HNIL

Hockey Night in London?

Ok, I won't beat around the bush...is anyone out there planning on coming to London soon and want to do me a favour? I have located a couple of recreational hockey teams here and I really want to play. The only problem - my equipment is Kingston.

I have had some ridiculous quotes for shipping it over, so I am willing to make a deal for anyone who can bring it as part of their luggage.

Why didn't I have it shipped when my company was paying for it? Well the truth is, generally hockey equipment doesn't smell that great (depends who you ask, I like it, PetDoc doesn't). So, not knowing what accomodations we would have, it was safer to leave behind. But since we have an outdoor shed we have the perfect solution for storing the sweaty equipment.

If anyone is planning a trip to London, knows someone who is, or wants to try and barter a deal, let me know.....

da da da-da da, Da Da Da-Da Da, DA DA DA-DA DA Daaaa
Ba ba-ba bah ba Baaaa
Ba ba-ba ba ba BA-Ba
Do do-do do do doo Doo-da-do doo Doo-da-do doooo
Ba ba-ba bah ba Baaaa
Ba ba-ba ba ba BA-Ba
Do do-do do do doo Doo-da-do doo Doo-da-do doooo
Da Daah-da, Daah-da, Daa da-da Daah-da Daah-da da-Da-DA
Daah-da, Daah-da, Daa da-da DAT DAT DAAAHH
Ba ba-ba bah ba Baaaa...

Poutine

Poutine (pronunciation putsɪn) - a dish consisting of french fries topped with fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy and sometimes additional ingredients. The freshness of the curds is important as it makes them soft in the warm fries, without completely melting. It is a quintessential Canadian comfort food, especially, yet not exclusively among Québécois and Maritime Acadian Canadians.

Nice try London.

After our second stop to the Canada Store in as many weeks for a rationing of Nibs and Mr. Noodles for PetDoc (ok, I had some Nibs, too), we had a snack at The Maple Leaf, the aforementioned pub that is the home-away-from-home for many a Canadian in London. At the very top of the menu - poutine!!! We ordered it, of course.

French fries
+ Cheese
+ Gravy
Poutine ....right??

Not really...it's the right combination of the above ingredients. If the fries suck, so does the poutine. If the gravy sucks, so does the poutine. If the cheese sucks...that was the difference. It just isn't the right cheese.

So, nice try London.

Weekend timbits... I mean tidbits

Well another weekend is here and I find I haven't posted anything for a week or so! I am getting really bad at this! Of course, no major news or you would have seen it here, but there have been some little things going on that I can update you on.

We visited the Canada shop last weekend and picked up some Nibs, Mr Noodles, and Jello fat-free pudding mix. They were out of Kraft Dinner but expecting a shipment this week, so we may go back this weekend and see if they have any. The Canada shop is so comforting...

I was away for a few days this week on an ultrasound course. The course was in the little village of Studley, near Redditch. My friend AT traveled with me and we had a very nice time. We took the train from Euston Tuesday night and back again Thursday evening. It turns out that we travel well together, AT likes to go to bed early and read just like me! We didn't get to see much of Redditch, but it seemed like a nice little town. On Wednesday night we had a nice pub meal out with some girls that we met on the course. All in all it was a nice way to spend a couple of days - and get paid for it!

We are now the proud new owners of a Nintendo Wii. Not like you couldn't see this one coming... We got it yesterday and spent all last night playing it, and now today my arms are sore. We have the sports games (tennis, bowling, baseball, boxing, and golf) and Mario Kart racing. Way fun. It gives us something to do in the evenings when all that's on tv is Friends re-runs.

I went last week and had my hair coloured so I'm a brunette again. It's so fun to make minor changes that really don't affect your life. ;)

While we were away this week AT was trying to convince me why we should move to Wimbledon, and I have to say it's tempting since our vespa has been vandalized twice in the past week. First it was tipped over and some of the clips that hold the topbox on were broken, then the topbox was ripped right off. I don't think the intention was theft to get the topbox, since they left it lying on the street beside the vespa - I firmly believe it was stupid kids being stupid kids.

That said, we're off today to see about getting the topbox put back on. It's supposed to be a nice weekend - again - so we're planning to try to be outside as much as we can. I've had Buggy to the park this morning for a run around, and now Noise and I are off to wander High Street Kensington. Ta for now!

