circus sunday

I met Stephanie at the tube station this afternoon and we went for a little walk.  First time ever that I've used an umbrella in the snow.  Though snow doesn't tend to fall in one direction so I still kept getting flakes in my face.  Still, it's a bit of a treat.  Don't see much snow in Australia and certainly not in the cities.  It's nice when it's fresh anyway.  Not so much as it's fading and walked all over and transforming into sludge.  

We stepped into Kensington Gardens for a few quick snaps before continuing on to where our tickets were leading us....  To the Royal Albert Hall.  First time going there too.  Also a first time to see what we'd been looking forward to since we booked the tickets last month.  Kooza, a production from Cirque du Soleil.  We knew we were in for a treat.

 And it didn't disappoint.  It was fabulous.  I was entertained, amazed, made to laugh, thrilled, astonished and gasping in my seat.  I was absolutely amazed by the bendy women.  He he.  Can bodies really bend that much??  They are so strong and extremely flexible.  It's astonishing what positions they could get there bodies into.  One woman set just her chest, shoulders and arms on the floor and then had her feet run in circles around her.  There was lots of balancing involved too throughout the show.  Balancing on chairs, on tightrope, on bikes on tightrope, on shoulders...  Doing flips on stilts.  Being seasaw launched into the air on a single stilt to do flips and land.  Being seasaw flipped onto a man's shoulders who was standing on another man's shoulders.  Tricks with hulahoops.  Tricks on a trapeze swing.  Clowing about.  Magic tricks.  Have I left anything out...?  My favourite part--the part that had me gasping in my seat--was two guys on this amazing spinning gadget.  Think a long pole with a circle on each end and the whole thing spun from the centre of the pole.  Round and round.  One guy inside each of the circles walking, running, jumping to keep it spinning and them upright.  Sometimes walking on the outside, partly falling as their circle dropped from the peak arching round to the bottom and making its way up again.  Even skipping on the outside.  It was awesome.  They're all amazingly clever and talented.  What hard work!  Yet so entertaining.  It was worth it and I'm glad I made sure I got a ticket.

wednesday walkabout--"to liberty and m&ms" *cheers*

Another Wednesday has come around and I was blessed with work being cancelled which meant no having to be home by a certain time to head to work.  Woohoo.  Today's walkabout was in a section of central London. I actually managed to cross a few little bits and pieces off my list today.  The main stop was....

I caught the tube to Leicester Square Underground Station where the longest escalator in the system is. It's 161ft 6ins with a vertical rise of 80ft 9ins.  Facts supplied by a recently purchased London travel game.

First location located was the Australia Shop.  Oh my, simple delights!  I haven't seen some of these products in so long.  I bought a couple of goodies to share at the Australia Day book club meeting I'm hosting next weekend.  Yum.

 Second location located--and the main stop for the afternoon--was M&Ms World.  Did you know it existed?  It's four floors of crazy m&m everything.  It's a bit ridiculous really but fun to visit.  I mean, do you really want m&m tshirts, pjs, pencils, plates, jewellery!?  They did have some fun displays though.

And the colours for the taking!!  Don't you just love it, Vi? He he.  They had a fun "Discover Your Colour" scanner.  You stood on the platform while it loudly proclaimed it would scan you and tell you what colour mood you were today.  My colour mood was "Cream: You have creative talents unknown even to you!"  I'll accept that.  Though I suspect it chooses a colour based on what you're wearing as I had on my big, off-white coat.  I also came across some recycling.  He he.  Clever, though I wouldn't pay the asking price.  Funky and funny that they are old m&ms packets.  Good on 'em.

 Third location located was Liberty.  I've been here before.  It's not somewhere I'd shop though they have some lovely stuff.  But again, to justify the expense?  But it is a magnificent building.  Even just the outside is fabulous and inspiring and inviting.  It has such an earthy, basic appeal.  Perhaps from all the wood involved in its structure.  It's more warming than plain hard, cold stone.

And I entered in through the stationary room.  Oh, I swooned!  And I was tempted but I slowly moved on.  The staircase was all wooden full of exquisite carved detail.  It was really impressive to look down the stairwell.  And then from the second floor (there's like five or so) there's an open space through the floors above.  Actually, if you go along to the next area there's another one too.  It's quite a big store and fascinating to see. I made my way up to the fabric area and dawdled through.  Most of it's not a style to my liking--a bit floral for me--but I did find some I liked.  I ended up purchasing some fabric covered buttons I'm going to attach bobbypins to and stick them in my hair.  Or something like that.

