What a Difference a Year Makes!!

A year ago the title of my post was "It's 1:30 AM in Eton...do you know where my husband is?"  Bill was out 'til the wee hours with Anthony and Michael, having his hat stolen and getting into who-knows-what trouble.  I was in Newburyport whinging to anyone who would listen about how I was waiting for my visa and I'd never get to England etc etc etc.  Just a few days later - I was here!

It's hard to believe it's been a year.  What an amazing adventure this is!  And hasn't our blog gotten more interesting?  (OK, this week was slow but let me remind you all about the "sink series"....yup,  more interesting!!)

It wouldn't be half as much fun to do this without you - our 7 readers.  So thank you for sticking with us through the dull days and the silly posts.

Bill, meet Bill

What if there were two me's?

One of us wouldn't smoke cigars and would exercise more.

One of use would spend more time painting.

We'd both wear bow ties.

And one of us would be home in Newburyport with our family and friends.

Friends with spiders, moles and Chris too.

We ate Moroccan tonight with Chris.  

We've only eaten at Ayoush twice now, but have enjoyed it both times.

I realize I must do more research on Morocco.  I know Marrakech.  I know Secret Squirrel's sidekick was named Morocco Mole.  That's about it...  I need to do more research.

 Chris tried my glasses, which he first labeled as ladies glasses.

After he sees how smart he looks in them he'll rethink his statement.

 Meanwhile, back home, I watched our over achieving spider spin his webs.  He always surprises us in the morning with a wall of web that I inevitably wear to work when I walk through them.

It's nice to have a friend in town to keep us company.  I'm talking about my spider, not Chris.

It's not funny living in Clowne

Today I was passenger for 8 hours.  Two of the hours I was chauffeured by Chris, our American friend from work.  This was his first time driving on the proper side of the road (I'm British now... the Brits are right, Yanks are backward).  Despite my terror, he did fine.

The other six hours were up and back to our office in Worksop.  On the way to Worksop we passed the town of Clowne.  You can add an e to the end but your town is still a clown.

Clown is one of my go to insults.  "That guy is such a clown"  If I lived in Clowne that would take away this word from insult vocabulary.  I don't want to live in Clowne.

I play where Bond plays

While Jen worked I had the bank holiday off.  I went to golf at a posh country club next to Slough.  Poor Slough.  Surrounded by affluence and their known as "F*#^ing Slough".

As you can see in the background the club house is a mansion.  Only the best for me.

 They even filmed a scene from Goldfinger here.

I was told to bring the travel monkey along, so he got into a couple of pictures.  I had to stealthily take the pics without anyone seeing me.  I thought I would be kicked off the course if they saw me with a pet monkey. 

 Hot day today.  Travel monkey took a quick dip in the ball washer.

Our Day at the Races

Bill and I took the ferry to the Windsor Race Track today.  We could easily walk to it - in fact, it's a stone's throw from our house except on the other side of the river - but it seemed like taking the boat was part of the excitement.  We put on our best racing gear and planned to pay the for the mid tier enclosure ....only to find out that today was "let in the rabble" day and every one got in for a flat fee of 8 GBPs and had access to all areas. 

It took us a while to figure out how to do it.  Because it was such an open admission day, the usual betting windows were closed and people just lined up for one of these three bookies.

This is where they showed the horses off before the race.  Bill and I pretended to be able to tell which one was going to win by how feisty it was in the display ring.

This is one of my picks....no so feisty.

Bill was desperate to be part of the elite.  He went into the club house (top tier admission) and wanted us to settle in to one of the private rooms.  But without anyone there or any bar or food service I didn't think it was so appealing.  Plus there was barely a view of the races.

Bill - relaxing between races.  We call the bow tie and light suit his Southern Lawyer look.

Finally decided the grandstand gave us the best view.  Strangely, the races were run on a loop waaaaaaay far away from all the spectators and then they just ran down the last stretch so we could watch the finish line.  Is that the norm??  I expected them to go around the track in front of me but I guess I won't complain on 8 pound day.

Here they are at the finish line!!

Bill told me to pretend I won big!!  ( we lost every bet )

I don't think Bill or I have to worry about becoming serious gamblers. You probably have to win one to get hooked.

Rainy day in Russell Square

It was a rainy day so we hung at a pub in London for lunch and hit the movies after.

The English are great at taking over a pub all day.  We didn't have that staying power but we did settle in nicely.

 Raining in Russell Square

This was the hardest concentrated rain I think we've had in our year here.  For five minutes it was a bucket pouring of rain.  The only thing to do was to have tea and do a little shopping.

Jennie stalking the streets of London in a dark alley.  An unsuspecting Brit might wander into the alley and suddenly get assaulted with prose from Persuasion.  

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you! 

Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted!

  .... Come back here!... I have more...."

Then it was off to the movies.  We saw the The Kings of Summer.  

I suck at reviews, so I'll just use bullets to summarise:

* Coming of age story of three boys

* Some of the plot lines are stretches of reality, but go with them

* Nick Offerman (of Parks and Recs) is great as the dad who's a dick

* See it.  Loved it.

Voyeuring in Windsor

We went out for dinner and drinks with Chris.  He's the new leader of the UK team who is here from the States.  That's his thumb in the picture.  I think he was a bit suspect of our blog so wasn't sure he wanted to be in it.  I think he assumes I'll be prosecuted for swan eating so he wants to keep his distance.  

