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!
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Sunday, 5 July 2009
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!)Goodwood was Glorious
This week was almost as ridiculously busy as last week. On Wednesday Stephen and I drove down to one of our sister sites near Salisbury. He had a 1 1/2 day meeting and due to the complicated travel/social arrangements, I had to go with him and hot desk. We stayed in Salisbury which is another place that is gorgeous and on the "we must come back here for a weekend" list.
When the meeting was over on Thursday we whizzed along the A303/M3 to Fleet to check into our next hotel and meet with former-POQI and his family for a BBQ. We had a thoroughly good time! The kids were on fine form - the ice was down Stephen's back in a very short time! Beth dragged out the swingball from the shed and I immediately barred Stephen from playing given his recent track record. (Louise was fine, but I wasn't risking any more of our friends children getting black eyes!). After a very nice evening and a few buckets of wine and beer we walked back to Fawlty Towers for a quick OJ and lemonade (I'm not kidding!) at the bar. Then it was upstairs to the stiflingly hot bedroom with the saggy bed. I don't think either of us slept much as we were boiling and clinging onto the edge of the bed so we didn't roll together into the dip as it was much too hot for flesh to touch flesh.
I wearily pulled myself from bed at 7am as we didn't want to be too late getting away as it was a 90 minute drive to Goodwood according to googlemaps. Which is why it was surprising that we struggled to get ready, breakfasted, checked out and into the car much before 8:45. The journey was pretty hellish in places. We seemed to hit every bit of traffic between Fleet and Chichester and about 15 miles from Goodwood we ground to a complete crawl. We were pretty sure that we'd just hit the queue to get in, but after about 5 miles of crawling we hit a town and the traffic just disappeared like magic. Now we were worried that we'd taken the wrong turning!
We made good time to Goodwood after that, and got parked up under direction from the 16 year old stewards. We got out the car and had a "oh god, we're not going to get out" conversation with the lady next to us as the 16 year olds had parked us 3 cars deep!! Thankfully we were at the back and they were leaving room behind us, but I don't know how the folks in the middle were going to get anywhere!
The whole day was a kid in a candy store event for Stephen. He is a huge Formula 1 fan and there were cars everywhere. Everything from the recent crop of Brawn's and McLarens to the F1 cars of yesteryear including Ayrton Senna's Lotus and Nigel Mansell's Williams. We wandered around for hours in the paddock, watched the cars take the run up the hill course, heard them start up from a distance of about a foot (deafening!), and saw the occasional driver (Alan McNish). There was also a display from the Red Arrows and Peter Fonda was there driving a replica of his Easy Rider bike. We were pretty tired and sunburned by the time we headed off around 5:30.
My most excellent map reading skills were called into play on the way back when the overhead signs on the motorway were telling us that there was a tailback to Winchester. We did NOT want to sit in that and amazingly the junction which offered us the only alternative route was just ahead of us...as opposed to just behind us which is our usual luck! We got home tired, sunburned and happy at about 9:30. Just time for a sandwich and a drink before falling into bed.
When the meeting was over on Thursday we whizzed along the A303/M3 to Fleet to check into our next hotel and meet with former-POQI and his family for a BBQ. We had a thoroughly good time! The kids were on fine form - the ice was down Stephen's back in a very short time! Beth dragged out the swingball from the shed and I immediately barred Stephen from playing given his recent track record. (Louise was fine, but I wasn't risking any more of our friends children getting black eyes!). After a very nice evening and a few buckets of wine and beer we walked back to Fawlty Towers for a quick OJ and lemonade (I'm not kidding!) at the bar. Then it was upstairs to the stiflingly hot bedroom with the saggy bed. I don't think either of us slept much as we were boiling and clinging onto the edge of the bed so we didn't roll together into the dip as it was much too hot for flesh to touch flesh.
I wearily pulled myself from bed at 7am as we didn't want to be too late getting away as it was a 90 minute drive to Goodwood according to googlemaps. Which is why it was surprising that we struggled to get ready, breakfasted, checked out and into the car much before 8:45. The journey was pretty hellish in places. We seemed to hit every bit of traffic between Fleet and Chichester and about 15 miles from Goodwood we ground to a complete crawl. We were pretty sure that we'd just hit the queue to get in, but after about 5 miles of crawling we hit a town and the traffic just disappeared like magic. Now we were worried that we'd taken the wrong turning!
