Four Mornings in Maine

Did you ever read One Morning In Maine? It was one of my favorites growing up. I love Maine - the people are unbelievably nice, it's beautiful, and it's COLD! (I also spent an extremely happy 4 years at Colby). So when my Mom's planned ski trip was cancelled at the last minute, she asked if I wanted to join her for a weekend at Sunday River. Um, YES PLEASE!

I...er...dropped everything and hopped on a plane to NY. The following morning, we hit the road for Bethel. We found B.T.'s Smokehouse in Sturbridge, MA, on tripadvisor, as we were zooming up the Mass Pike. Oh, yum. I love the motto, below. The pulled pork was amazing (so much so that we had to stop on our way back down from Maine for a second lunch and to pick up dinner for my dad)! Thanks, B.T.!

The sign reads: 

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, rib in one hand, beer in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO WHAT A RIDE."

And then, snow. We arrived on Friday night, then woke up to snow on Saturday morning. It snowed all day and night Saturday, and all day Sunday. Fresh powder!

Our ski-and-stay package included our lift tickets and a daily clinic - our first day, we ended up as the only two in our lesson, and had a blast. I hadn't skied in 8 years, but it appears to be like riding a bike. Woot. The second day was even better - I was the only one in my lesson group (my mom stuck with the "light blue" group while I headed to "dark blue," and I had a super-intense lesson. I only wiped out once, and I am no longer afraid of bumps. Sweet!

Monday morning was a bit more crowded (it was NH school vacation week so EVERYONE had come up for the week to ski), and the lesson was a bit "meh," but the weather was absolutely stunning. Clear blue skies, temps in the 30s, and fresh powder? Why, yes, I think I will.

Here we are in the "oh dear, my ski jacket makes me look like a donut" picture at the top of North Peak.

And on the chairlift.

See that? Lift ticket says "Find your happy place." Thanks, Sunday River, we did! (And thanks Mom & Dad for the amazing last-minute vacation!) I am an extremely lucky person.

Wintry Weekend in the North

We're spending the weekend with family near Durham, and having a proper Winter Weekend in the Countryside. Many adventures have ensued.

I rode Benjamin, the fell pony (we mostly agreed on speed and direction, and I didn't fall off, so I'm considering it a success). Cantering was NOT going to happen, according to Ben. Fair enough.

We went on a wintry walk with two naughty labradors. (One pictured below, between naughty moments.)

We saw nice rolling hills and dry stone walls.

We wore green wellies to match our green jackets.

We found a snowy mini pinecone.

We found a wintry forest with sun behind it.

And found a micro-climate road with sun, trees and blue sky. Shut UP. Blue sky. Really. I had to take its picture to prove that it does, in fact, exist.

Home. Or, far away.

We went to New York. And are now back (and suitably jet-lagged).

More blogging, to follow.

Our plane, at Heathrow, underneath the edge of a wicked weather front:

And Jones Beach Theatre as seen from the window.

Choir trip to North Norfolk

A mini-Bach Choir plus assorted guests went on a day out to the north-Norfolk coast last Sunday. We went to Thornham for a quick rehearsal in the church, then down to Houghton Hall to see the obligatory stately pile. As you can see, my shoes and their fountain were exactly the same colour. They had a very tasty cafe (if rather expensive) in converted part of the stables.

There were also a number of art installations throughout the grounds. This one was a vast circle of piled slate. Um, ok. Made for neat pictures looking back at the house, though.

The Cholmondeley (pronounced CHUM-ley, obviously) family still live in the house, so we went through the 10-or-so staterooms open to the public. There were some extraordinary tapestries with incredibly fine needlework, and an entrance hall that reminded me of the main hall at The Breakers in Newport. You walk in, you gasp, you look up, your mouth drops open, and you look around in disbelief. I imagine Mr Vanderbilt was well aware of Houghton Hall (and would be pleased at the comparison).

I mean, seriously. This is the fruit cage. You know, the little tent with mesh where you grow your raspberries to keep the birds out. I thought the steel walk-in one my father-in-law welded together was intense. It's got NOTHING on this one.

