Fall is in the air (or never underestimate the healing powers of a good walk)

This morning, after a mostly sleepless night, I was feeling pretty down and out so I decided to take a walk. If you asked me my favorite thing about London, I would say, hands down, the parks. There are so many wonderful parks to walk in. We happen to live not far from Primrose Hill and Regents Park so we end up there a lot. Today was no exception.

It was a kind of grey morning so when I got to Primrose Hill the city looked a little hazy. Already, by this point (about two miles into my walk) I was feeling about 50 times better than when I left the house.


In Regents Park, the leaves are falling and there was a definite smell of fall:


The tips of the trees are starting to change color already! Last year we dreaded fall, but this year I'm kind of ready for it. It doesn't seem like the summer went by quite as quickly this year.


I remembered to bring some bread for the ducks--another happy thing to do when I'm feeling tired and glum. No ducks are as cute as the ducks we fed in Germany, but these ducks were pretty entertaining. Unfortunately the seagulls were there in full force, too. They were loud and piggish...but not as piggy as many seagulls I've known!



After my walk, Joe and Maddy came over for some riveting games of Guitar Hero. I'm still not very good, but with their expertise we managed to unlock a couple of more songs. VERY exciting.

Work...work it boys...do your thing and make love to the camera...

As promised, here are some cat glamor shots. With help from his trusty assistant (I make high pitched noises and wave pieces of string around) Jim caught Finchley and Jack working it.

Sultry:


Innocent:


Trying to identify that smell....OH, it's Jim's stinky Converse!


Adoring:


Vicious:


Tiger-like:


Child's pose:


Ok, no more cat pictures for a while. Unless they do something funny with all the boxes that we have around here.

Camden rambling

Lately we've been going to Camden a lot and yesterday we wanted to get out of the house and enjoy the weather, so that's where we headed. But first...some cat pictures!

Here is Finchley outside in the morning, peering in through the kitchen door, eagerly anticipating his breakfast, which comes second to going outside in the morning.

And here is Jack, eagerly awaiting the moment that we finally let him outside (which is never). Poor Jack. Stay tuned for cat glamor shots at a later date.


And then we were off on our walk to Camden! (All pictures in this blog were taken by Jim, which is why there aren't any of him. I will make a point of including tons of pictures of Jim in future blogs because I feel like I'm showing up too much in the blog lately. But Jim takes better pictures than I do..with or without me in them.)

We made a pit stop about fifteen minutes after we started to get coffee and give me one of many bathroom breaks. We got iced coffee, which was delish and pictured below:


Note the sunshine in all these pictures. London has been really beautiful. You can smell fall in the air, but the rain hasn't started yet and it's really been nice to be able to spend so much time outside.

I'm pretty sure that we have this same picture with Jim in it somewhere on this blog....


Moroccan lamps and a juice stand in Camden Market.



The rave store is always very entertaining. Maddy has informed me that she knows the owner, so now Jim and I can get all the glow in the dark, blinking and space aged outfits that we desire...at a discount! Whohoo! Seriously, though. We spent a good 20 minutes in this place and remarking on how far rave fashion has come since our raving days (I think I went to all of two raves during my raving days, so I'm not exactly a rave connoisseur...but what I can remember is a lot of people dancing around with glow sticks and a girl dressed in a cheerleader outfit. Way low tech.)

Clearly I wasn't wearing my rave clothes in this picture, because you can't even see me.

This hat has great promise...with Billy Bob teeth:


Back outside in the non-black lit light of day, I made another pit stop and Jim took some really nice pictures of various Camden wares. Paper lamps:


Sexy dresses on mannequins:


Colorful zipper purses:


Purses and rugs and towels...oh my!


After eating some spicy West African food from a stall, we made our way along the canal towards Regents Park. I may be repeating myself, but the canals that run through London are some of our favorite places to walk. You can walk from Abbey Road along the canal that goes through Regents Park all the way to Camden and beyond. They run throughout the city and people live on them in houseboats. I think living in a houseboat would be fun for about a week and I'm impressed with the people who do it year round. It's a cheap way to have real estate in London and in the winter you can smell the wood stoves that people have stoked in their boats. It's nice.



In Regents Park, people were out enjoying the weather and there was much football happening! (as usual)


The Blue Herons of Regents Park were also out in full force. They hover around the ducks and geese and I'm pretty sure they eat the bread that people toss, which is pretty funny. They roost in the tops of the trees in raggedy looking nests. We love them because they remind us of home, where the herons stand on one leg in the bayou and make a croaky sound early in the morning.