Eating Toffee apples, while reading about Rome ruins, in Leadenhall Market
We have been getting lots of use of our down jackets and snow coats. I have been delighted in our bright colors because I can see my kids in a crowd. We’ve been a lot of crowds. Emeline is less thrilled with standing out. She’d tried to wear her black jacket but it is just too cold and she’s had to resort to the blue down or the purple ski parka. Then add in Jeff in orange, me in purple and Eliana in pink and we look like a bunch of Skittles walking through the streets of London.
I didn’t realize just how much we stood out until two weekend’s ago when we went to the Borough Market. Our 1st full day in London we went to the market and sampled many wonderful treats, but were meeting some of Jeff’s work friends, so we couldn’t dilly dally. The follow week we went again with the plan of buying some supplies (cheese, bread, fruit & veggies). We divided up, Jeff and Emeline scurried off in one direction while Eliana and I headed in another. Eliana and I started talking with a young woman who had some wonderful apples and some chutney. She said, ” Where are the other two.” I looked at her curiously and she said, “Last week there were two more a Man and another girl, your jackets were so bright I remember seeing you.” I looked around a little more and everyone is wearing black, except the Fredrick family.
Emeline at 12, Eliana at 10, Leanne at 6
Emeline’s main redeeming clothing item is her black boots. All three of us girls got new black boots in New York. Emeline and I found ours at a place I looked up on Yelp with good reviews, Midtown Shoes. The man working there was amazing. We walked in and he just looked at our feet (with shoes already on) and knew our sizes. He was a master at fitting shoes as well as balancing the wishes of a 11 year old girl and her wish for “high heels” and her mothers requirement of 1″ or less. Eliana was a little more difficult nut to crack. She is in the impossible size. Too big for little kids and too small for women’s. However while in New York it seemed appropriate to visit Macy’s the day before the Thanksgiving Parade, so we were able to find her a pair of boots within the 8 stories high and an entire New York block that makes up the Macy’s store.
Today we road on the subway to Chalk Farm. We found a craft store and mom could have spend every pound we had. Then we went to the Stable market, it made mom and myself, maybe Eli think of Santa Cruz. First Eli and I had a hot chocolate, then we came to a churro stand, they did 4 churros and a cup of chocolate to dip them in for 3 pounds, we asked for, and got 2 extra churros for the same price. We poked around and ended up in conversation with a African-American couple who had a bunch of homemade cookies, in bags, on a christmas tree. They had a deal, kind of thing, each cookie (a pound each) had a little piece of paper and if you guessed lucky, you got a prize (cupcake, potato chips, ect.) but if you weren’t , you ONLY got a delicious homemade cookie. 🙂 After more wandering we found a store where Eli, mom, and myself loved all the clothes they had, mom bought me and Eli each a rap skirt, but we made a agreement that mom could rap it up and give it to us for solstice. Then, that night I found a funny disney/online world of warcraft kind of thing, called Birth By Sleep. Check it out!
Today was a very lazy day, but it was good. Today when we woke up I was reminded that I needed to make a list of what I was going to do that day. Now before be had moved out of out Santa Cruz I would make a list on monday of what I was going to do that week. I would also make a list of what I was doing that day. I would often be like this
100 words of TS (tyne Story)
4 khan
1 10mark
write review of Watership Down
etc.
Usually it would have around 7 things on the list, today not including PE I had 4, with PE I had 8.
We had a delicious breakfast that is sure to be made again. Eli and myself did a mix of business and Pleasure while mom did stuff on her laptop but then, she seemed to disappear, turned out she thought it was nap time. That meant that Eli crawled in to bed. I was doomed! 🙂 Or so I thought until I remembered I had a book! and you can guess how it turned out after that! Until mom woke up, I had just a little before decided that I was going to work because there is a movie I want to watch, (not that I actually planed on working). Mom seems suspicious, that I wasn’t working while she slept. 🙂 oh well
Today we went to Winter Wonder Land and went on a ride/ walk that turned out to be lame. I got cold. I pet a duck. We had some hot chocolate and I burnt my tongue. I don’t remember much of today. After we got home I did math while mom and eli went shopping. Then Eli started making dinner. before dad got home she cried and melted down, while I did khan academy. We ate dinner now I am writing.