We made good time to Goodwood after that, and got parked up under direction from the 16 year old stewards. We got out the car and had a "oh god, we're not going to get out" conversation with the lady next to us as the 16 year olds had parked us 3 cars deep!! Thankfully we were at the back and they were leaving room behind us, but I don't know how the folks in the middle were going to get anywhere!
The whole day was a kid in a candy store event for Stephen. He is a huge Formula 1 fan and there were cars everywhere. Everything from the recent crop of Brawn's and McLarens to the F1 cars of yesteryear including Ayrton Senna's Lotus and Nigel Mansell's Williams. We wandered around for hours in the paddock, watched the cars take the run up the hill course, heard them start up from a distance of about a foot (deafening!), and saw the occasional driver (Alan McNish). There was also a display from the Red Arrows and Peter Fonda was there driving a replica of his Easy Rider bike. We were pretty tired and sunburned by the time we headed off around 5:30.
My most excellent map reading skills were called into play on the way back when the overhead signs on the motorway were telling us that there was a tailback to Winchester. We did NOT want to sit in that and amazingly the junction which offered us the only alternative route was just ahead of us...as opposed to just behind us which is our usual luck! We got home tired, sunburned and happy at about 9:30. Just time for a sandwich and a drink before falling into bed.
Photos of Broadway and Ludlow
The beautiful Cotswold town of Broadway
At Snowhill lavender farm
So uncouth! Having a little light refreshment!!!
Detail of a choir stall carving in Ludlow
Lovely B&W buildings in Ludlow
The wedding album update
In between rushing around the country I spent a few hours each day sticking the photos into the wedding album. I got a good rhythm going:
Check laptop mock-up album for correct photo selection
Put white gloves on
Pick out correct photos from the pile, place on page in approximate position
Turn photos over so face down
Remove left glove
Pick up and apply adhesive strips to photos
Replace left glove
Turn photos over and position first one carefully on page using ruler
Remove left glove
Peel backing strips off adhesive strips whilst holding photo firmly in place with gloved right hand
Replace left glove
Position second photo carefully on page using ruler
Remove left glove
Peel backing strips off adhesive strips whilst holding photo firmly in place with gloved right hand
Replace left glove
Ensure photos firmly attached to page
Repeat for a further 39 pages....
Its all done, bar two photos, and its looking fabulous!
Seeing the country
Gosh, the last two weeks in June disappeared in a flash didn't they? One minute we're at the Races and in a blink of an eye we're celebrating Stephens birthday! It has been a crazy busy couple of weeks and I'm sitting down today and doing absolutely NOTHING (apart from the laundry, the cleaning, the vacuuming...). Maybe what I should say is that I'm going nowhere...!
Steve and Graham popped round on the Wednesday after the Racing and dropped us in their tickets for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We had an exceedingly pleasant evening sitting the garden working through a few bottle of wine and having a laugh. Thursday night was also pretty funny - although perhaps not intentionally so... Julie, Justine and I went to see Thorn Birds - The Musical at the Malvern Theatres. There were a few highlights which mostly involved the leading man taking off his shirt and parading round the stage in a towel. There were a few lowlights. Whomever wrote the music was exceedingly cruel to the male singers - there were a few notes that surely required the application of pliers to tender anatomy under the cover of their Cardinals robes! The Aussies accents would occasionally slide off into Welsh to, but it was a Welsh production so I can't complain about that too much.
We had booked a few days off work in order to burn up the rest of our holidays before the cut off, but as my American counterpart had been hit by a taxi a few days before I ended up working from home on both days. It worked okay as I was able to do things like the laundry in between answering e-mails. As we hadn't booked the weekend away that we'd promised ourselves (just as well really!) we decided to go on a couple of day trips over the weekend.