Sky's the Limit

We had a big day planned yesterday - our new Sky satellite dish was being installed, which would allow us to get a sorts of channels. I was particularly excited to get Eurosport, and Noise was looking forward to watching the Ryder Cup this weekend. We had previously discussed this with our landlords who were fine with us getting a dish put up. However, the engineers arrived yesterday and discovered that the building across the street blocks the signal so the only way to put up a dish would be to put it higher on the building. Of course we couldn't commit to this without getting more input, as that would mean putting it on the outside of someone else's flat, or on the roof. So off went the Sky engineers, and off went an email to our landlord, and after some checking and chatting and so on the answer came back - our building has recently been declared "historic" because it backs onto the Queen's Club (except it doesn't - it backs onto the parking lot of an apartment building) and the rule has recently been passed that no new satellite dishes can be installed! So it's a good thing that they weren't able to put it up after all. The only way we can now get Sky TV is if our neighbour two floors above us who has a grandfathered dish switches over to Sky and they can run a line from her dish to our flat. She tells us she is planning to switch, so we may still get it. But not in time for the Ryder Cup this weekend. ;) So there went my plans of lounging on the couch on my day off with hundreds of channels to choose from!

Next week I'm off to Redditch for a two-day ultrasound course, along with my friend and colleague AT. We're taking the train Tuesday night and coming back Thursday night. We're quite looking forward to getting away for a couple of days, and the little town where the course is taking place (called Studley) has the highest number of pubs per square foot or something, so I'm sure we'll find something to occupy us in the evenings!

The Singer and Serdic are in Edinburgh at the moment, they return tomorrow night. I hope the weather there is as lovely as it is here today! They'll be heading home on Saturday, and that's the last of our houseguests for awhile. But the PetParents have booked their next flight to come over after Christmas, so I can look forward to that next!

Anyway, I'm just home for lunch to take Buggy out. Noise is working long hours this week - part of his job is to handle companies that have gone bankrupt and a big one went bust this week which is keeping him occupied. So I took the scooter to work so I could pop home for Buggy. We had a nice walk in the park as it's a sunny afternoon and now I must return to work!
Later!

Dublin, finally!

So now that it's been a week I think I forget what we did! Dublin seems so long ago, but I'm sure it'll all come back!

We returned our rental car to the Dublin airport and caught the Aircoach bus into Dublin. The driver told us to get off at "Trinity College, the third stop", but Trinity College was the second stop, so we got off. Then we hoofed it over to our hotel to discover that the third stop for the bus was just around the corner from it. So the driver was half right anyway. We stayed at the O'Callaghan Davenport hotel near Merrion Square, which was a great location for us. Easily walking distance to Grafton Street, Temple Bar, St. Stephen's Green and around the corner from Trinity College. The lovely thing about Dublin is how compact it is, making it great to see on foot.

Friday evening we had a great dinner out at Louis Malone's in Temple Bar and did a bit of wandering to get a feel for the city. We walked across the Ha'penny Bridge (so named because the toll to cross it used to be a half penny). At the exact middle of the bridge we stopped and decided to toss a penny over the side for luck. Of course all we managed to do was have it land on the other side of the railing, so two attempts were required.

Our real sightseeing started on Saturday with a visit to Trinity College. We followed Rick's advice and joined the guided tour of the campus, led by a 3rd year student, which was a great way to see the college. The tour finished at the Old Library and the Book of Kells, and then of course at the university bookstore where Noise and I both bought a great Trinity College Dublin hooded sweatshirt. From Trinity College we hopped on the hop on, hop off bus tour and toured around Dublin a bit. From the bus we saw the major landmarks such as Christchurch Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Stephen's Green, the famous bridges, and so on. Our first stop was at the Guinness Storehouse, which is on the site of the original Guinness Factory. The new building has a pint glass-shaped atrium of 8 or 9 stories. By wandering up through all the stories you can learn about the history and making of Guinness, in quite an interesting fashion! Of course there's a tasting bar part way up, and at the very top is the Gravity Bar which provides great views over Dublin and a free pint of Guinness (or a soft drink if you don't like Guinness, which I don't!)

