Champagne lifestyle, beer budget

Thanks to Jeff's parents, who have just landed safely back in Canada after a wonderful visit, we spent the past weekend in a flat in Mayfair, London. I was in my very own Breakfast at Tiffany's heaven, a dream from which I am only grudgingly coming down to earth. We window-shopped on Bond St., I spent money on overpriced and frivolous but oh-so-lovely products from a few of my favorite places, and we had dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Everything we wanted was within walking distance, which meant no underground trips (truly, the tube is about the only thing I loathe about London). Even better, for the first time since moving here we didn't have to return to Oxford at night. We could stroll around at our leisure as evening set in and the crowds dispersed, leaving a much more laid-back vibe.

Has anyone else read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? Well, replace the Met Museum with Liberty and I'm there. I'm ready to move in.


Then again, I've also read Secrets of the Shopping Mall, and mannequins can be pretty creepy after dark.

Land of Land Rovers

Exmoor in autumn.


The coast on a rainy day.


Things are busy but good. Need sleep.

Gerrrrrrrronimo!

Just can't get enough of those sheep. Highly intelligent creatures, I hear.

More sheep, more old stones

Been a bit busy, so this won't be much more than a hasty travelogue for the next week or so. We're having a lovely visit with Gaby and Richard, who arrived last Thursday and have since been covering lots of ground. Tomorrow they're off to Warwick, then perhaps Bath. (Me? Another day in the rat race.) Last weekend we took advantage of the weather by punting, having ciders in a beer garden, and visiting Avebury. So far we've had no incidents with the rental car. Cross your fingers for us. It's the size of a small tank, which doesn't bode well on these roads.

Avebury. Ancient, y'know? And, like Glastonbury, smelling of patchouli and incense. I like it.

turkey: a lament

We forgot that it was Canadian Thanksgiving until midway through this past weekend, and it was just as well. Less time to feel sorry for myself that I can't go back to the homestead. I think you have to special-order turkeys here, and it would have taken approximately two weeks to cook one in our oven anyway. So we didn't bother - but I sure do miss pumpkin pie! I miss walking in the local conservation area, going to the market, and, as ever, Second Cup chai lattes. I've already started to get that bubbly Christmas giddiness (partly because I've booked my flights home!), but I am unable to engage in my traditions of bopping around Williams Sonoma to their jazzy carols, buying something for myself with each gift for someone else at Sephora, and walking home slowly along Queen Street West, window shopping and stopping for goodies in Dufflet's. I miss Toronto!

Still, it's a time for thanksgiving, n'est-ce pas? And I do appreciate what I have. Yesterday I watched Jeff fold his laundry while watching an episode of MI-5 on his laptop, and I got a cosy homey feeling. (Perhaps the significance of this event is lost on you, but at the laundromat in the old days he used to shove his clean clothes in a bag - where they would sometimes sit and wrinkle for days - and leave me behind, painstakingly pairing socks and ordering shirts by colour.) And he made his heavenly crepes last night and has just gone to the store to buy eggs because it's raining and I am weary from soccer and can't be bothered to change into pants that are acceptable in the outside world.

Today I cut my tongue while licking an envelope, which was really cool and everything. I thought it would at least help with the diet, but it's amazing what pain can be endured in order to enjoy a Ben's cookie. I'm eating as though I plan to hibernate for six months. Where will the madness end?

P.S. Happy thanksgiving, everyone - I miss you loads!

Aren't we cosmopolitan ...

I've counted and I think I've now been to fourteen countries, because we spent last weekend in Denmark. I've always longed to nonchalantly mention, when someone asks how my weekend was, something like 'Oh, great, just hopped over to Denmark for a few days.' There are so many cool places to go in Europe that all seem really close. This flight was only one hour and forty minutes. However, what with getting to and from airports, security lineups, train delays, etc., it actually took almost ten hours door to door, which has us rethinking weekend escapes.

Denmark is lovely. It's incredibly flat, which I somehow hadn't expected, and mostly farmland and fishing. There are windmills everywhere, because the country gets 15% of its energy that way (and exports the technology around the world). They drive on the right side of the road, and their highways are perfectly sensible (there truly is no excuse for British roads). There's only one river in the country, but the fjords go quite a long ways inland. Danish people have great taste in decor and never use nasty wall-to-wall carpeting. They have an odd penchant for salty candy, but make fantastic chocolate. They call danishes 'wienerbrod' or 'Viennese bread'. (Will no-one admit responsibility for those things?) Babies always take their afternoon naps outside bundled in their prams, even in cold weather. There is little fear of theft, doors are open, neighbours pop round to chat, the food is simple and healthy. It felt like one of the most liveable places I've ever been.

The street we stayed on, in Mariager.

Look, a fjord!

Lego is Danish. Here's what it looked like in the 1940s.

But the best part about visiting Denmark, that made the travel time worth it ten times over, was seeing Rikke again. I met her in Edinburgh, when we were both exchange students at the university. Back then we giggled over hot chocolates, marvelled at the miniscule size of her windowless bedroom (it was the boxroom in the flat she shared), and spent a blustery day in St Andrews. This past weekend Jeff and I met her husband, Villy, and her adorable (and incredibly energetic!) one-year-old daughter, Sofie. We stayed in their lovely home, ate apples straight off the tree in their backyard, and enjoyed their company enormously. It was like escaping into some sort of idyllic storybook land ...

Franglais

The Office, in addition to becoming a surprisingly funny US series, is being adapted in Germany as Stromberg, in France as Le Bureau, and in French Canada as La Job. Heh.

An article about some of the remakes.

David Bowie guest-stars in the second season of Ricky Gervais' new series, Extras. And the new season of Veronica Mars starts tonight, which will give me a reason to carry on now that it's only barely light out when I have to get up for work and sandal season is officially over.

Oh, something else cool ... I saw this guy on the bus last week. I wanted to tell him I've read almost every Inspector Morse book (except the last one where Morse dies), but we had only two stops together before he got off, and we passed liked ships in the night ...

In which I lose my sense of humour

So. That other weekend, when we rented the car? When we were white-knuckling it the whole way, getting tailgated like crazy, honked at and passed unsafely by British drivers, finding it hard to get the confidence to get anywhere NEAR the speed limit they post on ill-designed and incredibly narrow and twisty roads, because we were so worried about not hitting cars careening around corners towards us halfway into our lane or not hitting the kerbs (no shoulders on most roads here) and flipping over?

Here's the tremendously unfunny punchline. We got a speeding ticket.* In the mail today. Apparently from a speed camera about a kilometre from our house, on the return journey. We were six miles over the speed limit. Because we had just come off a roundabout from a major ring road with a much higher speed limit and were trying not to get rammed from behind. What the %$#@*! is THAT? 6 miles an hour translates to just under 10 kilometers an hour. Has anyone in North America ever been ticketed for going less than 10 km over the speed limit? I rather think not. On top of this, the lovely rental agency is charging 35 pounds (about 80 bucks) just to pass the ticket along to us.

Neither of us has ever gotten a speeding ticket in our lives. Neither of us has ever had a flat tire. Neither of us has ever had any trouble with car rental agencies or been dinged for charges in excess of basic rental fees.

Driving in this country Is. Not. Worth. It.

* For the record, Jeff was driving. Very cautiously and safely, might I add.