On Saturday we went to Broadway in the Cotswolds. Its a beautiful little town - just what you'd expect of a place in the Cotswolds....all yellow stone cottages and beautiful gardens and a village green. We had a wander about taking photos and meandered round the shops which turned out to be exceedingly lucky. Since we came back I've been looking for an oak console table that could be used as a laptop desk in the sitting room and haven't found anything suitable. We were passing a shop which sold furniture (and some lovely bits and pieces!) and there in the window was a tiny desk. Absolutely perfect! Even more perfect that a console table. And a perfect price too! We got a chair too and managed to get them into the car without too much trouble. What a result! A lovely day out and a solution to our problem...
From Broadway we went to Snowhill to the lavender farm. Oh my goodness, the smell of lavender was fabulous. So intense! We walked through the fields taking photos (of course!), me with my own personal bee cloud which sometimes made photo taking challenging. Who needs to go to Provence with this on your doorstep?
On Sunday we went to Ludlow in Shropshire. Its a beautiful town full of old Black and White buildings. For the history buffs Ludlow Castle is the place where Prince Arthur died. He was the elder brother of Henry VIII and the first husband of Catherine of Aragon (he is buried at Worcester Cathedral). Its also where the "Princes in the Tower" spent their childhood years. We wandered around the town and had a coffee in a rather fabulous Costa coffee. We were going to go to the castle, but the lady selling tickets saw the cameras and kindly told us that the Ludlow festival was going on and we wouldn't get good photos because of all the marquees erected round the grounds. We've decided to go back one weekend for an overnight stay as Ludlow is so gorgeous and full of Michelin-starred restaurants too.
Steve and Graham popped round on the Wednesday after the Racing and dropped us in their tickets for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We had an exceedingly pleasant evening sitting the garden working through a few bottle of wine and having a laugh. Thursday night was also pretty funny - although perhaps not intentionally so... Julie, Justine and I went to see Thorn Birds - The Musical at the Malvern Theatres. There were a few highlights which mostly involved the leading man taking off his shirt and parading round the stage in a towel. There were a few lowlights. Whomever wrote the music was exceedingly cruel to the male singers - there were a few notes that surely required the application of pliers to tender anatomy under the cover of their Cardinals robes! The Aussies accents would occasionally slide off into Welsh to, but it was a Welsh production so I can't complain about that too much.
We had booked a few days off work in order to burn up the rest of our holidays before the cut off, but as my American counterpart had been hit by a taxi a few days before I ended up working from home on both days. It worked okay as I was able to do things like the laundry in between answering e-mails. As we hadn't booked the weekend away that we'd promised ourselves (just as well really!) we decided to go on a couple of day trips over the weekend.
On Saturday we went to Broadway in the Cotswolds. Its a beautiful little town - just what you'd expect of a place in the Cotswolds....all yellow stone cottages and beautiful gardens and a village green. We had a wander about taking photos and meandered round the shops which turned out to be exceedingly lucky. Since we came back I've been looking for an oak console table that could be used as a laptop desk in the sitting room and haven't found anything suitable. We were passing a shop which sold furniture (and some lovely bits and pieces!) and there in the window was a tiny desk. Absolutely perfect! Even more perfect that a console table. And a perfect price too! We got a chair too and managed to get them into the car without too much trouble. What a result! A lovely day out and a solution to our problem...
From Broadway we went to Snowhill to the lavender farm. Oh my goodness, the smell of lavender was fabulous. So intense! We walked through the fields taking photos (of course!), me with my own personal bee cloud which sometimes made photo taking challenging. Who needs to go to Provence with this on your doorstep?
On Sunday we went to Ludlow in Shropshire. Its a beautiful town full of old Black and White buildings. For the history buffs Ludlow Castle is the place where Prince Arthur died. He was the elder brother of Henry VIII and the first husband of Catherine of Aragon (he is buried at Worcester Cathedral). Its also where the "Princes in the Tower" spent their childhood years. We wandered around the town and had a coffee in a rather fabulous Costa coffee. We were going to go to the castle, but the lady selling tickets saw the cameras and kindly told us that the Ludlow festival was going on and we wouldn't get good photos because of all the marquees erected round the grounds. We've decided to go back one weekend for an overnight stay as Ludlow is so gorgeous and full of Michelin-starred restaurants too.
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