From the Storehouse we caught the bus over to the Kilmainham Gaol, which hasn't been in use since the 1920s but over the years became a major part of Irish history. Many of the political prisoners during the Irish rebellions were held and executed here. From there we rode the bus around to O'Connell Street and walked its length down to the River Liffey and the General Post Office (GPO), which is where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising held up and headquartered. There are still bullet holes visible in the columns there. Noise bought his dad a postcard at the Guinness Storehouse and then mailed it from the GPO, as we figured if you're going to mail something from Dublin you might as well do it from there! We finished off the afternoon back at Grafton Street where we visited Waltons music shop so Noise could buy his birthday present - a real bodhran drum (yes, yes, I will regret this...) For dinner we hit up the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and then found a cute little cafe so Noise could have a piece of cake for his birthday. How fortuitous that there was a string quartet playing and they played Happy Birthday (to someone else of course). Now they also played a selection of songs from Fiddler on the Roof and then played Hava Nagila, so there was a definite theme to the evening.

Sunday morning we have several hours before we needed to head to the airport and nothing specific we needed to see so after a leisurely breakfast we had a nice walk through St. Stephen's Green (the Central Park of Dublin) and over for a closer look at Christchurch Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was a lovely day and perfect for walking. We also saw Dublin Castle, but didn't go inside. After lunch we caught the Aircoach back out to the airport and checked in for our flight home. We deliberately chose seats on the right side of the plane so that we could see the nice view of London and our house as we approached Heathrow. Unfortunately London was typically buried under clouds and we saw nothing. But what can you do? For anyone interested, the photos of Dublin have been posted here.

So that's it! Our trip to Ireland! Now we're back in London and enjoying the company of the Singer and Serdic! They arrived Thursday morning at Heathrow and I went out to meet them there. Of course it took them 90 minutes to get off the flight and through customs so it turned out that I could have stayed in bed longer, but c'est la vie. (See that, I can blog in two languages!)

Today we all went to tour Buckingham Palace, which was really neat. What a great chance to see how it looks on the inside. This year they have the ballroom set for a state banquet which was amazing. From there we went over to the Borough Market and wandered along the South Bank for a bit. We walked over the Millennium Bridge, a first for Noise and me! Tomorrow we're planning to visit the Tower of London, which we have been saving to do with the Singer so she can educate us on the history. In the evening we are attending the Andrew Lloyd Webber birthday concert in Hyde Park. Lots going on!

That's it for now! Later!

Photos part one!

I have managed to get the first part of the Ireland photos posted, and they can be viewed here. I haven't put up the Dublin photos yet, or as you can see blogged about Dublin yet. I will get to it! But last night unfortunately it got to bedtime before I managed it. Stay tuned!

ETA: I received a message from the Singer that the link to the photos wasn't working, so I've tried it again. We'll see if this works!

Ireland overview

We have returned, sadly, from the Emerald Isle. Amazingly for a country which is leading the information age and is home to the headquarters for Google, there was a severe lack of wi-fi facilities, so no blogging while we were gone! We had a great trip, and saw lots of great things. We also took 711 photographs, some of which I will post online, but I can't do it tonight because it's already getting late and I have to go back to work tomorrow! I'll put a few on the blog, though, to give you a taste.

We arrived in Dublin Monday morning (after getting up at 4:30am to catch a 7:45 flight - ouch!) and picked up our little rental car. From there we drove down through the Wicklow Mountains to get our first taste of Irish countryside. We were amazed by the views and the pink hills (the colour was made by the heather in the fields). We made a stop to see the monastic ruins at Glendalough dating from the 6th century. Then we headed down to Waterford via Kilkenny. The All-Ireland Hurling Championships were taking place this weekend featuring Waterford vs Kilkenny, and it was interesting to drive from one county to the next and see the change in colours of banners. The fans really get into it, and we saw painted cars and houses painted in the teams' colours as well. Waterford was not an overly interesting city, but we had a great time on the tour of the Waterford Crystal Factory, which made the overnight stop worthwhile. We restrained ourselves from buying anything in the gallery, though. :)

