The occasional webcam
| Well, it's April, so it's time for us to give you an update. Indeed spring is here, despite the snow flurries we had the other day. There's an occasional frost on the cars, but there are still flowers everywhere and there are blossoms on the trees. It truly is a beautiful time of year here. |
The occasional webcam |
Visitors
We always welcome visitors, so start planning your trip. We do have an extra (small) bedroom that you are welcome to stay in (two twin beds), or just stop by for the day. Either way, come on by. We had a few visitors this month: Toby's friend Nan Hamilton (click here to see Nan's great pottery website) and her friend Sidney had come over for a break which included the Crufts dog show (largest dog show in the world) and then a tour around England and Scotland. We met up with them in the Lake District, in the town of Keswick (pronounced Kezzick). It's a beautiful area of England with great topography, beautiful lakes, and great vistas. We lucked out with some great weather, so we did a short hike up Cat's Bells mountain - not to the top, but far enough to get the view you see in the pics below. A perfect spot for our picnic. On Sunday we went to a sheep show where they told us about the 19 different varieties of sheep that you see in the picture. Did you know that there are about 180 different types of sheep? Something like that anyway. They also did a demonstration of how dogs herd the sheep - although due to space limitations the dogs had to heard some geese. Very cute. The farm pictures below are from a cool little farm at the end of a really long, narrow road through some foresty mountains. It's owned by the National Trust. It was a quick weekend trip for us, but they stayed with us again the night before their return to the U.S. and treated us to dinner at the pub. Thanks!
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) The pencil museum in Keswick |
) The lake - Derwentwater, from above |
) The lake, from the shore |
) Lunchtime, up Cat's Bells |
) A sampling of sheep varieties |
) Herding the sheep, er....geese |
) Toby with a friendly sheep |
) Sheep, up-close |
) Another close-up |
) Pretty farm |
) Another farm shot |
) More pretty scenes at the farm |
) More farm animals |
) Toby with a friendly pig |
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Toby's friend Dawn and her sisters were also in London in March for vacation and Toby spent the weekend with them - one day in London and one in Oxford. More about that from Toby. ---- First of all, you should know that on Saturday I went into London - as did many other people who went not to see Dawn, but to protest the war! It didn't make my trip in very easy since all the main streets downtown were closed. The bus to London basically had to go all around the city and then straight to the last stop (not the one I wanted). Then there was trouble on the tube so I had to walk to Covent Gardens. Couldn't take a taxi - the streets were closed! Luckily, it was great weather and a straight shot and there were plenty of police around to direct me. I was half an hour late, but I made it. Dawn and I left her sisters (who visited with a friend of theirs) and went to play tourists in London. We walked around Covent Gardens, saw the protesters protesting, saw a Dali / Picasso exhibit (Dawn loved the Dali exhibit, I'm not that big a fan….) took a ride on the London Eye (big Ferris wheel)at sunset and then joined the girls for dinner.
Dawn came home to Oxford with me and on Sunday we had an English breakfast at home before meeting Dawn's sisters downtown for a tour of Oxford and a trip to Blenheim Palace. While downtown, Dawn and I climbed up Carfax Tower - the oldest building in Oxford, built around 1040 in the late Saxon period. Here are some aerial views of downtown Oxford. It was great to have them here and I owe them thanks for supplying me with some Fluff - but more about that later.
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) Toby and Dawn |
) London war protest |
) Big Ben, from the London Eye |
) Toby with the London Eye in the background |
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) From inside our "pod" on the London Eye |
) Oxford shopping street from Saxon Tower (they're redoing the paving) |
) Rooftops from Tower |
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Reverse Visitors
While Toby spent her weekend with the girls, I made a quick trip home to Philadelphia for a visit. I was gone Thursday to Tuesday and had a great visit home. Spent quality time with the folks, and was lucky enough to see a few old friends: Jim and Allison and their three cute boys; my friend Harris, who lives in New Zealand but happened to be home visiting as well; Rich and Mindy - didn't get to see their two boys this trip, but did get my teeth cleaned at Rich's dental office (thanks Rich!); and my old friend David Lorry who lives around the corner from where we grew up. I even bumped into an old schoolmate at the bank, John Marg. Good to see them all.
Fun things
In our efforts to keep up on sport here, we managed to go to a Premier League football (soccer) game with some of Toby's colleagues. It was Aston Villa versus Arsenal, played in Birmingham at the Aston Villa stadium. Good fun, and no violence that we could see. There were plenty of police around though, see the pictures below. The Arsenal fans, about 15% of the stadium attendance, were very vocal singing and cheering. Amazing. They were probably all drunk: beer can be bought inside the stadium, but you can't bring it to your seat. Whatever. No clear winner in this game, a 1-1 tie.
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) Police at the ready outside the stadium |
) Stadium |
) Stadium panorama (95k) |
) Football Action |
) More football action |
) Police inside stadium |
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We also saw Van Morrison in concert right here in Oxford. His opener was okay, and Van the man was pretty good. Not great, but definitely enjoyable and worth seeing. The opener guy joined Van for a few songs - we don't know why since Van was much better than he was. Anyway, we still enjoyed the concert.
