Mothering Sunday

Mother's day in England is on different days and in different months to America. Since being in England I have always celebrated my mother on both days - why not, she's definitely worth 2 celebrations each year! I generally send flowers to my mother on the English Mother's Day, Mothering Sunday, as in my mind it's more of a surprise to her than receiving them on American Mother's Day. Don't go thinking I just call a florist and order some flowers to be delivered....no no no. Thought goes into it every year. My mother is special and lovely and deserves thoughtfulness. One year I had calla lilies delivered in a long stem flower box (because I always thought it'd be neat to receive flowers like that, one year I had a corsage delivered so she could be special and celebrated on a day that everyone else wasn't being celebrated. last year I had 27 tulips delivered: one for each year she'd been my mother - there's always a thought behind my deliveries.

In England Mothering Sunday is in March, and the last few years Mom has known and not been as surprised by her delivery of flowers as she "knew Mothering Sunday was coming up soon". I guess with the move to Kansas and the hectic life my mother currently has, she forgot all about Mothering Sunday so the flower delivery last Saturday surprised her - success!

The "theme" this year was Texas meets Kansas with the card reading

The sunflower state got even brighter with the addition of my Texas bell mother!
Happy Mothering Sunday. With love

I had originally wanted to have Bluebonnets and Sunflowers in an arrangement (the 2 state flowers) but bluebonnets aren't florist flowers so that was thrown out the window. The florist I'd found in Kansas suggested a bright blue flower called a delphinium that she'd used in the past. In my mind the florist was going to do an arrangement of just the two flowers, not an arrangement that would generally suit my mom's taste - or mine for that matter, but it was the reason behind it that I liked. The arrangement was quite different to how I envisioned it, but it definitely had a Texas country feel to it!

Love you Mom! I really am a lucky person to have you for my mum!

Baby shower

This past Saturday I drove up to the midlands to attend my first ever baby shower. Very much an American tradition, baby showers aren't the norm in England. Susan, part of my "extended" family (I've spoken about how the Bullock family took me in when I came to England and Patty and John are like second parents to me - Susan is their youngest daughter), is due to have her first child in May.

I arrived in Ilkeston (town of said baby shower) in time to be somewhat useful. Patty was just headed to the church building to finish setting up, so I helped her finish packing the car and we drove down to the building. Then it was a busy hour of grading cheese, making sandwiches, veggie platters, punch, nibbles, and decorating before the masses came.

Patty pouring the punch into the pitchers (we didn't have a big bowl, so the punch was mixed in a big saucepan - hey, we're resourceful!)

Patty asked me to organise one of the games that I had suggested: figure out what's in the baby's nappy. Basically you moosh up / melt some chocolate or various eatable ingredients into a nappy (diaper) and everyone has to guess what's inside by smelling, tasting, etc. Fun stuff!

This is a rather revolting nappy filled with a mixture of brown sauce and mustard.

Susan was a bit taken aback by the sight of the disgustingness in the nappies!

We also played a version of pin the tail on the donkey: pin the bottle on the baby. This is Susan's grandmother having a go.

Patty asked me to write down the list of presents as Susan opened them as she thought I had good handwriting. I always ask my mom to write lists like this because she's got such lovely handwriting, so it was a big compliment to me to be asked to do it because of my penmanship. Okay so maybe I'm weird - I was still flattered. But midway through the present opening Sara, a family friend of the Bullocks, was telling me a story that had me in uncontrollable laughter. It was one of those moments when everything stops and everyone is looking at you wanting to know what's funny, but you can't repeat it and you must stop laughing but trying to stop just makes you laugh harder. I love that kind of laughter.

Ashley (Susan's husband) was kind enough to get some very unflattering photos of my giggles.

The culprit to the right of me in the picture is Sara, smiling ever so proudly at the laughter she had caused.

The biggest Pancake in the world

Matt and I tried to go out for pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (ie Pancake Day) but our efforts were thwarted when we were faced with a queue out the restaurant and around the corner of at My Old Dutch. Darn! Matt is a very organised man and a planner. It was kind of funny seeing his reaction of "what to do next" when your plans go pear shaped. I'm a bit useless as I don't know London that well, but Matt's knowledge of where to go is superb so I rely on him to come up with a plan. Lazy I know, but he really does pick some good places!

On this occasion we walked to an Italian place around the corner from the pancake place only to be greeted with another queue out the door (seriously, what was up with all the people out in Holburn?! Holburn is the part of London we were in). Plan B scuppered Matt remembered a nice little restaurant on a back street that we walked to, but we decided that was a bit to pricey so onto Plan C which was a pub down the road that Matt had been to. Matt didn't like the menu. So plan D was an Italian place across the road from Plan C's pub choice. The night ended up being good fun and it was good to natter with Matt for the evening. I must admit that the search for where to eat that evening was definitely a fun highlight of the evening. I often find scuppered plans often lead to exciting and fun new plans!