 Finally I went back underground and came out at Shepherd's Bush where I went to Westfields Shopping Centre and did a little shopping.  I did manage to come out with the things I hoped to get.  A pleasant spent afternoon and now I've posted my walkabout and I've got a parcel ready to post to my nephew for his birthday next week.  These odd coloured m&ms and some other things are coming your way, Zachary!

wednesday walkabout--Kensington Palace

I've decided, with the end of my UK adventure fast approaching, that I need to make sure I do some of the London things I've been wanting to do.  Since my working hours on Wednesday are really just a bit of evening babysitting, I'm going to use my daytime hours to do some of those exploring things.  I already have to go home saying I didn't get to do the Buckingham Palace tour because I left it too late so I'm going to start ticking things off.  So today's walkabout was...

I was delighted with my visit here.  It was more fascinating and interactive than I was expecting.  Not just a museum but the actual place where royalty resided.  There's quotes all around from Queen Victoria as she did most of her growing up here.  From the pics below (top left reading-wise) is the red room where Queen Victoria strolled in confidently and sat down for her first meeting as Queen (I think) impressing all the men there.  Royal toys, the dolls house being more for educational purposes than play with a nice, dignified room upstairs and the servants work area below.  I can imagine the governess watching over her 'play' making sure she did so properly as it was mentioned she did.  The recollection of Queen Victoria of crawling on a yellow carpet.  In the Queen Victoria section they also had a lot about her dreamy love life and her many children and the loss of her husband and more.  They also had fashion and bits and pieces of what life was like back then.

I then went round the King's residence which was also more impressive than I imagined.  The middle row of pictures above has a well-worn throne where the king sat to hear basic petitions.  The rooms then lead into more private rooms and the further in you were allowed the more privileged you were.  I was trailing a bunch of school kids through this section.  They had a room of more fashion, books and other set up as it would have been in that time.  Also people dressed in costume.  When kids screamed just after I entered a room, I turned about to see one of these dressed up characters had jumped out from behind a curtain. Ha ha. This area had exquisite painted decorations.  Checkout the stairwell and the cornice/ceiling.  Painted walls.  And that ceiling is just a smooth curve but you can hardly tell.  It looks moulded.  The Queen's residence was the least interesting though still held some fascinating things.  All those chairs are for Queen Anne's 'little hopes'.  Eighteen children!!!  Now THAT's a large family.  Also found it strange that all the paintings of Queen Victoria's children that were around the walls were all in dresses.  Perhaps that was simplest with young ones. The painting here is of Prince Leopold.

I loved some of the displays.  The bonnet and umbrella strung up with hanging drops for rain.  Very clever.  The costumes as well.  The royally worn and the amazingly absurd!  I cannot comprehend nor barely imagine wearing such an incredibly wide dress.  Where would you wear it?  And that's quite a train for the king too.  A special coronation robe.  And below, this was the entrance to the queen's residence.  I thought it was just fabulous.  Shadow boxes and ships in bottles.  All the cut-outs were amazing.  Cut out of some canvas-like fabric.  I was too taken in by the decorations to actually pay attention to what it was about.  Maybe the departure of one of the royal family lines? Oh well.  He he.  It looked great.

And I got outside and discovered it was all sunlit.  Very pleasant.  I strolled around the garden, which was mostly in winter-mode, and then stepped out into Kensington Gardens and wandered home.

another ticking over

The last day of another year has rolled around.  It always feels like an opportune time to consider what has been and look forward to what may be ahead.  I haven't really got to the first part of that yet.  Monday was spent looking forward to celebrating the beginning of a new year.  Stephanie and I made late plans to dress up and go out for dinner.  We found a fun sounding restaurant called Inamo.  We both dressed up fancy and got happily got our glamour on and headed into the city to make our 6:30pm booking.  It wasn't till we rocked up, right on time, that we found out there was another Inamo--Inamo St James--a ten minute walk away, which was the one we actually booked at.  So we scooted ourselves around some streets and through Piccadilly Circus to find the right Inamo.  We already knew they needed our table again by 8pm for all the set menu New Year's diners.  We weren't too late and this restaurant had a much nicer atmosphere with more space anyway.

