As I reckon you know by now I did not attend the carnival this year, but here are two of my favourite photos from the
BBC photo website. This year's theme was Set All Free in honour of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. For more info on it, click the title or
right here.
I went last year just after handing in my thesis & was a bit overwhelmed by the crowds, so I declined going this year. Jim was working the event & said he thinks I'm glad I skipped it since it was just as crowded (2 million people go) as last year.
Labels: London, news
singledom
Are you single?
Do you live in the right city to be single?!??! If you don't are you upset your city isn't on the list, do you think it's a good single's city????
Labels: news
looking like me mum, eh?
.jpg)
for some reason when I first saw this shot I thought it was me mum, does anyone agree, or is it just that it's really late & I am lacking sleep?!?!?!
.JPG)
me admiring Estee's orchids
.JPG)
my new dress
Just got back from my mate Kirsty & Dan's Bank Holiday Monday BBQ in Kennington Oval, it was fab! Would write more about it but it's nearly quarter past midnight & I have to actually go to work tomorrow, lol. Hope ya'll had a good weekend :)
Labels: weekend
Book Club in review 1
So
Cormac McCarthy has won the UK's oldest literary award for his book
The Road, which I read as part of
Jen's summer book club & to be honest I'm not impressed with it. I can't believe he got £10,000 for winning this award, not to say he's not a good writer, I just don't think this book was worth that amount by any means . . . maybe I missed the meaning of the book, who knows.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac is another of my book club books, which again being honest (since it is the best policy) I enjoyed more than The Road, but still wasn't a huge fan of that one either. Just about half way through it I started to think it was almost predictable & I just wanted him to stop in a city & tell me they were all going to live happily ever after.
Wickett's Remedy is the book I'm currently reading and with 50 pages left to go I can say it is my favourite yet. It's a novel about the 1918 flu epidemic in Boston, MA. I think one of my favourite bits is how Myla Goldberg puts in snippets from actual newspaper articles from that time period and then there are letters from Quentin Driscoll to his wife & son, which makes him a bit less horrible of a man at least in my eyes, you'll have to read it to understand what I mean!
Next two from the list are
Little House on the Prairie and
Lady Oracle, will let ya know how those go when I'm done . . . Do you have any thoughts on these books, have you ready any, would you recommend them, give me your 2 cents!!!
Labels: books
something I don't like to think about . . .
Sex with a partner in the last year was reported by:
73% of those aged 57 to 64
53% of those aged 64 to 75
26% of those aged 75 to 85
Health problems or lack of a partner, rather than lack of desire,
were listed as the most common barriers to sex.
In other not as exciting news England was beaten last night by Germany (2 to 1)
there is a worry that Beckham will not be able to keep up playing for both England and LA, but only time will tell! Course not being a fan of him I'm not bothered if he can't, but it's causing making lots of press over here, how about over in the US, do they seem to be worried at all about this?
Labels: news
Mosquito Day
For those of you not in "the know" . . . there is a display at LSHTM for the 110th anniversary of mosquito day, 20th August 1897, on this day Ross discovered the mosquito transmission of malaria. The display is designed to show material from the Ross Collection, such as pages from Ross' notebook where he made his discovery on 20th August 1897, photographs of him, correspondence with various individuals (ie Sir Patrick Manson and Rudyard Kipling), and assorted other things like programmes and postcards from his travels around the world. If you come to see it you can also pick up free postcards and a bookmark to help promote the collection. Now don't you just want to book your flights to London to see this?!?!?!?! If you can't make it but are interested in knowing a wee bit about Ross,
click here.
Labels: London
my bff in the uk
So as most of you already know my mate Jim is my bff (best friend forever), which over here would probably be called a bmf (mate) - lol. Not that you want all the details of my Friday night/Saturday morning, but I'm waiting for my washing to finish so I figured this would be a productive thing to do instead of sleeping :)
Friday night I had a LONG day at work, 10 hours to be exact, but I was able to keep going for 2 reasons, 1) I knew I was meeting up with some mates after work so that gave me something to look forward to and 2) I was having an email conversation with Jim's girlfriend, Rebekah (aka Becks). Now Becks & I haven't met yet, but J's been talking about her a lot so I sorta feel like I know her and I know she knows who I am & a bit about me. She's coming to London on the 31st and J's told me she's a bit nervous about meeting all of our mates - which is totally understandable!! I told him if I can do anything to make it easier on her just let me know - being a guy he said no.
But the other night I got a "friend's request" from her on my myspace account, so I added her and sent her a quick comment to say hi, looking forward to meeting you etc. Friday morning she sent a message saying she was bored at home with nothing to do for the day, so during one of my first incubation periods of the afternoon I sent her a quick message saying I wished I were at home!! She happened to be online at the same time so we just sent messages back & forth until I was done for the day.
Off to the pub I went to meet Rob, Jaiden, Tim, Logan, John, Nim, Andy and Magna. We were all chit-chatting about what we've all been up to since the last time we were together (3 weeks ago b/c J & I were in NY, Rob was at rehab for his foot). To my surprise Jim came bouncing in as well, so then came ALL the holiday stories. Then as usual we all go our own ways & chat in smaller groups, smokers go outside & chat etc. This left Jaiden, Rob, Jim & me inside at the bar. So I told J how Becks & I had been chatting all afternoon & he was so happy. Then I handed him my phone since I knew his phone was buggered (& figured he was going to be out late) & said go call her. A few minutes later he handed me the phone to chat with her, so we said a quick hello & I promised I'd look into tickets for Lion King.