Fast forward to last Wednesday: Matt and I ventured out to attempt to get pancakes. When Matt suggested we go get pancakes my mind obviously thinks nice thick, normal sized American pancakes. I was wrong. These were ginormous thin pancakes. Ginormous!!! I'd never before seen pancakes this big, nor had I ever eaten savoury pancakes. My first (yes I was greedy and had two) pancake was much like a pizza (pepperoni, chizoro and chillies) and my second was a sweet pancake with cinnamon and apples topped with ice cream. As yummy as pancake number 2 was I just couldn't manage to finish it. I was so over full I had to loosen my belt - never a good sign!! But I had a fantastic evening and those pancakes were certainly worth the wait!

Pancake number 2, can you see how big it is? look at the size of the plate compared with the table, cup of tea or fork - GINORMOUS!!!

Updates that you might not have seen

Trying to play catch up here, I finally finished posting the following 2 posts. They were begun ages ago (but not finished) so won't show at the top of the window.

The bestest movie and Valentines Day

The weekend everyone cancelled on me

St Patty's Day Festivities

Sunday after church I headed to Trafalgar Square to meet up with some friends and celebrate St Patrick's Day. Getting to Trafalgar Square was an adventure in itself: 2 closed train stations, a closed tube station, a bus, an open tube station later and 2 hours later I made it to the square ... only to be lost in a sea of green (lots of people and lots of people wearing green!) I somehow managed to meet up with Kelli (friend from work) and Bruce (her flatmate) as they arrived about the same time as me and we 3 headed to find Cate (Kelli & Bruce's flatmate and another of my work friends). Before we managed to find Cate, we met up with Meghan (my flatmate) so we 4 headed into the bigger mass of green to find Cate. Cate's instructions (to find her in a sea of a million or so) "we're in between the two fountains - look for a lot of green hats". Seriously? The place was heaving with big green hats. Turns out, with a bit of good fortune (the luck of the Irish you might say), that I picked a big green hat and made my way to it - and it was Cate, score!!!

Meghan and I (notice my green ... I didn't have any Irish green, so lime green had to do. Also notice it's sleeveless - the weather was superb!!)

Cate Spent a lot of time like this. I don't know why it was so very amusing, but it was. Just as soon as she'd sort her hat out, someone would push it back over her head. Possibly the fact that she usually had both hands full and couldn't push her hat back up added to the amusement. Hours of fun, never got old (well maybe it got old for Cate).

Cate, face showing, and I

Some of the sea of people that were out.

One of the bands that was playing. Cate did well with picking a good spot for the festivities - right in front of the stage

Guy in red is Ian? Can't remember his name but it's Cate's boyfriend's brother. Then Bruce, crazy man in a funky but cool Irish coloured jester hat and Kelli.

The second to last band was a Irish folk band and tried to get the audience to do some Irish gigs. We happily participated but didn't have a clue what we were doing. There was around a group of 20-25 of us (with Cate's friends and their friends and her brothers and her brothers friends, etc) and somehow ended up being the centre of attention and fun. It turned into one of those scenes from the movie where the crowd parts and makes a circle for people to dance in, So much fun! (But I was too busy dancing and making a fool out of myself to take any pictures, I think Meghan got a few, I'll try to nick some off her and post later.) Have a Happy St Patty's Day tomorrow!

Jamie (Cate's brothers' friend I think) Alan (my folk dancing partner & another friend of Cate's brothers) and me


Get Your Own Free Hypster.com Playlist.

Red noses to the ready

Friday was Red Nose Day (Comic Relief's main fundraiser). I've never managed to get myself organised enough to buy and wear a red nose on Red Nose Day before, but this year I did. Yippee, hoary. I could only breathe through my mouth while wearing my red nose as it pinched my nostrils together, so I only wore it in short bursts.

Friday after work a group headed down to the "local", and we had fun passing the nose around and being silly. It's fun to be childish!

Danielle and I. (Danielle joined the school in January and is my only American friend & colleague in London. It's so great to have a comrade in arms! She's pretty great, but being an American makes her even better!!)

Danielle joining in on the fun of the red nose

Jess somehow making the nose look cool instead of silly - that's serious talent!

Tyrone also had a go with the nose

Leigh refused to join the fun even after several attempts to get the nose on him, but Martin (a manager at the local), Dorothy (a gal from a school up the road), and Kelli happily joined in the silliness. The nose died after Kelli though, she's got a cold and we didn't want to pass on the germs.

Saturday's escape from London

Saturday a friend and I decided to escape London's hustle and bustle for a bit of fresh air. We decided Brighton, a nearby seaside town, would accomplish this quite well.

We walked down to the Beach

Then on the pier (this is a view of the old burned down pier in the far distance & in the foreground was this wall / inlet thing, old & pretty cool)

Pier sign

Then headed up from the coast to see the Pavilion, a miniature Taj Mahal want to be. Odd being in Brighton, but a sight to be seen.

Then we found some lunch, had a coffee and headed home. It was a largely uneventful afternoon (bar a bit of train cancellations), but so nice to get out of London and see more of the country I now call home!