After our dash through the rest of the gardens (which I'd highly recommend), we went back to Thornham for evensong. Most of the village appeared to have turned out for the evensong, which was really nice - the church was reasonably full. The vicar was great - if you look in the encyclopedia under English Country Vicar, he'll be there, waving at you, complete with booming BBC English. Loved it.

We then retired to a well-scouted and extremely delicious supper at the Briarfields Hotel, followed by a surprisingly short coach ride back to Bury. It was a VERY long day but we all really enjoyed ourselves.

And the sun even came out in the evening!

Pardon the radio silence

We went on an adventure to Holland (mostly Amsterdam and Utrecht).

More pictures (and customary roundup) to follow.

But first: THIS IS THE BEST BIKE EVER. I think I might need to Dutch-ify my bike. Or at least put flowers on the handlebars.

Went to London; rode BorisBikes; met a witch

Husband spent all weekend sailing (with EAST), so I betook myself to London on the train for a Grand Day Out. I booked my ticked last Wednesday, so it turned out that the cheapest advance single to go in was actually first class (first was £22, standard was £24). First class was great - so quiet and chill, with HUGE seats. Definitely worth the advance commitment.

When I got to London, I had intended to take the Circle Line around to Embankment for my London Walk. However, TFL had other plans. Circle Line, closed all day. Lovely. So I set off to find a Boris Bike station, you know, just to check things out.

For the grand price of £1 for the day's access and £1 every time I went over 30 mins on one particular bike (I think I spent a total of £2), it was excellent. Bike lanes everywhere, lots of cyclists, very courteous cars (it was a Saturday), and the wind in my hair. WHEEE! This was my lovely little bike, right after I parked her at Embankment station. Thanks, Boris!

Because of all my exercising, I was thirsty when I got to Embankment. So I went into Starbucks and ordered an iced passion tea. Apparently this is now an off-menu item - they use the passion tea blend for making mango-passion smoothies but aren't really supposed to feed it to the punters. Nevermind...it was delicious.

And I drank it, sitting in the park on these chairs, arranged neatly.

And then I met a real live witch (I met a few at Colby, so it wasn't all that scary), who took us on a walking tour.

Past Cleopatra's Needle. Thank you, British explorers, for bringing all SORTS of random crap back from far corners of the world. I mean, really. A postcard is cool. Maybe a magnet. A 60-foot obelisk kind of takes up a lot of room in your suitcase. But, whatev.

Found a room that if I owned I would probably never leave (top floor, please):

And then had very yummy beef udon at Misato. Not as good as the one I had in Cambridge back in March, but not bad at all. Oh, and when we took James to Cambridge last weekend to introduce him into the cult of the Brisket Udon, they told us that the half-empty restaurant had "no room." SO disappointed, especially since the vegetarian place we went to afterwards was resoundingly and virtuously healthy-tasting (read, not doing THAT again...) and all the more disappointing when contrasted with the imagined Udon.

After my noodles, I braved the rain, went to Liberty (sigh), noodled around Oxford circus, grabbed another Boris Bike, got REALLY lost in Finsbury, found my way again (thank you helpful cyclists in London taking pity on what they thought was a very lost American tourist), dropped off my Boris Bike, bought some very excellent VivoBarefoot shoes (on sale for £28!), and subsided onto my (pre-booked) train home.

Things I learned:
-once you leave the protection of a witch, it's going to start raining
-if you leave your brolly at home, it will rain in London. <-I should really know this by now
-taking a Boris Bike around the roundabout at Trafalgar Square is probably not a good idea
-the Boris Bikes need a real HEAVE to get them out of their docks
-booking National Express train tickets in advance is much cheaper than getting them on the day
-biking is very good exercise
-getting lost makes you bike further, which is also good exercise

And there you have it.

Weekend in Amsterdam

We spent this past weekend in Amsterdam, hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend. We had a blast!

Our favorite things:

Drinking beer from Dutch microbreweries at t'Arendsnest (thank you New York Times article).

Looking at flowers

Going on a Mike's Bike Tour (Countryside edition) with the Wackiest Guide Ever.

Pretending I'm the owner of said Wacky Guide's Awesome Orange (of course) Fiets.

