In an effort to avoid cleaning, I re-arranged my books by colour

Ironmongery

I am struck, as I walk around in the UK, by the real investment in fences and doors. Its called ironmongery and its like wrought (sp?) iron at home. There is not much of it anymore in the US - at least where I'm from in Florida. There's some in the spanish/cuban influenced areas like Ybor City in Tampa or possibly on balconies in New Orleans but I cannot think of a modern development that has such beautiful metal work.

This gate is from an old school yard and I really thought the pattern was beautiful. You get the security and beauty at th esame time. Much more successfull than chain link fence with barbed wire across the top which seems to be the default method of security in my home land.

On th eother hand domestic fences are really bad here in the UK, when it stops rainging I'll get out and take some pictures of that. So maybe its just that commercial fences are better and budgeted for with longevity in mind.

Store names

Across the Street from each other in Hatton Garden, In London, are these two shops. I've always wondered about them. Why, if you are setting up a shop in London's diamond district, would you name your shop after another city? Manhattan's of London and Beverly Hills London; do you suppose in Manhatton and Beverly Hills there are shops named after London?

By the way, I work in the Diamond District I'm not shopping for Diamonds, just in case you are wondering.

AUGH! The perils of new cultures...

This weekend I found a petshop. Yay! Perhaps I should have looked for one before the cats arrived but I didn't. A friend told me about one in Highgate Village.

I won't bore you too long with the transit details but will tell you that the Northern line was partially closed, the 260 runs only on weekdays and C11 is not the most direct route to Highgate from Hampstead. I found the shop and had a little exploration of the village. After a nice a nice lunch I took my cat supplies (2 collars, a pet hair brush and a litter scoop) I returned home.

Don't read further if you are not a cat person...

Cat litter in the UK is like everything else, not quite the same as the US. On the plus side they sell it in packaging that it is possible to carry, even in SF they sold it in 309 pound bags - not transit friendly. The downside is that my first choice was really bad, it consisted of something called fullers earth. Which basically is dried clay. When you add cat pee to dried clay you get cat-pee-mudd. Which seems to be a very stupid idea: impossible to clean up and really useless even with the nice new litter scooper. So now I'm into crystals. The cats have been home by themselves all day and I hope the switch to crystals was not to sudden.

OK I promise no more cat-talk back to the city blog.

Cats finally join the household

My cats finally made it into the UK. It took six months, microchips, multiple blood tests, 2 new crates, Pet passports (who knew those existed?)and a long suffering friend in San Francisco. But my two cats (17 and 15 years old!) finally arrived at my London flat on Wednesday. I found cat food but need toys, scoopers and the correct cat litter. Long week ahead.

Dylan

Morgana's too freaked out to come out from under the bed but Dylan is always up for a walk around. So far so good.

He looks like he's saying, "Where the heck am I now?"

White Spring

OK, I'll stop but boy oh boy am I glad its spring here.

Purple Spring

All three of this weeks photos have been taken on my walk to the tube in the morning. These gates are usually closed so I got a great flowering picture and a view into the little courtyard. The longer I live with out a car, the more amazed I am at how much space they take up in our daily lives. I could have cropped out the car but its just such an interesting juxtaposition quaint little house draped in purple with a car nestled in for the night.

Pink Spring

As this tree loses its blossoms, the ground is covered with tiny pink petals. It looks like a carpet of spring.

Yellow Spring

I know its looks like I've gone all bonkers and garden-y but you cannot imagine the joy to walk around in London right now. Its sunny and everything is blooming. I think for at least a week this blog is gonna be about flowering things. We will get back to the silly signs later.

Polite Notice

This was new to me, the phrase "polite notice." IN the US, I think we would say "Warning" or "Attention" and then go on to say that if you put your bike here we are going to cut off the lock and haul it away. Some how this seems so civilized. The best part is that this sign is on a fence across from St. Paul's Cathedral, so politeness was probably required. I also wondered since the sign is dated, that if you had left your bike there prior to 21 January 2002 it would have remained there unmolested?

British Sandwiches

British Sandwiches, they are nothing to write home about but they are cheap, fast and everywhere. The fact that there is an British Sandwich Industry Award will improve the situation, I'm sure.

Special Greeting on the Celebration of my Birth

I have a history of REALLY celebrating my birthday... for a week. My friend Suz once accused me of making it the whole month. So I'm scaling back to just the week. But its a big week because its my parents wedding anniversary, my birthday, Queen Elizabeth's birthday, then my father's birthday - all in one week! So, of course, there is celebrating and phoning across the Atlantic, and singing into message machines the "Happy Birthday" song as terribly off key as you possibly can. I wonder if the Queen feels left out? Perhaps her relatives do the same thing.

Now that I think of it, I have been know as the queen of the world - QOTW for short - so perhaps I should have a special day all of my own which my subjects will celebrate as they will. Its good to be the queen.