(Toby) Over the past year, I have tried to bring a little American culture to my office. (Translate that into c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e.) Alas, the Brits don't seem to like ours very much - it's not as rich and creamy as theirs (which isn't even "chocolate" by European standards). Our milk chocolate tastes more like dark chocolate to them and they're just not thrilled with it (although some did like the Reeses cups, thank God). Our cookies have been approved. Anyway, I thought I'd try a different approach - and one day I brought in peanut butter and jelly (grape, of course) sandwiches as well as peanut butter and fluff sandwiches. Despite their hesitation and scrunched up faces, they loved 'em! Most even liked the fluff best. Vindicated at last! When Dawn brought more Fluff over we did it again. Makes Tom cringe, but the Brits are coming around. If only I could get the buttered popcorn thing going...
More fun at work - Friday the 14th of March was Red Nose day here, their way of celebrating and raising money for Comic Relief. At Akzo, we raised over £200. Our managing director, Philip James, said he would dye his hair if we raised £50. Then Andy Brough (sales rep) said if we raised £100 he'd shave his head. And so it went. In the end, we all bought wigs and noses and all senior management had their hair dyed (sprayed) red, green, orange or blue. It was good fun for a good cause. I bought some wash-in wash-out stuff to dye my hair but it very clearly stated on the package not to use with treated or gray (that's me) hair! I called Joseph back home in Newton to find out why and he said it would a) come out pink and b) wouldn't come out. Pink I didn't mind. Pink forever was the deal breaker. Oh well. Some pics below.
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) Credit Control, (me, Tara, Maggie, Arry and Alan), in red |
) Finance, (notice Martin, our Financial Director's green hair) in red |
) Nigel, missing from the finance picture, in red |
) Andy, doing his part for charity |
Theatre
Last night we went to see the village thespians put on a play called "When We Are Married". It was fun to sit in our village hall (a one-room building with a stage, about the size of a large school classroom and is only a few hundred yards away from our place) after eating dinner in the pub (which is only 50 yards away in the other direction!) in cheapo plastic chairs watching the production. We both enjoyed it very much; the play but also the fact that these were local people just having a good time. Tickets were £6 each - a bargain.
While Tom was away, I went to see the play Cooper at the Oxford Playhouse with Jackie and Sharon from work. It was a great girls' night out. The play, now in London's West End, was wonderful. It was a one man show about a British magician / comedian named Tommy Cooper, who became famous in the 50's and 60's. He wore a red fez and was know for saying 'jus' like that!' He often drank a lot backstage, but could make you laugh just by stepping onto the stage. It was old corny jokes, where you always knew the punchline but had to laugh anyway. He actually died on stage in 1984. Highly recommended. A really good laugh.
Movies
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We went back to High Wycombe Cinema, home of the buttered popcorn. Alas, they had no butter ready, but dutifully melted some for Toby. There we saw The Quiet American that we both thought was very good. Other movies this month: About Schmidt (also very good, and not as depressing as we had heard) and Intacto, a Spanish thriller about gambling and luck. We rented Road to Perdition (fair), The Guru (don't bother). |
Miscellaneous
(Toby) Just when you thought it was safe.....As promised, I have cut back on my work hours since January. And just when things were starting to settle down, change came knocking on the door. Last week, I had 4 people working for me. I now have 3 (Tara left in search of a more creative job). As of April 25th I will have 2 (Alan got a job as one of our branch managers and is going to Southampton) and I will have worked at Akzo longer than any one in my department. After March 9th, there will be two, just me and Arry (Maggie is heading to the states and hopes to eventually end up interning at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston). Actually, we will hopefully have a temp in by then to replace Maggie but the odds are it will take us a little bit longer to replace Alan. So I'll be busy. Very busy. They're setting up a cot for me in one of the offices. Sigh. They tell me I'm doing a good job, but I keep losing employees! Hmmmm.
In an effort to convince Toby that gambling generally doesn't pay, I asked her to keep track of her fruit machine (slot machine) input/output. Toby plays mostly in pubs (at lunch, and no she does not drink at lunch! - well, not usually, she says), but you can find them in gambling shops too. Before I reveal the actual amounts, I have to say, I'm amazed how lucky she seems to be. Okay, here's the summary - this month, £16 in, £7 out - a net loss of £9. One of the six times she played at lunch (£2 each time), she could've stopped and gotten £8 out, but chose to risk it and unfortunately lost it all. My argument: the house always wins. Toby's argument: £9 for entertainment. (What Tom didn't tell you was that I also won £25 in a work sweepstakes for the Grand National horse race. My horse, Monty's Pass, won! So really, my gambling total is £17 in, £32 out. Ha.) (Tom's rebuttal - I'm all for office pools and gambling where there is no 'house' to take everyone's money, just not so big on the syndicated bit).
We'll be travelling again starting in May so these updates will become more interesting. Instead of telling you what movies we've seen we'll be showing you pictures of Jersey (Channel Islands), Copenhagen and Barcelona! Stay tuned.
Bits & Bobs:
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Click here or the picture to see the second in our series of bad ties (check out last month for another bad tie)And there you have it for this report.
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