 Inamo is a semi-futuristic dinning experience.  A bit of technological fun.  The tables have a little circle touch pad to the right of your plate and a projector overhead.  With a little bit of finger tapping we chose our food and sent our orders straight to the kitchen.  As you viewed each choice, a picture of the dish would appear on your plate.  Brilliant! We then played around with the 'tablecloth' or table atmosphere as they called it with a variety of picture and pattern selections.  We received our drinks and played games while waiting for our food to arrive.  We were in the middle of a war when our food was placed on the table but that didn't stop us.  We each won a round of Battleships, playing against each other.  After a while my small dish still hadn't arrived so with a tap of my finger I called our waiter.  I brought up my order and showed him I was still waiting for my small dish.  After a pleasant oriental meal amongst photos and chatting we added cocktails to our order as our dessert.  The food was tasty though not the quantity could have been a little more for what we paid but essentially we went there for the experience.  That aspect was certainly worth it.

Leaving the restaurant we wandered back to Piccadilly Circus and then along Regent Street looking at all the lights still up from Christmas.  Eventually when we'd had enough of walking and the cold we located a tube station and got back to my place.  We just watched tv and chatted and hung out eating popcorn and drinking milo until it was almost midnight.  At about 11:55pm we climbed the stairs, and more stairs and a few more stairs and then a ladder and climbed through the skylight in the roof.  There we witnessed 2012 ticking over into 2013.  We couldn't see the main fireworks being set off near the London Eye as well as I'd hoped.  A few too many tall building in the way but we could see the tops of most and the ones that shot up high.  The great part about being on the roof in zone 1 was the surround sound and light show.  Being that you can buy and set off your own fireworks as well as smaller organised ones, there were fireworks going off in a 360° rotation.  Some far in the distance, some quite close but all making a spectacular atmosphere for us.  And we ate chocolate truffles to celebrate the beginning of another year.

So Happy New Year to you all!  I hope it's full of blessings and excitement and fulfilling adventures for you.  I'm not too sure what this year holds for me.  I only have a few plans at this stage but the main one is that I'm heading home.  Today I booked my return flight to Australia.  In April I'll be home again and get to see my family and friends and meet a bunch of new little people.

 ☻ ☺   Welcome to 2013!   ☺ ☻

a highland christmas

On Friday 21st December I hoped on the overnight bus from London to Edinburgh.  Now I this sort of travel/accommodation isn't the best but I usually don't mind it here and there.  It's a cheap combo.  What I seriously did mind was getting sick on the way.  Nausea is awful.  Blurgh!  Thankfully there was an onboard toilet, I was able to catch a taxi and it was just a short distance and I had a sympathetic friend to welcome me.  Needless to say we didn't really do much on Saturday.  I spent it mostly sleeping, eating very little and sitting and chatting a while.  But I suppose if I was going to get sick (and apparently this was some winter bug that runs rampart annually here) this first day was the best option.

Sunday was a much more pleasant day.  It was nice to feel mostly human again.  Caroline and I walked into town and climbed Carlton Hill for a view of Edinburgh.  We had a yummy lunch at The Elephant House (the place where JK Rowling spent a lot of time writing some book series).  We then wandered briefly through the graveyard in the church behind the cafe where it's said she went name picking for her novel characters.  Found a couple.  We then met up with one of Caroline's friends and all went to this pokey little tea shanty called Anteaques.  A cosy place where we all felt we should have been in our frocks and bonnets.  We each ordered a different tea which came in a tea pot able to dish out 4-5 cups of the stuff.  We drank as much as we could over the hour or so we sat and chatted.  A lovely little rest spot we all enjoyed.  Caroline and I went off to do our Christmas grocery shop and head home to rest up for the big drive.  Bring on the highland Christmas! 