Yesterday mom went out for some time alone. Dad, Eli, and myself didn’t actually leave the house until 12, then we walked to the Museum of London. We made a comic that wasn’t funny. During making the comic me and Eli fought a lot. We had a snack and hot chocolate then walked more. Along the way we had some mint hot chocolate. We walked for over a hour. We went to the marble arch and met mom. It was around 6. we went to M and S the Macy’s of UK. Dad got shoes and gloves. Then we went to dinner, then we went home. I don’t remember much after that.
Yesterday Eliana was bouncing off the walls. I could feel her energy bursting to be out of the house and at a park. I was reminiscent of when Anton was little and I’d have to make sure I got him outside to the park at least once a day. His energy was just too big for being inside. His exuberance and joy at being outside moving his body put a smile on my face.
Today while the girls and I were at the British Library (Andreas’ favorite place last year in DC was the Library of Congress) we got a chance to explore the exhibits in the lobby of where they do the book preservation. I found it fascinating and I thought about how much Andreas values keeping his books in pristine condition. You know that if you loaned a book to Andreas that it would be returned looking like it was new. I thought how wonderful it would be to find some thing like restoring old books as a passion. Creative, clean, quiet, and in the end you have something special that has been made beautiful and useful again.
Preserving Books is a PDF publication they offer from the British Library. They also have a list of other documents on storing and restoring books and other types of media. Other links that you might enjoy.
I am completely overwhelmed with the enormity of getting to see…
The Rosetta Stone in person. The tool that allowed western man to understand egyptian hieroglyphics at the The British Museum. It is big but not massive compared to some of the statues, and the writing is so tiny. How did they do that on a rock so small?
The Magna Carta at the British Library (which is like the US Library of Congress). The document that was first signed in 12?? AD, it has 63 clauses of which 3 are still in effect. It established the idea that the King was not above the law and that people were entitled to a trial by and be judged by our peers. These are such fundamental ideas that are still in use today and a basis for the US Constitution and a foundation for our laws.
Queen Elizabeth I‘s signature. Have you ever seen it. It has a lot of flourish to it. I often wondered if it was real. Today I saw it on an actual document that was giving orders for the treatment of Queen Mary of Scots (Bloody Mary). Mary was Elizabeth’s cousin and Catholic. Mary was held in England under house arrest after she fled Scotland as she was a serious threat to Elizabeth and her power. It was right there in front of me, in very low light, but there none the less. An ink and quill on paper signature from Elizabeth I.
I find it all very exciting. Does this mean I am getting old? You know all those retired guys get all excited over watching the history channel. Naaaaa, I am just a see it in person or do it in person kind of gal.
My internal clock is still a bit messed up. I need to get some sleep we are going to the Borough Market again in the morning. I am hoping to spend some time at the Ledeanhall Market also, as it is in Harry Potter. A market that has been running in the same place since the 17th century.
Oh by the way, we also went to Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station today, for all you Harry Potter fans.
A 5 episode series with amazing once in a life time photography from the Arctic and Antarctic.
Intro
The introduction episode covered a wide variety of topics and went of some of the thing that would be covered in later episodes. One of my favorite parts of this episode was the videography from the crystal caverns in Mt. Erebus, Did you know that if one of the stalactites of stalagmites break, it only takes a couple of weeks to freeze back on. Another of my favorites from intro was learning about the wooly bear caterpillar. I is the first one of the insects to be out in the winter, why because during the ice and snow the caterpillar freezes, when spring comes and the snow melts, so does the caterpillar, then out it goes and eats, eats, eats as fast as it can. But then it once again freezes all winter long and it goes through the cycle for 13 YEARS! In the 14 year it melts and not a bite, it makes its cocoon and turns into a moth, it only has days now to find a mate and lay eggs before it dies. Finally I was inthralled by Mount Erebus a giant live volcano in the Antarctic, I don’t know much about it but I do know it houses the crystal caverns. During the shooting for the episode using a helicopter to get a view of the lava through the steam!
