life is tickin' along

Mary and I have both recovered from our colds and life has been feeling more upbeat these days. We did another pub walk last Saturday, 4 miles so not too long. We saw ducks, fields, a sweet brook, and a gorgeous little village called Slaughterford (not so gorgeous a name really). It was all stone houses and walls, and if it wasn't for seeing the occassional car, we could have easily convinced ourselves we were back in Jane Austen's day.

My brother Jim arrives this Friday--he's in London right now for a few days. He'll be here for five days and then he and I will go to Nice, France for five days--where the forecast is for sun and highs of 20!! I can't wait. Spring flowers are steadily coming on here, and it is getting warmer, but I am just greedy I guess and want MORE sun, MORE warmth!

M and I went to a piano concert last Saturday at the university. It was really fabulous--solo piano, but so varied a program and really very lovely.

So we are at the end of February...three more months til we return to Vancouver! One of the things I'll miss though when I leave, is all the different English accents. I just like the sound of it and the different words used. Of course, I am tired of people asking me where I'm from, since I keep thinking that I don't have an accent myself :-)

Hope to get some good pictures of Nice to post. Bye for now!
K

London

Here are some shots of our recent trip to London. The pastoral one is from a walk we did the week before--just to show you what a contrast it was to land in the big city of London. It IS big...really too overwhelming for my taste, and Mary's too. We arrived fine but then ended up with out suitcases on a tube that was crammed with people--we just had to shove in and stand, nose to armpit with the masses.

It got very cold and windy, so some of our plans for walking went out the window. However, I did get to meet with Oliver, an ASL/English interpreter from the US working in London and it was great to hear about his experiences working in the UK--plus he took me to a fab Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, and then to a cool place for a glass of wine, so that was fun.

You also see the Tower Bridge, and Mary in front of it--that was one of the freezing cold days though, where we ended up abandoning our walk and sitting having coffee and reading the newspaper for hours.

But our highlight was meeting with Jane and Sharon, two Australian women I met this past summer in Spain, who are living in London. We met them at the Tate Modern, browsed some of the great exhibits, then went for Turkish food and finally went to a women's dance. The dance was in a bar that overlooked the Thames, where we could see the boats going by and the lights on St. Paul's cathedral. It was really something! We had a great time with them and they are going to come for a visit in May.

However, going home we discovered that our train wasn't running, and there was no night bus from our tube stop and no one seemed to have any idea how we would get where we were going, so ended up taking a mini cab for more money than I care to mention. That was a lot our experience--trying to figure out transport and maps, looking at everyone else walking around with their "London A-Z " maps and no one seemed to know where we were talking about. We were going to meet at a cafe for Valentine's Day--I spent 45 minutes walking around the neighbourhood til I finally found it, almost by fluke..and then spent ten minutes on the cell phone with Mary trying to describe landmarks I could see out the window. She made it too, and decided to have a martini to get over the frustration...oh sorry, no olives :-) This seems to epitomize our English experience--you just can't always get what you want--and they don't really care either!

Mary didn't get as much reading done as she had hoped so she is glad to be back here and heading to the university again. We both have colds so are sniffling away, but at least the weather forecast looks warmer in the days ahead. We're planning on a quiet weekend, possibly another pub walk.

Mary swears she is never going to London again. I'll be going in early April, to an interpreter's conference--I am co-presenting with Deb, my friend and colleague who I met up with in Ukraine last October. But I plan on staying in the hotel and not venturing out around the city much--though we did get tickets to see Billy Eliot, the musical--music by Sir Elton John--and I am very much looking forward to that.

Hope you are all seeing signs of spring approaching.

Karen

life ticks along...

It's been unusually sunny and warm here, and that delights me. More spring flowers every day, and cherry trees in blossom. We've been warned it could get cold again, possibly even have a freak snowstorm but I am just enjoying this weather while it's here.

We had another 5 1/2 mile hike last Sunday with the Wild Women Walking group. There were about 14 of us...everyone so friendly and interesting. It was another gorgeous view of English countryside, and not much mud. The only scarey moment was walking through a field where a horse took offence and kicked at one of the women. It seemed more like a warning than a real attempt to hurt but scared us all pretty good!