Time passes as we all mingle around. Jim & I get talking about whatever and some how end up talking about his best mate who he lost in Iraq this past January. They'd trained for the Royal Marines together & been stationed together all of J's time in. J was given a medical discharge a few years back, but they'd been together for 9.5 years all around the world. J was the best man at the wedding, the god-father of his kids, etc. And some how I said well no worries you've got Rob should you ever get married & need a best man. He looked at me funny & said no way . . . if I ever get married I don't have a best man, my grandfather & best man are both gone . . . long pause while he starts to smile . . . "I'd have to have a 'best Sara'"
"WHAT????" I say
"Only makes sense, your my best mate, I'll just have a 'best Ra'"
smiling back I reply, "yeah I guess that works"
At which point John says he's closing the pub & we need to leave, so off to Nim & Andy's house to play with Clayton - they're robosapian. To make a really really long story slightly shorter (lol) we were there till 3am when Jim finally said, "Let's go Ra, we're going home" much to my relief as I was finding myself falling asleep on the couch.
Outside he hailed a cab & off to Friend Barnet we went. So that I didn't have to walk home at that hour I just crashed on their couch and was awoken by Rob at 10am who wanted me to go to Tescos with him, WTF was he thinking?!?!?! Oh yeah he left the pub at 11pm so he'd had a full night's sleep. Lucky for me, he went alone & upon return made us toasted bagels with mozzarella cheese, onions, fresh spinach, parma ham, and sun dried tomatoes - YUM!!!! (don't worry we tried to offer Jim one, but he was dead to the world sleeping in his room)
In return I did the washing up, put away the dishes in the dishwasher, cleaned the counters, scrubbed the hob (oven top), washed the front of the oven, cleaned out the microwave, and cleaned the sink. After all that I was exhausted again & decided I should come home to get ready to go see Bourne Ultimatum at 6, which was very good btw.
So that's my bff story from Friday/Saturday. Oh there's the washer bell, laters . . .
Labels: best friends
what to do, what to say . . .
I've got notin new & exciting to tell ya'll . . . If I had more free time at work I'd sit & type out a daily log of what we did on holiday, but those 12 days where busy & I don't have that much time to type & which of you really wanted to read about it anyways?!?!?! (if you do let me know & I'll make an effort to write it all out)
In brief:
- Saturday we arrived at Albany Int'l airport where dad picked us up, we slept at Auntie Ann's house that night
- Sunday we lazed around on the lake & drove to Pete's house
- Monday was a day full of NY State Trooper stuff
- Tuesday we met up with my mate Matt C from Long Island in NYC
- Wednesday we had Mexican food for dinner with Kristen, PJ, Corinne, Kim, Bill & Cyan
- Thursday we spent the afternoon in CT visiting Kev, Sylwia, Owen, Maya & baby Grace and the afternoon/evening with Anne, John & Matt
- Friday we vegged out at A&J's pool ALL DAY
- Saturday we drove to Saranac Lake and went to a party
- Sunday I had brunch with Maureen, Bob, and Matt while Jim went fishing. Afternoon was tubing & water skiing fun with Jason, Eric, Tom, Adam, Dan, Betty, and Kevin
- Monday more fishing for Jim while I went to Trudeau & visited with Paula
- Tuesday cooler weather so I hung with Miss Betty while Jim went fishing with Ace & John
- Wednesday I went shopping with Shannon & Jim went fishing with Ace, Dan, and John (and fell in the lake just before we were suppose to leave!!) Drove to Dad's for dinner
- Thursday drove to Albany, test drove 2 cars, went to Old Navy, post office, and Friendly's for an ice cream before ATTEMPTING to flying home - ended up hiring a car & driving back to Auntie Ann's house to sleep
- Friday back to Albany airport & actually flying home with a 6 hour lay over in Philly & an hour of circling London's Gatwick airport & an hour on the runway waiting for a gate & another 1.5 hours waiting for luggage to arrive, but hey at least we got back!!
Well back to my lab work for now
Labels: holidays
Middle Name Meme
In trying to stay awake till 21.00 to help myself get back on London time, I decided since I was tagged for this meme, that I'd give it a go! Course since I'm still a bit knackered there won't be explanations for each one just a word.
1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.
4. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
V is for victorious.
I is for insouciant.
C is for caring.
T is for trustworthy
O is for open-minded
R is for responsible
I is for independent
A is for adventurous.
I’m tagging:
anyone who wants to play
Labels: meme
best photos from the trip
So you don't get stuck looking at EVERY photo we took here is a slide show of the "best" ones, enjoy . . .
home again home again jiggity jig
So we're safely home after a rather long process . . . I'm off to get some kip (Jim's driving to Nottingham - crazy nutter!!) & will download the photos later to link or post or slide show (haven't decided yet). Hope you've all had a good 2 weeks I know I/we have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Labels: holidays
NY to CT to NY
So we're half way through our holiday & Jim is RUDDY exhausted from all the driving!! We've had to change plans a bit & skip the trip to RI & VT, we're just heading to Saranac tomorrow & not moving till the plane leaves from Albany next Thursday! Sorry to all of those who we missed, but over 3,000 miles on a plane to the states & then another 500+ miles in the car & we're shot, it's a holiday remember, we're suppose to be relaxing!!!
Will add photos upon return.
.jpg)
.JPG)
.JPG)
