have the salad and french fries - it'll be quicker", but I started to lose the ability to keep a straight face when Sister No. 1 said "Excuse me, can you pass Mary the butter" and thrust the butter dish at Stephen.... Mary looked a bit abashed and said something about being a bit rude and interrupting our lunch, but Sister No.1 looked puzzled and said "But I said excuse me"!!! It truly could only happen to us!!


We also had tickets to Chicago (the musical, not the city!) which was great. We were in the 4th row, so Stephen had a fantastic view of all the lithe bodies of the female cast (these girls must never eat and spend every waking moment exercising!). I thought at one point he was going to flood the theatre he was drooling so much! Here's an interesting little fact-ette for you...one of the cast members (Mary Sunshine) used to work on site at Malvern. I'd like to know how he (yes, he!) went from doing research to starring in a West End musical!!


Then this morning, it was up early (again!) and off to the American Embassy for our visa interview. We had been well warned that it takes simply hours to go through the process, but in the end it only took about 1 1/2 hours! Record time according to most of the people we've spoken to! The interview itself only took about 2 minutes. We get the passports (with visas inserted) back around Wednesday, and then....we're off!! How exciting!


We had a lovely lunch at a pavement cafe in Covent Garden. We sitting there munching away when Stephen said "look, there's Julie Goodyear" whilst nodding over my shoulder. I turned and looked expecting to see a matronly woman dressing in leopard skin...Nope, nothing...so after breaking my neck both ways he pointed out exactly who he was looking at - and it turned out to be Jilly Goolden!! Not much difference there really!!


I don't use public transport very often, and I'm understanding why now! The train journey back was "interesting". First of all we had to stop for a good while whilst they fixed the communications system. Then someone kept pulling the emergency cord in the disabled loo, which was another delay. Then a rather drunk youth came staggering through first class and started unloading the buffet trolley into a carrier bag...he was hotly pursued by the attendant and the conductor who, once they discovered he didn't have a ticket (and especially not one for first!), nor the money to pay for one and seemed to be on the train solely for the free booze, tried to get him put off the train at the next station. Which was another delay...which meant that they terminated the train at Worcester rather than Malvern...which meant that the moany old git sitting behind us had yet another go at the conductor! Honestly, I had had enough by this point....the difficulty in getting a taxi once we finally got the Malvern was just the icing on the cake!!

The first of the farewells

The first of my farewell dinners took place last night. Kate whisked me off for a very nice dinner in Cafe Rouge in Worcester...which is pretty adventurous for us Malvernites! We got down to some girlie chat over a delicious dinner and a of glass of wine. It took us the usual 1/2 hour to decide what to have - the standing joke between us is that Kate will pore over the menu for hours, exclaiming over the deliciousness of each dish and then decide to have Cajun chicken!! Every time!! However, there was no Cajun chicken on the menu last night, so both of our taste buds were tickled with a rather delicious chicken breast stuffed with leeks and spinach on a bed of savoy cabbage and onion sauce. Sounds delicious doesn't it? Well I can assure you it was every bit as good as it sounds. The fantastic thing about Kate and I is that it doesn't matter how long it has been since we last saw each other (days, weeks or months) we can pick up as if we last saw each other a few hours ago. Kate if you have managed to work out what a blog is and are reading this - get your butt over to see me in DC!! Be brave - the flight isn't that bad!!

The gluttony continued today with a girlie lunch at the Cottage in the Wood. I was actually restrained and had a smoked salmon salad - I must have sensed there would be a wickedly rich bitter chocolate tart to be chosen from the dessert list! I'm trying to pace myself a bit over the next few days as we've got a lot of meals out and I want to be able to fit into the clothes that I've sent to the US!! I really enjoyed lunch - all the ladies who were out have a fantastic sense of humour and we had a good laugh. The same offer applies to you ladies incidentally - if you want to come over to visit then let me know!! I have to admit it was a bit of a struggle to come back to work and focus on more mundane issues like setting up meetings and drawing up flow diagrams...

I'm currently sitting here at 8pm and the sky is dark and menacing. Nearly black. Considering we're only a couple of days away from the longest day of the year and it should be light til 10pm it's pretty ominous!! And...right on cue, the heavens have opened and lightning is splitting the sky. I'm just waiting on the power going off now... You just have to love the British summer weather!!

The weather closes in...

I'm now really convinced that Stephen has actually been abducted by aliens and replaced by a clone. He's displaying some very un-Stephen like behaviour. I have been asking for months for him to put up a mirror in the en-suite to no avail. Mum asks him once and he was bounding up the stairs, drill in hand...

Farewell my love...

The greatest love of Stephen's life left him today. No, I haven't decided that I don't want to go to Washington! His beloved BMW was driven away to be taken to it's new owners. I wasn't there to see it go, but I'm sure Stephen shed a tear or two when it disappeared from view. He's now driving round in my rollerskate - I'm not sure that a Ford will ever be a replacement!! On the upside, it's Bike to Work week and because we are "car sharing" we got vouchers for free bacon rolls this morning!! We are going to be sick of bacon butties by the end of the week!!

Wiiiiiiiii

In case you're wondering why there are no pictures of Stephen and I looking glamorous (and "gripped" in my case!) in our evening wear on Friday it's because we completely forgot to pick up the camera! After I had nagged about making sure it was charged and ready to go we left it sitting on the kitchen counter. D'oh! And after the hideous drive into Malvern to the Ball (Malvern drivers - no need to say more!) and the challenging parking situation at the hotel there was no way we were turning around and going back for it!!