The end of the garbage-men strike (24 hours after we arrived; they had 12 days' worth in the city!)

 ::no pictures - that's a good thing::

Wandering aimlessly through the streets, taking random pictures of wonky houses

Waving at tourists on boats (and getting them to wave back)

Looking at (the wrong kind of) bells

Coveting bicycles (especially Bakfietsen)

Drinking more beer

Eating frites and frikandel, from the frituur recommended by the bartender at t'Arendsnest

Lifting up tiny cars

  Dutch trains, especially the doobledockers (sp?)

 Taking the ferry back and forth (Husband's idea)

Eating a really yummy lunch after finding a gaggle of happy Dutch people sitting outside a cafe, eating food that looked great

There are more pictures on Flickr but they're behind the "friends and family" wall - friend me if you want to see them!

Travels, Part II

After a fun but exhausting weekend up in Durham, I'm off to NY tomorrow. We did lots of horsey things (riding on the cart, which was AWESOME, watching some cross-country stuff), labrador-y things, and various other stuff. We got home last night, did 3 loads of laundry (thank you, sunny day today), and now I'm all packed for NY.

I'll be there for 10 days - one of my all-time-favourite people is getting married this weekend, and then I'll be in RI for a few days with the 'rents. I'm looking forward to NOT thinking about work, work, or work.

I had two small annoying things today, which put me in a bit of a funk this afternoon. First, our long-awaited dentist appointments arrived (no weekend/late hours, and the practice is near where John used to live, so it's not convenient at ALL). I'd scheduled a cleaning/checkup/handover appointment for both of us. I went up for my appointment, where the doctor made a few notes, asked me a few questions, poked around and counted my teeth, took an x-ray and then said, OK, well if you make yourself another appointment we can sort out giving you a checkup and a cleaning and fitting you for a mouth guard. "Wait a minute," I said, "THIS is my appointment. Please do the cleaning now. I scheduled it during my vacation and arranged flights to NYC around it."

"Oh no, we can't do the cleaning today - you'll need another appointment for that." AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! So John and I have appointments in October (the soonest they could do) and we'll both have to take the day off. Apparently this dentist is an old family friend so I couldn't get annoyed at him. I AM going to mention it to the in-laws, though. NOT cool. We PAY for this shit?

Oh, and my second setback? The long-awaited tomatoes that have been green since April have ripened and turned red. Fabulous, right? NO. They taste like winter tomatoes from the supermarket. You know, all dry and mealy and completely flavorless. Ugh. I don't know what's the matter with them, but there are hundreds that are just about to ripen and if they taste like the ones I had today they're going straight in the compost bin. They're 'bush' tomatoes, rather than the stalky kind, but that shouldn't have made any difference. I've never tasted a home-grown tomato that was anything other than delicious - I don't know what's happened.

OK, rant over. I need a vacation.

Vacation!

Well, it's official - I know have 2 weeks off from work. Eek. I realized that I've never taken two whole weeks at once before - it's always been a week here or a few days there. I'm sure they'll be fine without me - I'm not one of those people who compulsively checks email or leaves rambling auto-responses giving details of their cell phone(s), personal emails, Skype names (!? - I had one of those today), other phones, and a detailed itinerary. Nope. If they need to find me, they will.

My dad has been scanning a lot of slides from his epic collection - here's a picture of me at the piano. Who knew that I'd end up in the music biz? (Well, maybe my parents did...)


We're going to see John's brother for a few days - it's always nice to just get away from stuff and veg at their house. Hopefully the sun will come out for at least part of the time we're there - it's been raining and COLD here for a solid week. Ugh.

John made a gorgeous dinner tonight - fresh cherry tomatoes from his mom's garden, roasted with garlic, onion and a chili, and then he added mushrooms and courgettes and some oregano and paprika. We had it over pasta and it was SO GOOD. I'll miss it when we go back to work and I don't have a full-time chef...

I heard a really funny term on the radio tonight while I was driving home (yes, the car is back!). It refers to someone who is slavishly devoted to their GPS (or Sat-Nav as it's known here), to the exclusion of all rational thought and external stimuli. The term? SatChav. I love it. Travis (my F-i-L) is the poster child SatChav.