The bestest movie and Valentines Day

Early February Ed and I had plans to go out and have some good ole fun with some other mates. The other mates cancelled on us, but we were not deterred, we would have fun. Ed's flatmate was going to the opening night of He's Just Not That Into You so we joined her, bringing Meghan in tow (we would have fun, and we would drag everyone along with us to have this fun). We went to one of the main movie theatres in Leicester Sq (where the big premieres happen), I've never been to such a large screening. What a great movie and a great atmosphere. Seriously loved this movie. This has possibly become my number one favourite film, but definitely in my top five of all time. Loved it! After the movie we walked around a while till we found a curry house still serving food before heading home. A brilliant night. Loved it!

Riding up the escalator with Ed & Meghan

Valentine's night I went over to Ed's flat for a singles gathering of sorts. I thought there were going to be several happy go lucky singles there, but it ended up being more of dinner party of six singletons (Ed, Mary H, Meghan, Ruth, ??? (Ed's friend that I've met before and forgotten his name - how rubbish am i?!) and myself). And it was a great night! Somehow I ended up with these as my only pictures from Valentines Day - how rubbish!!

I couldn't decide which outfit I should wear, so I took a couple photos and emailed them to Tesca who helped me decide - yes, I am one of those people. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's true. This is the outfit I went with

Ed mate - the forgotten name one. He opened a bottle of champagne by cutting off the cork - very cool party trick!!

Most of the group had early Saturday mornings to get up for, but Ed and I were still up of more fun, so when everyone else we walked down the road to meet Ed's flatmate, Alice, at a pub. From there we went to a club down the road which was absolutely heaving with people. This excursion made me feel so very old - too many people (so many people that there was a queue to get in, a queue to pay, a 2 hour queue to check your coats in - we kept ours after finding that out, and a 30 minute queue to use the loo - ridiculous!), too hot, too loud, too much of a meat market. But after paying to get in, I was definitely going to make the most of is so I enjoyed making an idiot of myself on the dance floor with Ed. Fun times!!!

Flatmate fun

Meghan's been with me for two months now, and I love having her around. She's as mad as I am. Last weekend we ordered a Chinese take away and it came with fortune cookies. This was the first fortune cookie Meghan had ever had! I was shocked. Obviously photographic evidence was needed to mark the occasion!

Last night we went back to the Japanese restaurant we went to a while back (click here if you really want to remind yourself). We had fun, but we were both pretty dead. Meghan had just finished a work out and I was knackered from work. It was great to get out with her and spend some time catching up properly, but we were both pretty drained of energy!

A weekend visit "home"

Just before I left the midlands for home, I realised I had no pictures form the weekend. So I made John and Patty take a self portrait with me!

Home is such a ambiguous word when you you're a nomad like me: I live in London (thus I suppose my home is there), I grew up in Texas so some might say that was my "home", but my parents sold my childhood home and moved to Kansas (for those of you who have told me "home is where you're mama is", I suppose my home is now in Kansas?), but I moved to London from the Midlands and when I go back for a visit, I always feel like I'm visiting home.

Not last weekend, but the weekend before I went to the midlands for a quick visit as I hadn't been up since Thanksgiving (sheesh! I can't bul-eeve that it was so long in between my visits!). With the timing of my arrival I ended up getting to the midlands just as Ken was coming into the airport, so I got to play taxi for him which meant we got a good visit in. (With the few minutes I had to kill before Ken arrived I went and had a drink at the Italian restaurant I used to work at - it was good to chat & catch up with the owner.) By the time we arrived at Ken's house Patty and Susan had arrived to replenish Ken's basics (bread and milk) so we all had a quick catch up on Ken's trip and a cuppa tea before heading off. Susan, Patty & I then went home via a local Chinese take away before crashing for the evening.

Saturday morning I had an appointment with the hair dresser (a trim was in need) before meeting Nadia for lunch. Nadia hadn't really seen each other since I'd moved to London so it was really good to finally spend some time with her! Before I met Sam, Nick and James (friends and old colleagues) for dinner, I managed to do a bit of shopping - I was in need of some black work trousers and jeans. I'm still in need of a pair of jeans, but at lest I sorted out some black trousers! Sam Nick and I all converged on Old Orleans, and American restaurant in Derby, for an evening of chatting, debating, laughing and fun. It was fun till I had to roll out to the car - I was super stuffed!

Sunday was church ... wait no. Instead of Sunday Bible class I got to witness Ashley (Susan's husband) baptized at Ilkeston church, so very special! Then I headed to the church in Stapleford as I'd not seen them since last August. It was so very good to see my church family at Stapleford, I do miss them! After church Simon, Pam and their 2 girlies treated me to lunch before I headed back down to London. My drive to London was significantly better than most my journeys as I got the pleasure of John's company! John was flying to the States from London the next day, so hitched a ride with me instead of training it down. The company was brilliant, the traffic was atrocious when we got to London. It turned out that on the opposite side of the motorway had a 13 vehicle accident. We were in around an hour and a half of backed up traffic which stressed me out ... until we passed the accident and the 15 miles of backed up traffic on the other side of the road - perspective is a wonderful stress reliever I guess!

Dropped John off, headed home and crashed. Only to get up Monday and start my work week. Busy and full weekend, but loved getting to catch up with everyone!