Bocce Ball!

We got a Boules set (that's what they call it in England) so today we went out into the sunshine to try it.
Jim shows off his form:

I looked a little less professional. We didn't know what we were doing, had only a vague idea of the official rules, but still had people stopping to watch us as we attempted to hit a very small ball with some bigger, heavy balls.

I got a little distracted halfway through the match (and lost my ability to spell)....

and ultimately, I lost. After which I discovered that I can't do a pull up. (Jim can do a pull up.)

Fortunately, we threw the aerobie without any tree incidents (although it did get stuck in a stroller once) and by the time we got home, I didn't feel too bad about being a bad boules player and a weakling. It was a good Sunday.

And when the sun came out...

We went on a walk in the country! New country walk enthusiast, Aurelie, joined us and we were off to the South of London, where there were no floods and the trains were not having issues. We walked from Petersfield to Liss and were definitely feeling the fact that we haven't been on a walk in a long time.

Immediately we hit some colossal puddles, as evidenced by this "walk like an Egyptian" style move I had to bust to get through this kissing gate without water up to my knees:

Early in the walk, we passed a waterfall...foreshadowing of the turbulance to come...
Here are Jim and Aurelie at the waterfall:

At this point, we entered a nature preserve with a lookout hut!

And suddenly, THE HILL was on us. Little did we know that we were about to walk about 500 meters straight up hill. As you can see from my expression in this picture, I didn't think it was that big of a deal:
"Hill Schmill! I've walked up lots of hills before! Allez! Allez!"

"I'm really trying to look like this is fun, but I think I'm dying and no, I really don't care about the view."

Bringing up the rear:

3/4 of the way up we came to a bench, where we contemplated taking a nap or quitting (I don't remember JIm complaining at all. He was having too much fun taking pictures of the rest of us suffering.)

At the bench there was also a plaque commemorating a poet. Aurelie was very excited because the poet was from where she lives in London and was killed where she lived in France (not sure that was a good omen...)

After the hill there were some horses, which made AUrelie a little nervous (see horse chasing us through field on the last walk blog), but these horses were pretty scared of us, too, so took off up a hill as soon as we walked into their pasture. And after the horses were some really beautiful fields of flowers. Before taking pictures of us in the flowers, Jim took some pensive pictures of himself. Here is Jim, at peace in the country:

And the girls in the flowers:

And a fancy car on a fancy farm:

And another fancy car, burned out in the woods:

And, of course, in the middle of the woods, a cat appeared (because
there are always cats appearing when we are out and about. There are a lot of friendly cats in England!)

At the pub, where we again contemplated taking a nap, a nice man took our picture under the pub sign:

And then, while pointing out this fabulous view of a church in the distance:

Jim slid and slowly, slowly fell into the mud on his back and then rolled around like an upside down turtle while I tried to compose myself (scolded by Aurelie who said, "you are not nice.") enough to help him up.

The mud was really abundant, so we slipped and slid our way through a lot of the walk. Jim was wishing for my fall, but I disappointed him by staying upright for the entire walk. Aurelie also demonstrated the superior balance of the female sex.

Jim on a log:

A stream:

Aurlie looking apprehensive about walking through a field of cows. She bravely made it through!

Jim couldn't resist the call of the aerobie and, of course, the aerobie couldn't resist the call of the tree (see Charlie Brown and the blog about the Tour de France. This aerobie spends most of its life in trees). Much time and energy was spent getting the aerobie out of the tree:


...and ten minutes after we got the aerobie out of the tree, Jim threw it into another tree. He borrowed a passing lady's walking stick (Aurelie's idea) to get it out and I forbade the use of the aerobie for the rest of the walk:

Just before the aerobie got stuck in the second tree, we passed these funny creatures, which we decided were sheep crossed with llamas crossed with white bunnies:

Aurelie finally ran out of energy and we had to push her to the train station in a wheel-barrow:

After an 11 mile walk, battling the trees for the aerobie and having to wheel Aurelie, JIm was was so pooped that he went into a trance. Aurelie was revived by a delicious chocolate treat: the Curly Wurly (so good). And I fell asleep on the train.

A weekend in Bath

Apologies for the lack of blogs lately. It's been raining and we have been forgetting the camera a lot, but this weekend we took the camera and went to Bath in the west of England.

When we arrived at Paddington Station, things were kind of chaotic.

Because of the heavy rain and flooding in England, many of the trains had been cancelled. As soon as our track was annouced, people with their suitcases rushed the gate and then, when they opened it, they RAN to the train. Jim and I rolled our eyes and kept walking, which was a mistake because by the time we got onto the train, there were no seats left. Here is a picture of some people standing on the train.

I started out on the floor, but eventually, as more people got on, I stood up to make more room.

Without fail, people (mostly women)complained loudly about the injustice of it all, how they couldn't believe that nature would have the nerve to flood the tracks and inconvenience them on a Sasturday, how clearly all of the rest of us packed in like sardines were just NOT MOVING, etc. Everyone on the train is always the victim. Especially those who can't fit.