I spent Saturday packing my boxes and unpacking some more of Mum's. I think we're nearly there with the house now (yippee!!), so I'll be turning my attention to filing and paperwork for the next few days. What fun!!

Whilst I was slogging away in the house Stephen and Mum were in Worcester buying a Wii. Mum simply loves playing shoot 'em up video games and was desperate to get her hands on a games console! Once it was all set up in the study (you can surf the web on it too - very clever!) Mum was in there playing "The Godfather" and trying to work up from her apprentice gangster weapon (a baseball bat) to something more powerful!! All I could hear were shrieks of laughter and the theme music to the Godfather wafting down the stairs! Mum loves staying in hotels and has likened her new bedroom to staying in a Holiday Inn Express (I need to try and up the star rating!)...now she's staying in a Holiday Inn Express with an Amusement Arcade next door - her idea of heaven!!

Mum was off to Ikea this morning and came back with a couple of bedside tables. We reverted to type quickly....Stephen went to Waitrose to buy (and BBQ) dinner and I got out the tools and assembled the flat pack! Oh, and a miracle happened today! Stephen helped me to mow the lawn! He actually pushed the mower around about a third of the garden - the first time he has cut the grass for about 5 years!! I'm still in shock....I'm not convinced that he hasn't been taken over by some alien life form!!

Magic knickers? I don't think so!

Stephen has sold his car - and ordered our car for the US. We're getting a Ford Escape which is a compact SUV - think of an X3 type thing and you're not a million miles away. The important thing is that it comes in Silver and (here's the technical bits for you guys) it has an engine and wheels.....

I spent this afternoon wafting about doing not very much, and realised that I had slightly underestimated the amount of time it would take to get ready for the Optronics Summer Ball. I hit the bathroom at 5pm, but it took me a long time to exfoliate, bath, wash my hair, sand the top couple of layers of skin off my face with my micro-dermabrasion kit...you know, girlie stuff! By the time I got out of the bathroom it was 6pm...and the Ball started at 7pm! The mild panic I was feeling about timings (it takes ages to straighten my hair!) quickly turned to hysterical laughter though....

Never, and I mean EVER, try to put on gripper knickers when you're slightly damp from the bath and standing in a warm room. Now these are not the smallest of smalls - they even have boning for extra "grip"! - and I got them pulled up to bum level with only a small amount of heaving and sweating, but then I ran into trouble! The boning folded over on itself and I was left with a concertina of knicker hugging my hips. By this time I was starting to laugh hysterically whilst frantically trying to tug them further up. I couldn't shift them! They were resolutely stuck....and I was starting to sweat more and more, which only made things worse. By this time I was crying with laughter, and trying to remember whether I had any talcum powder in the house. I swallowed my pride - and shouted for Stephen! Now who says chivalry is dead? Stephen came and manfully grabbed two handfuls of knicker and pulled, and pulled, and pulled. Eventually he got them to where they should be (about where they can be tucked into my bra!), with mutterings of "Jesus how big are these things". It was probably not the most enchanting sight in the world - foundation garments like these should never be seen by the man in your life!!

The Ball was fantastic. We got to catch up with loads of people, most of whom seem to be as excited about our move as we are! Perhaps they're just looking forward to finally getting rid of us!! Seriously though, it was lovely to get so many people wishing us luck!

Wow! That's hot!

Wowee! The chilli I threw together last night is HOT! Even with the addition of extra tomato puree to calm it down it's still hot enough to bring a tear to your eye! I'm taking it round to Phil's for dinner, so I hope he's got a cast iron stomach!! If you ever hear that people belch fire in Malvern then you'll know where that rumour started....

Phil came back from the DC office about 6 months ago and he's going to give us the lowdown on who does what, and the personalities in the office. Hopefully he's also going to spill the beans on where are the hot spots to visit and the "must do" things in Washington. We've got to get our priorities right after all....we want FUN!!

It has been a busy old day at work. I've got a lot of the moving to America work stuff done (export forms for IT etc), so I feel I'm getting somewhere at last. On a rather sad note I've compared my diary with Andy's (my office husband!) and as we're both out a lot in the next two weeks we're only going to see each for one more day. It was at this point that it finally hit home that two weeks from now we'll be on a plane...and days are flying by at a rate of knots.

Moving day for Mum

It was moving day for Mum today. She waved goodbye to the wilds of Leominster and said hello to the (relative!) civilisation of Malvern. Our house is now in complete chaos - perhaps I should have foregone the cider last night in favour of packing more boxes! Mum's furniture is in place and it all looks very cosy! ...and very different! It's a bit strange seeing Mum's furniture here - like someone has transplanted her little cottage into my house. Which, I suppose, is exactly what we've done!

I had a rather hair-raising journey to work this morning. I turned a bend in the road and found an old banger heading directly towards me on the wrong side of the road. There was nothing parked in the road, so no reason for the little wander - perhaps he just fancied playing chicken this morning!! Thankfully with a lot of heavy braking we avoided each other, and no harm done....except to the air round about me which turned a vivid shade of blue!!! I told you drivers here were nuts!

I've just made a chilli to take round to Phil's tomorrow night...and another for mum to freeze! There are two enormous pots simmering away on the stove. You'd think I was feeding the 500! I need to go and stir and taste it now - I've got a chilli makers reputation to maintain so I need to go and tip in the rest of the packet of chilli powder if its lacking punch!