On Tuesday we headed from Waterford and drove along the south coast towards our next stop in Kenmare. Along the way we made a stop in a little village called Ardmore, which is meaningful to me as the setting for a trilogy of books by Nora Roberts which I love. It was fun to see the village actually take shape, and they have an excellent round tower and remains of a cathedral there. Ardmore is where St. Declan brought Christianity to Ireland, and we visited St.Declan's well up on the cliffs. Probably the nicest feature of Ardmore is the lovely wide beach which we had a nice walk on. We stopped for lunch in Cobh and had a little walk around the town there, although it was raining by that point so we didn't go too far. We saw the memorials for the Lusitania (the survivors and many of the dead were brought to Cobh, which had been her destination before she was torpedoed a few miles offshore), and to the Titanic, whose last port of call was Cobh. We spent the night in the lovely little town of Kenmare in Co. Kerry, which is nestled between the hills and a good springing point for the famous Ring of Kerry. We spent a very enjoyable evening at Foley's Pub listening to Irish folk songs performed on guitar (and singing along!)

Wednesday was a scenery day, spent driving around the Ring of Kerry - actually the Iveragh Peninsula. We found the scenery to be very much like the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton, but on a bit bigger scale. This was unfortunately also the worst day of weather we had on the trip, with lots of rain and gusting wind. The major problem with the rain was that it severely limited visibility off the coast. That said, we still had a great day, and only got lost once! We were looking for the Skellig Chocolate Factory and Rick didn't give very good directions at all. But we found it and the free samples were worth the frustration. We also bought a bag of truffles to take with us but they didn't last very long. ;) The highlight from the Ring of Kerry - the Staigue ring fort, which had a magical and mysterious air, and of which we have no photos because it was pouring rain at the time. Driving from the Ring of Kerry onto the Dingle Peninsula we drove through an amazing lush green valley and when we stopped to take some pictures and I breathed in the air I said "now THIS is Ireland!" The 40 shades of green were all present and accounted for. We spent the night in Dingle in a fantastic B&B (more of an inn, really) which even had a hot tub in the garden. That night we went on a bit of a pub crawl looking for the best Irish music, and got a taste of a few different options.

Thursday morning we set out bright and early on a gorgeous sunny morning to explore the Dingle Peninsula. More fantastic sea views, combined with lush green fields, made for a few photo-worthy stops. We visited the beehive huts along the road, created entirely out of stone with no mortar or cement. One of the features of the peninsula is the amount of rock on the land, which was all picked from the fields to create farmable land, and then of course was used to create the fences, which makes for a characteristic landscape. Another stop was the Gallarus Oratory, built around the 6th to 9th century, also built with no mortar and still leak-proof. We went for a walk on the gorgeous beach at Slea Head with a view of the Blasket Islands and Skellig Islands in the distance. We left the Dingle Peninsula by driving over the Conor Pass through the mountains, then taking a ferry across the River Shannon to head up towards Doolin. We made our long-awaited visit to the famous Cliffs of Mohr in the late afternoon and were fortunate to have several hours to spend there. At first we just wandered along the walkway there, but then followed the lead of all the other visitors and ventured out past the "do not go past this point" sign, from which you could wander along the edge of the cliffs for their entire length. They were amazing - and we couldn't have asked for better weather. (Noise wanted me to title the blog "who could ask for mohr" but I declined.) We spent the night in a tiny village called Doolin, whose claim to fame is as a hotspot for craic, or basically a good time with traditional Irish music.

Leaving Doolin on Friday we drove through the barren Burren and then across the country back towards Dublin. We made a detour to see Newgrange, a passage tomb built around 3200BC. The outside has been rebuilt, but the interior remains untouched and is completely amazing. We had a fantastic tour given by a great guide, who kindly took us inside the tomb for most of the tour since it was during what appeared to be a monsoon. Since the inside of the tomb is still leak-proof 5000 years after it was built, it seemed like a good enough place to stay dry. From there we returned to Dublin to turn over our rental car, and caught the bus into Dublin.

We spent two days in Dublin, but I think I'll save them for another blog, and sign off this one for now. I promise to get the pictures posted asap and will provide the link here. Now I must get off to bed since it's back to work tomorrow. But I've already started planning the next trip! Check back in the next day or two for the photos and the stories from Dublin!