We picked up our rental car on Monday morning, loaded it up and set off north with the help of a sat nav.  We drove on up through Inverness and across the mountains into Ullapool and on a little further up to a little village called Achiltibuie.  I think it's somewhere near Whoop Whoop.  It was dark when we arrived after our 6hr or so journey.  It was really nice to drive again even though it is a bit tiring driving that far in one day.  It's been close to a year since I've been behind the wheel.  Caroline and I happily snooped about the cottage some friends of mine had let us borrow and we were delighted with each corner we poked into.  It's a lovely little place and cosily perfect for some Christmas indulgence.   With quite a collection of whisky on display Caroline decided we must sample them all.  We both agreed the first we sampled, the strongest, hottest one, was the best.  Though whisky is still not a drink I'd generally ask for.  For the most part, our time at the house was filled with relaxing by the open fire, crocheting and knitting, watching a whole assortment of dvds (movies and tv series) and of course eating.  Christmas day began with me waking early (job habit) and coming down stairs to fetch my present to myself from the nice stash I'd piled up under the decorations the night before.  Waiting inside was my snuggly new dressing gown.  I turned on my computer and skyped home to chat with family who were at the other end of Christmas day and every now and then opened another present.  I got some nice and unexpected things.  So blessed.  After a while Caroline emerged from a delightful sleep in and we gave our presents to each other.  We filled in our day with indulgent laziness.  The most active thing we did was to get our Christmas dinner cooking and scrub up for it.  Christmas dinner was delicious!  We began with mulled wine followed with our main course of roast duck with vegies and garlic bread and rounded off with Christmas pudding and custard.  A candlelit dinner for two. Ha ha.  It was a great day.  I've not much to complain about.  I saw no snow which was a little disappointing as I'd planned a northern journey dreaming of a white Christmas.  No luck.  But it's so beautiful in the highlands of Scotland that my disappointment was greatly dimmed.  And the lovely cottage and blissful relaxing made me happy.

Wednesday, Boxing Day, we decided to head out for the day.  We packed our lunch, got in the car and went further north.  We'd mapped out some destinations and Caroline had written down the names of the places only to discover her mobile hadn't saved them.  So we went running on research memories from the night before.  We accidently stopped by a view of the Summer Isles which was lovely on this clear morning.  Back on our planned route we managed to locate our major stop for the day.  We grabbed our bag and went walking, walking...along the 'bush' path that was sometimes a creek, on through the dry cold, yes, on some more until we reached our destination.  The Falls of Kirkaig. And with all the rain the river was gushing.  We climbed back up the path a little to have lunch in the sunshine before trotting on back to the car.  We then went up to Clachtoll beach where I stood for the first time on a lovely sandy beach, blue sky mostly, sun shining decked out in my snow gear to keep me warm.  He he he.  Back tracking a little...and then back tracking again to find the road we actually wanted to take (the sat nav is good when you set a route but not so useful to try use as a map), we came across our next stopping point with but minutes to spare really.  The ruins of Ardvreck Castle were sufficiently seen, photographed and climbed upon along with the viewing of the surrounding horizon and the foreground that filled the space between us before it got dark.  By the time we reached the house at about 4:30pm it was almost completely night time.  It was a great day for exploring as this was the clearest day we had.  The rest were overcast and wet.  Once home I changed into my pjs and dressing gown for an evening of the holiday theme.

Thursday we carried on the theme spending another day cosied up inside doing nothing much.  We did dress and break out for a while mid afternoon while there was still light in the sky.  We just wandered the street of Achiltibuie.  Caroline made a new friend, we paused to look at a ruined house (highland style with only the rock walls remaining) and laughed with surprise when some horses stuck their heads out the door, and when we'd had enough walking we went home again.  For another evening of the usual of course and consuming most of the leftovers.  Unfinished vegetarian haggis and neeps/tatties, unfinished Christmas pudd, mini pavlovas, chocolate... We also prepacked, tidied and cleaned up.  We were setting out early for the drive back to Edinburgh.

 With some detours and geographic locating challenges due to insufficient research, we managed to find Eilean Donan Castle and took on the wind and rain to see it.  It was really hard to get photos without raindrops on the lens and we actually had to work at not being blown away.  But we did see it and walk around it and then got back in the car feeling a bit drenched.  I think my jeans finally dried by the time we got back.  Driving through the Glencoe area was quite amazing even though we couldn't see much due to rain and low cloud.  There you get to drive right up close to the mountains as they hem the road that winds through the valley.  Back in Edinburgh we dropped off the car, exchanged photos and relaxed for one last evening together.  Saturday morning I got on the train to London.  It was nice to travel without having to stay focused on the road.  I knit most of the way home.

Not a white Christmas but still a jolly good one.  Next Christmas...with my family!!!  ^^

Click the pic for a closer squiz