Moved

Well, one of the first frustrations we've experienced since moving is that for some reason we can't get our wireless internet to work. This would be fine if we had a desk or something, but for since we don't have a desk and haven't been able to find one yet that is a. made of real wood b. costs less than 500 pounds and c. isn't hideously ugly, I'm forced to sit on the couch next to where the internet hook up is, which just gets old after a while. So here I am at Starbucks, where I THOUGHT the internet was free, but it turns out it's not. I guess it will have to do until I do find free wireless internet someplace or until we can figure out how to get our wireless to work at home.

We finally moved on Saturday and are now settling into our new place (formerly known as 'Meg and Dan's Flat') which is awesome. It's amazing what you get used to (kitchen appliances that don't work, really loud neighbors, drunk people screaming down the street) and once you get to live in a nice place how shocking it is to find yourselves surrounded by seemingly luxurious conditions. Our neighbors are so quiet! We have a private garden! The carpet is clean!!

On moving day, we were tired, but moving is so much easier when there are two strong men with a van doing all the hard work. We had lots of time to take pictures.
Ready for the move (for the record, we did all the packing ourselves, so it wasn't a totally stress free move):


It was a foggy morning on our last morning in our old hood:


The van. There is a great picture of Jim's mom with her long legs out and making a 'honk the horn trucker' sign, while climbing into a moving van in Hawaii. I am not so adventurous when it comes to moving van pictures. But I did agree to stand with the van.


The cats had to stay in the bathrooms. Despite being confined and his whole world being turned upside down, Finchley was still in full play mode. Jack was having none of it.


Jim pretends to go all DIY:



And then tells me about some incredible guitar that Phil let him try out the night before.


This is another thing that happens when other people are doing all the work:


We were sad to move away from our next door neighbors, Julie, Phil, Maddy and Joe (they are neither loud, nor drunk). Julie was out in her yard looking at some incredible spider webs. These rather large spiders come out every year and build beautiful nests in her front garden.



Maddy came over to help us unpack on our first day in the new flat. She practiced Finchley's superhero moves with him:


Boxes!


I would say that Finchley is a stress eater, but he's actually an anytime/anywhere eater. Moving day is not an exception.


On our first night, I discovered that I have way more clothes than there is room for.


Day 2: A tour of the house (this part is kind of boring...or maybe the whole thing is kind of boring, but such is life.)

The conservatory is the cats' favorite place to hang out:


Our bedroom and French doors in our bedroom that lead out to the garden:



Kitchen:


TWO SINKS!!! What luxury!


Storage space! (Still not enough for my clothes, alas):


I'm a true American and can appreciate a working washer AND a DRYER!!!! Although the dryer is really small and takes forever to dry things, I'm still happy to have it. I have learned a lot from the English about saving energy, so we'll still hang all of our clothes, except for things like towels, jeans and sheets--you know, things that are supposed to be soft and supple, rather than hard and crunchy.


Garden:


And Finchley wishing he could come out into the garden (not yet!):


Future baby room:


And, finally, the living room!


These cars came with the flat:



In front of our new place:


Out and about in Hampstead:


And then we went to Camden AGAIN (and swore we weren't going back for at least a month). There are great things to be had in Camden market, but a beautiful, sunny day is not the best time to go because of the crowds. We did find a great costume shop, though! This is my newest look:


It was a long couple of days, but we're all settling into our new life in Hampstead. Finchley is very curious about all the new noises (as evidenced by his obese mere cat pose). And we figured out that the frequent rumbling we hear is the tube going under our flat, which is pretty cool.


And now the two young women sitting next to me and gabbing about their messed up relationships in their loudest Lily Allen voices are getting on my nerves, so I'm going to vacate Starbucks and head out into the world again.

Finchley and the Mattress

I know I said no more cat pictures for a while, but I couldn't resist posting this one. We are in the final stretch of packing and we move tomorrow. The cats are taking it in stride, really. I think it may have dawned on Finchley last night that something weird is going on around here. This morning I sent him out to play for the final day with his girlfriend and it made me sad. We've really enjoyed living in this neighborhood and all the nice people we've met along the way. At least we're not moving that far away!

Anyway, last night Jim dismantled our bed frame because it won't fit through the door in one piece. Almost as soon as he put the mattress up against the wardrobe, Finchley assumed King of the Mountain status. I am forever grateful to our cats (at home and in England) for providing constant entertainment.

People

Apologies for the lack of pictures lately. It's just really hard to motivate to take pictures when wandering around taking pictures is not your forte. I like taking pictures of people I know and love. Jim likes taking pictures of people he knows and loves and also inanimate objects (doors and signs in particular) and also complete strangers. This is where we differ. So, during this time of long weekdays unpunctuated by work or people I know, there are no pictures to share.

But I can share experiences! I enjoy a blog: www.emilymagazine.com. Emily has a very dry sense of humor and shares her daily thoughts and experiences in NYC in a way that I find very intellectual and also hilarious (mostly). A couple of weeks ago, she posted a really funny description of the people who were sharing her space in one of NYC's public libraries and I thought to myself that I needed to make a point of remembering people who strike me as being annoying/interesting/intriguing/worth blogging about. It sounds easy, but I'm finding that because my work involves (or involved, rather) daily interactions with people who would fall into the "intersting/annoying/odd/freakish" category, I'm a little desensitized to those kinds of things. Even at my new main hangout, the laundromat, the people are pretty normal and boring and rather refined.

Fortunately, today's jaunt to the pharmacy provided some much needed annoying and strange people. The first (strange) was the guy with very few teeth and Crystal Gail length dreadlocks. I was standing behind him and was so entranced by his mammoth dreadlocks that I almost asked him how long it took to get them to such great lengths. But then the pharmacist brought him a bottle of some medicine and the guy drank the whole thing right there at the counter before handing it back and I decided that some questions are better left unasked and concentrated on trying not to say something about personal space to the other person (annoying) who had caught my attention. She was an older woman who got into the line behind me and immediately started tisking and huffing about having to wait. Not only that, but every time she tisked and huffed, she also shuffled forward a little bit so that she was practically tisking and huffing in my ear. And I could smell her hair, which is one of my sensitivities when it comes to people. If I can smell your not very clean hair, you are way in my personal space (I also am quite used to people being in my personal space, as previously mentioned people from work frequently lack the ability to recognize that I don't need to be nose to nose with them to have a conversation). Finally some people left and I could scuttle away from the space invader, but unfortunately I could still hear her and then the pharmacy couldn't find her prescription and she really started to kick off.

What I have learned from today is that I'm going to try not to be come a crotchety, impatient person and I'm going to wash my hair a lot throughout life.

Ode to Bleach

Oh that I were a naturally neat and tidy clean freak...but I am only a pseudo-neat person and Jim, I'm afraid is very neat and tidy at work, but that tendency doesn't extend to home.

Now that I'm a pregnant housewife (mostly), I don't have many excuses for not cleaning (latest excuses: I'm pregnant and we're moving in a few days so what's the point? That last one has been extended over the past few weeks). So today I decided to tackle our bathrooms and all I can say is that I love bleach. Bleach can conquer even Jim's bathroom (although it did take about half a bottle). Until we can afford a live in cleaning person, bleach will be the answer to our dirty, messy abode. Hooray for bleach!

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.