We all went to a pub for a pint after and had some great lessons in English expressions--for example, "I was absolutely gutted!" means really upset, devastated, torn up about something. And when you think something is really ridiculous, you say its the "horses bollocks". I think that one is somewhat rude :-)

M and I are off to London tomorrow, Feb. 13, for 5 days. We've ditched the trip to Brighton and won't be returning to London after, so we'll be back in Peasedown by the 19th, not the 26th as I had written earlier. It's a lot easier for her to work at her office at the university, and I am doing a bit of work too and needing to have a stable place to work, so moving around too much seemed like not the best thing.

My brother Jim will be coming at the end of February and he and I are heading to Nice together for five days, so hope I will have some great pictures to post after that trip.

It was my birthday last Saturday. Thanks for the cards and ecards and phone calls. Mary made me a fab breakfast and took me into Bath to a great Italian restaurant, which was very nice. We missed our community of friends though...we are looking forward to being home again.

More after London.

K.

A hikin' we did go!

yes, Saturday saw us out for a five mile hike! And we did NOT get lost, which we both felt was a great achievement. Lots of beautiful fields, old churches, manor houses, old granaries...well it is just OLD around here..and very peaceful. We did walk up a really muddy trail by a small creek--mostly it felt like we were walking IN the creek--and when we reached the top we were sure we'd taken a wrong turn. So we were going to go back down and try a different path but luckily I asked a farmer nearby who told us we were in the right place. And then had a nice chat with him while he told us how being in the EU meant more and more regulations and forms to fill in/

Some of these hikes are so muddy, it feels like we're hauling an extra ten pounds of mud caked on each boot, and we both feel like we have enough extra pounds on us as we already are! The end part of our walk saw us moving pretty slow--or maybe I should just speak for myself. Mary is a better hiker than me, no question.

We ended at The Fox and Badger, a really picturesque 16th century pub, where we indulged in a pint and a sit down. It was the first pub I'd been in that helped me realize why pubs are so popular here--it was warm and cozy and welcoming. The only grotesque element were the several stuffed badgers and foxes around the place--I'm not really accustomed to taxidermy! I couldn't figure out why they had them, til I finally recalled the name of the place...duh!

Mary and I are going to London on Feb. 13--she wants to read in the British Library and I am meeting with colleagues. We are cat-sitting for some interpreters I met in Spain last summer...then they come home and M and I are going to Brighton for two days and a night--the gay capital of England apparently...then back to London to impose on other friends, who are then taking us to their country house in Rye. I have no idea where that is. So we will be back in Peasedown Feb. 26--though I am sure I will be blogging away while we move about.

Stay in touch--we love our friends!
K

glad to see February

There's something nice about the end of January. Some of that could be because the rain let up today, and it's been sunny all day. We've been here four months now--half of our stay--and are both really missing our friends and homes. I had a little melt down the other day and exclaimed to Mary, I HATE driving here! The roads have no shoulders, and often a stone wall along the edge...and then cars park on one side so I feel like I'm playing a game of chicken with approaching traffic--who's going to go? Is there room for both cars to be on the road at the same time? In the villages, the centre line is little more than a hint that you might want to stay on your side of it (when I remember which side that is!--well I only once have driven on the wrong side and that was in the grocery store parking lot--Mary was very calm in telling me to get on the other side.

Anyways, I am dreaming of those nice big North American roads, believe me.

...Mary's shoulder has been bothering her so she went to the doctor and got a referral for physiotherapy. At first we were impressed with the Health Service, that physio would be covered. However, after a week of waiting, she called the physio at the hospital who said they hadn't received the referral yet...so she called the doctor's office. Well, they MAILED the referral--which took about 10 days...then the physio was going to MAIL a letter to her, telling her she could call to make an appointment, and who knows how long that was going to take. So I guess it is not a perfect system by any means--I guess they hope you're going to spontaneously heal in the meantime, or just get used to the pain, or die or something :-)

In the last little while I have several times been talking to English people who've asked me if I'm American...when I say, no Canadian, they say, oh I'm sorry--like they've greatly offended me by assuming I'm American. They don't seem to much like Americans here, I must say...I was reading some column in the paper that suggested to Americans that if they wanted to be welcomed, they should go into a pub, wave their American passport in front of the barkeep's face and demand a free pint. (obviously, a sardonic comment!) In honour of my many American friends, I did say to someone, well, I find the Americans to be very friendly whenever I visit there, but it didn't seem to be a very welcome comment.