No. No. No. No.

This pub was very sure of itself becasue the sign it has posted on the street says (can you read it?) "No Smoking, No Credit Cards, No Mobile Phones, No Cameras, No Backpackers."

I ignored the no cameras, no phones bit and took a picture of the sign. When I went inside with my friends, I discovered where Bennigans and other US faux pubs get their decor ideas from. This pub was an original, if-you-like-something-hang- it-on-the-wall-pub. It was reputed to be very unfriendly to non-regulars. Hence, the warnings I suppose. But they did serve good drink.

Went to Cornwall for Easter Hols

These Brits do holidays (vacation days) right. At Easter, we take off Good Friday and Easter Monday. I can remember trying to get through the vacation desert beginning of the year in the US with nothing from MLK Day to Memorial Day all the way in May! Not so here, in February and March many folks went skiing and now there's two days holiday at Easter yippee.

So for my first slew of holiday days, I talked a friend of mine into traveling. My companion of the road suggested Cornwall and driving around just to see things. It was excellent and I didn't take one picture. Oh, I'm sure I can dig up some links to pictures and places but the scenery was so great and the driving so perilous that I ignored the pictures and just enjoyed. Rugged cliffs, crashing seas, lambs gamboling across newly green fields, spiky hedgerows, unexpected daffodils, churches and villages; it was like being in an Agatha Christie novel without the dead bodies. I expected Tommy and Tuppence to attempt to pass us on those tight hedgerow roads. It was a visual feast and not one I could be bothered to try and capture.

London Lion Scarf

Lion Scarf - small
Originally uploaded by beagleskin.

Raising money for cancer research, the London stitch n' bitch knitting group knit giant scarves for the 4 lions at Trafalgar Square. Pretty cool, huh?

London certainly is a good place to be a knitter - perhaps because its so chilly or because pubs can be a great place to knit? There is a great Yahoo Group called Handknit UK and more than a few knitting groups. Since I've been here all I've been able to concentrate on is scarves and the occaisional baby sweater. Perhaps its time to get something a little more challenging going.

Remember the knitting in the dark pub headlamps? or what about the knitted Ferrari?

Florida Gators again

Breaking news...reporter-Mum sends an email to SFO-to-LON HQ to report that the University of Florida Gators (one of my Alma Mater Studiorum) have once again achieved some level of sports authority...

...(since you missed out on the Gators winning the football national championship) I'm here to tell you they won the (basketball) Final Four - March Madness - whatever - championship last night, and the strange thing is they beat Ohio State again. I bet there's a serious anti Florida feeling in Columbus today. Can a Waterford basketball be far behind??

- Mum

Please note that even my Mum knows that I have trouble with the seasons in sport and clearly points out that they have just one a basketball tournament. Pretty important distinction for someone like me who is still trying to figure out why they call it cricket anyway.

Coffee tardis and Porridge bar

I'm not sure how to explain this to y'all. But for a country where its bloody freezing most of the time' there are an awful lot of outside food vendors in the UK. These two happen to be from my recent farmers market collection.

Picture number one is a red tardis from the science fiction series on BBC, Dr. Who. It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space and its shape is based on some sort of police box. I have no idea what the tie-in with coffee is but it seems to be workingbecasue I saw more than one of these. My Dad (AKA Male Parental Unit) has been a huge Dr. Who fan for years. So this food distribution access point is published for him.

The second picture is of Stoats' Porridge Bar. Another oddity, people in the UK (or in this case specifically Scotland) will stand in line to buy porridge with various toppings. I haven't discovered the difference between porridge (UK) and oatmeal (US); I think it may be the same thing. Its just that in the US, we eat oatmeal ONLY at home and only when its super cold out; here it seems to be considered a tasty treat to be enjoyed by the whole family.

Saturday in Edinburgh

In addition to the Orange walk, I quite a day in Edinburgh. I started by just wandering around and found the Edinburgh Saturday Farmers' Market - I must have farmers' market radar. Then I went up to the castle to check it out. Just adjacent to the castle is a Patrick Geddes (planner's take note) designed flats called 14 Ramsay Gardens. They have great views and must be right on top of the Tattoo. Its a weird location for such a fairy tale looking place. especially when you compare it to the castle. In the pictures I'm standing on that tarmac parking lot and just swinging around facing west to the castle and east to Ramsay Gardens.

Post Castle gawk, I visited the Whisky Heritage Centre - who could pass that up? It was that or the Wool Heritage Centre and Whiskey won out. You kind of have to see that for yourself. So I'll leave it at that.

Topography of Edinburgh

To give you an idea of the prominence of the castle, here's a (admittedly bad)picture of a sculpture of the city. That huge lump in the fore ground is the promontory on which the castle sits. To the immediate north is the New Town, with Princes Street and Princes Street Gardens between the castle and the gird of New Town.