Let me state for the record that I did not eat that swan.  (but I bet he was delicious)

Meanwhile, we got a picture of our Bel and Dragon waitress.  She is an adorably, quick witted girl from Ireland.  She running a marathon next week.  

In the afternoon I went around Windsor and looked at flats for him.  The estate agent took us to two places where the people were still in the house.  I don't know about Chris, but I'm totally distracted by the people in the flat.  I have no idea if the place was the right fit because I'm too busy thinking about the life of the renter.  One family,  a mother and two kids, was moving back to Birmingham. I had a whole sad story in my head about how they have gone from bucolic Windsor to the mean streets of Birmingham due to some bad job luck.

The other flat had a woman from Minnesota who came for a six month assignment and has been here three years.  She was sad about going back and had been drinking wine and crying.  We woke her up when we came unexpectedly to look at her place.  It was 5:15 in the evening.  Poor thing.  We thought about it too late that we should have invited her for a drink with us  But that may have seemed creepy.  Two guys enter her apartment, look at her stuff and invite her for a drink.  Best we left her to her weeping alone.

The apartment hunting made me wish I was an estate agent.  I'd love to hear the stories of each renter.  If there was a show where someone went house to house and talked to each family for 10 minutes to hear their stories, I would totally be in.

Same stuff, different cigar....

Where was Bill on the night of August 17?

Breaking news from Windsor - someone hosted a Swan BBQ on the banks of the Thames.  They killed, cooked and ate the bird leaving the smokey carcass behind.  You can read the story here.

Now we all know how much Bill hates the swans.  I think it's only a matter of time before the Queen's patrol come knocking on our door wanting to know more about this photo.

Meanwhile, in the blogosphere, I've found several interesting blog posts that I wanted to share with all of you.  

I just found this blog - Messy Nessy Chic and was especially taken by this post of Preserved Moments of Historical Sass (Vol 5).  

I just scrolled through trying to pick my favorite and I just can't!!  The woman riding the sheep??  The men about to go swimming  in the late 19th century?  The kid with the pipe?  Or maybe the absolute joy of the women with their skirts blowing up in "Fun Fair".   And I haven't even checked out volumes 1 - 4 yet!

I also stumbled across this site called The World Needs More Love Letters.  This is a project where people write love letters to strangers and leave them in places for people to find.  You add the web site on the note so they can post about finding it.  Anyone can do it and you can get on their Love Letter Alert List.  You can also nominate someone to receive love letters.  I haven't read the site in depth but I love the idea of all these people leaving little notes around to make a stranger's day.  The world DOES need more love letters.

Garden Greenery

This is what our back garden looked like when we moved in a year ago.  This is before they put down the pea stone so ignore the fact that there is black plastic on the ground.  It seemed nice to have so many  little bushes and there was plenty of space for the two of us.

 This is what it looks like now!!  We can barely get from one end to the other.  The bushes are completely overgrown but you can't tell because they are covered in vines from the neighbor's green wall.  Who knows that else might be under there.

 If we ever stop blogging suddenly, call the Eton police and tell them to look for our bodies in the vines!!  

Frogmore

A few times a year they open Frogmore Estate to the public.  I missed the last time so I was excited to see that Monday I would be able to check it out.  Frogmore Estate sits on the grounds of Windsor Castle but is closed off by a gate and hidden from public view.  It has been the home of many generations of Royalty.   In particular, Queen Victoria, who built a Mausoleum after Albert's death.  They are both buried there but that was not open to the public.    The Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Edward and Wallis) are both buried on the grounds although the graveyard was also closed.  I thought they spent a fair amount of time at Frogmore but they were not mentioned by any of the docents or highlighted in the guidebook at all.  I guess the less said, the better?

Unfortunately I couldn't take any photos inside the house and there were docents in every room so I couldn't sneak any.  But the gardens were really beautiful and I took a lot of shots in my stroll to and from the Long Walk.

 It's amazing that all this is so close to my daily walk on the Long Walk.
Wouldn't you love to be secluded from the world in this little hideaway?  

Jen and Bill Went to Hampton Court Palace too....

It was nice of Mr. Dibley to let Bill and I tag along on his outing to Hampton Court Palace this weekend.  

I did the audio tour but Bill doesn't like anything with the word "tour" in it.  So he followed along and took pictures of me listening.  

This is what it would look like if I was Sarah Churchill...or if Sarah Churchill looked like me.  I actually don't remember why there were headless bodies wearing white muslin clothes in this room.

I think Bill should paint something like this on our ceiling at home.

Hampton Court Palace has the oldest "real"tennis court.  It's been in use since the 1600's.  It was even in use while we were there.  It's indoors and smaller than the courts we know with different lines and it looked like the players were hitting the ball against the wall like racquet ball....anyway, I liked this sign.  I think Bill might be the reincarnation of the Regency Dandy!  I don't even understand why he has Hughes in his name twice.    His nickname was "The Golden Ball".

Hampton Court also boasts the world's largest productive grape vine.  Sorry to say I didn't take a picture of it but it was planted in 1768 by "Capability" Brown.  We run into Capability at many of these  manor houses because he was THE name in landscape architecture in the 1700's and many of his designs still seem to be in place.

Is Capability a nickname you want to have?  Being capable seems sort of average, utilitarian, maybe even under achieving.  Would you hire a landscaper named Underachieving Brown?  You'd always feel like your garden didn't quite live up to expectations.