Mary and I didn't make it to Stonehenge yet--we ended up going out on Saturday last week for a walk that was supposed to be a stroll and ended up being a very vigourous three hour slog through the mud. It was beautiful--a canal, an old church, the ruins of a castle, a manor with gorgous gardens--but we decided one walk a weekend was enough. I got a book of walks in our area so we are heading out on one tomorrow. If you don't hear anything of us for several weeks after, send a search party to Wellow, Combe Hay or Twinhoe--we'll be wandering around there, trying to figure out which stile we're supposed to be climbing over!

We're heading to London Feb. 13 so Mary can work in the British Library, and I can meet with some London colleagues. It'll be nice to go somewhere new, though finding our way around London is probably as daunting in its own way as our hikes. Did you know there are 60 million people living in Britain (or old blighty, as I heard someone refer to it as?) That is a LOT of people!

Hope to have some pictures to share again soon--meanwhile, stay well--for our Vancouver friends, hope the snow has melted.

Karen

spring is coming

I went into Bath yesterday, had a swim and then it was mild enough to sit outside by the Avon River and eat my lunch. I saw three cherry trees in full bloom--that seems amazing for January 24! I don't know if it is normal for here, or a fluke, but it makes me happy to see it.

There is lots of flooding going on in England again. Bath area doesn't seem to be affected, thank goodness, but as soon as we head even a little ways away, we see cricket fields (or rugby, I don't know what sport)--anyways, the fields are flooded and it is strange to see ducks paddling through the goalposts. Lots of coverage on the news of cars submerged in water halfway up, and people slogging through water in their Wellingtons. Mary and I are selfishly glad that we aren't having to deal with this.

Mary stayed up til 5 am writing a paper--the student life! I don't know how she does it...my mind shuts down by 10 pm and if I have to concentrate on anything after that time my output is really pathetic. She seems to manage OK though...we're off for a walk through the fields to clear our minds.

This Sunday we are heading to Stonehenge...will let you know how that goes

More later!
Karen

Friends are great!

Here's a picture of me and Mary with our friend Barb from Victoria. We went to see Mama Mia in Bristol--it is a totally fun musical! It was so great to have Barb visiting and we were kind of sad when she left last Thursday.

But then a friend and interpreter from Vancouver was here visiting her daughter, who is living in the Bath area, so I got to spend the day with Leslie. It was raining, so our day consisted of lunch in a pub...then off to a tea house to eat scones with clotted cream (I hate to think what is happening to my cholesterol level!), then on to another pub and finally dinner at a Turkish restaurant. It was great!

The next day Mary and I headed off to a different women's walking group. There were 11 women on this walk, two that we met the week before. It was a confusing route to get there but we made it. We saw the oldest tree in England! It is a huge chestnut tree, and they think it was planted in 800 or 900 A.D. The walk and company was just great..but the drive home was so confusing. Maybe you have to be born in an area to be able to figure out the confusing roads, with no signage or else useless signs. There we are, zooming around a roundabout at 60 MPH and get close enough to the tiny sign to see that we should be three lanes over for our road. So then we go on this completely confusing quest to get back going the right direction. It was night, and raining, and it took us 1 1/2 hours rather than the 45 minutes it should have taken. Well, I must admit when we got home I opened the pepper vodka I was given in Ukraine, and it was quite good. :-)

Mary is really into her school work and is reading lots, and feeling good about her learning. I am going to be doing a bit of contract work for an American group so I guess I will start getting out of bed before 9:30!

We are heading up to London in February...an interpreter I met in Spain this summer is going away and needs cat-sitting, so it is ideal for all.

Anyways, no visitors scheduled now til March but at least we have found the walking groups, and time just keeps marching along. We saw some snowdrops already in bloom on the walk, and quite a few daffodils were up, though not blooming yet. It really gives me hope that spring is around the corner..and while it has been rainy, it's also been mild, so we are not having a bad January at all.

More thoughts on England in the days to come...

Karen