Fortunately for us, the train ride to Bath was only about an hour and a half when when we arrived at our hotel, it was worth the cattle-like conditions getting there. We stayed at a place called Combe Manor and this is what it looked like:


It even had bunnies:

Our room had a beautiful view with a window seat. Jim graciously posed for this picture:

Our hotel also had a country club attached to it, so we played tennis and enjoyed the indoor pool, steamroom, and spa beds. The spa beds were violently bubbly and kind of weird. Here, Jim "relaxes" in the spa bed:

On our first night, we decided to stay kind of local to our hotel, which was about three miles outside of the center of Bath. This was not a good idea. The first pub we went to had some biker looking people outside of it. The next pub only served ham sandwiches and beer. So, we gave up and went into town where we had a delicious Mediterranean meal and wandered around. One of the main attractions is Bath Abbey, which is very ornate and gothic looking. Here it is at night:

And, in the daytime:


We did not see the Roman Baths because we didn't want to pay 12 pounds each to get in. But they were nice from the outside.

There were huge groups of tourist of varying ages and cultures, so the baths probably wouldn't have been that fun to look at anyway. Plus, you can't even get in them!
In the square outside of the Abbey, a very talented classical guitarist played. Around the corner, three young violinists performed and later a classical xylephone player was in the square. It was very cool and nice to hear beautiful music while enjoying the brief sunshine.

Down by the river, a band was playing in a gazebo and for a pound we could go into a beautiful park, sit in some lawn chairs and listen. Here I am doing my best Pillsbury Dough Boy impression:

Later, we lounged in our chairs:

and enjoyed watching cute little kids:
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Fun times...we are sorry to be going back to work tomorrow. Probably in the rain.

Tour de France 2007...in London

Today the Tour de France kicked off in London and we dragged ourselves out of bed to go. This is the first time that the Tour de France has been in London since 1922 (or sometime around then), so we figured that it's probably not going to happen again before we move out of London and were excited an motivated! Plus we didn't want to let Mom and Andy down with the lame excuse that we were tired and wanted to sleep in.

The weather this weekend has been really nice and almost summery (although a little cooler than what we are used to for July). We slathered on our 40+ and soaked it all in down in Greenwich, which is where the Tour de France had its official start. By the time we got there, around 10am, there were crowds of people, but somehow we managed to get a really great spot, within sight of the starting line.

On our way to our fantastic spot, we stopped by a long table of Pain de Chocolate and various types of croissants. Tres bien! We heard an explosion and turned around to see this:

Slightly demonic looking red giraffes and some other interesting characters:

They were all part of the street fete that was taking place all around us
before and after the Tour de France.

Later we saw the giraffes taking a rest and having a smoke break:

When we made it to our incredible spot, there were people all around us.
Crowd control and some bikers.

A guy in a cowboy hat with a Nikon.

The starting line.

And Jim with his new frisbee. (later we saw a little dog carrying his frisbee the same way!)


We knew things were getting exciting when three helicopters flew over us and then the team cars came by with all of the spare bikes!

And then the bikers came flying past! Because we were at the beginning, they were in a big clump and the whole experience lasted about 30 seconds. It reminded us of the Cambridge/Oxford boat race.




And then we saw this guy:

And he was followed by lots of other normal looking people, which led us to believe that once the pros went by, the course was open to any old biker. We cheered for them, too.

After the fanfare, we headed back to the fete. This person was selecting random people out of the audience and giving them really interesting makeovers. One guy ended up looking like he had flowers sprouting out of his green head.

We brought a picnic and wanted to play with our aerobie, so we moved on to Greenwich Park, which was full of like-minded people picnicking and playing frisbee, football (soccer), tennis, softball, and just lounging around in the sunlight (finally!).


The first time Jim threw our aerobie, it landed in a tree. It was very Charlie Brown-esque and we used innovative thinking and teamwork to get it out of the tree. (Jim picked me up and I shook the branch until the frisbee fell down).




After our picnic, we discovered that there was a Merry Go Round set up in Greenwich Park. There were a few adults riding who were not with children and that's all it took to get us on our horses.
Jim got on his own personalized horse:

(Gigem Aggies! Farmers Fight!!!! WHOOP!....as they like to say)

I tried to get my horse--Kelsey--to go a little faster:


It was so fun to ride the merry go round!!!! Almost as fun as the double bike!


We said Weeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!! for a while and then walked down the hill and back towards the Fete. That's when we decided to take the boat back to Westminster.


We passed Canary Wharf, where Jim works.

We passed Tower Bridge:

Jim was very excited:

We passed all the other major landmarks such as The Tower of London, London Bridge, Somerset House, The London Boys School, The Church of England's Library,The London Eye, The Tate Modern, and Big Ben (which chimed for 3:00 as we waited to disembark).
The Millenium Bridge:

The Eye of London (artistic view):


Summer in London is FUN!