An Update

Hello everyone. So sorry that it's been such a long time since I've updated. Most of you know that I've been picking up hours at a different HMV, an HMV that is open until the late hours of the night (10 p.m.), so my hours have been all over the place. However, my contract has now been terminated (sounds harsh, but it's not, it's just that time), so for now, my HMV jumper is strictly pyjama-wear. It's the end of an era....

Now, because of all this, I haven't gotten out to see/photograph anything new. So, while laying around in bed the other day, I decided to snap some photos of the things that surround me here in London. I certainly don't take enough photos of my room/house, and I think in a couple years time I'd very much like to remember what my walls looked like here. So, I'll share with you...

This is the collection of stuff I have sitting on my radiator and adoring the wall above it. You can see as follows:

• A collection of Christmas cards, including the lovely hand-drawn one of the monster from the SkiFree game from my sistah.
• Some artifacts from the London Underground, including a "No Gambling" sign, a mis-printed no-drinking metal sign, a sticker meant for the closing doors and a Northern Line roundel. No, I didn't steal any of these, they were purchased at the Acton Depot.
• Various newspaper clippings, including a story about Polaroids, a story about Stephen Fry, and some pictures of the English countryside.
• An Oyster Card holder signed by Alan Davies.
• Three vintage 1950's Daci box-cameras (one has film in it, ready to use on my next big adventure!)
• A "The Stig" stress doll bought on sale for 40p at Sainsburys.
• A "Keep the Post Free" squeezy given to me at a protest a long time ago.
• And several of my favorite books (pictured later).

Here is a tiny bit of what sits on my windowsill. In the mini-ketchup bottle are bits of shells collected from the beach in Brighton. The larger holder is the bottom of a 1700-1800s bottle found on the shore of the Thames, and it's filled with old, broken bits of watches found at a stall in Portobello Road market.

Here is a collection of photos that I've taken (most are found on this blog or on Facebook, if you have me on Facebook). These are the only photos that I've had printed of my own since I've been here, the rest of the photos on my wall have been purchased. Having all the photos together like this really shows me what colors/themes I seem to gravitate to... Hmm.

And finally, my four favorite books here in London - there would be five, but Kirsten borrowed the Richard Hammond book when she was out here. Nothing too exciting, and sadly enough I've only read one of them to completion, but that's okay. I'm cherishing them. Especially the bottom on. 'Cuz that one's signed. And in this photo. Mmm.

I'm afraid for now I don't have much else to offer you. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my room, for those of you who haven't yet made the trek to come and visit me! By the weekend the weather should improve and I should have more (new) photos to show you! x

Some Random Winter Snaps

Hello again and welcome to a quick photo dump of some random winter shots I've taken. To be honest, I haven't had the opportunity to take my camera out much, partially because I've been working a lot, and partially because it's been quite chilly and grey outside.

Either way, I hope you enjoy the few shots I have to share with you!

From the first snowfall of the season, which you see below, I managed to make this teeny tiny snowball (above). It didn't last long.

While Saturday was my last official day at HMV (even though I got called in yesterday, unofficially), the Saturday previous was the last day for the other Christmas temps, so we all went out for drinks to celebrate!

On the left is me and Sabina, while on the right is Sam (left) and Chris (right), wearing Sam's bright pink hat. Work wasn't the same last week without them all!

And here's Amanda and Kevin, partying it up Monopoly style. Amanda always wins at Monopoly, it's a bit unbelievable...

And as you can see from all my mortgaged properties, I seem to always fail. Fail fail fail. It's always good fun though.

There's more pictures where these came from, so stay tuned!

The Stig

Well, seeing as it's well past December now, and I never really got around to sharing all the Stig fun-facts with everyone, I thought I'd best get around to it!

So here they are, in all their glory!

Some Say....

• He things a wreath on the front door means you house won a race.
• He never has the carrots. Never.
• He thinks tinsel is a snack.
• He can see through wrapping paper.
• He leaves decomposing pine needles all over your carpet.
• Giving him brandy butter would be a very bad idea for everyone.
• In his cultire the traditional Christmas gift is soil.
• He likes it when the Great Escape is on. But only because he's in it.
• That song from The Snowman makes his arms fall off.
• His favorite Christmas treat is a nice glass of myrrh.
• He puts his decorations up in July.
• He should not under any circumstances be allowed near tangerines.
• You never see him and Father Christmas in the same place.
• He has a lucky sixpence somewhere inside him.
• His idea of a carol is Ace of Spaces.
• Everyone Boxing Day he really does have a mssive fight.
• He sometimes gets carried away and wraps his own hands.
• He's good at pretending to be interested in your grandmother's stories.
• He has a small electrical fault that makes one of his eyes flicker.
• He stuffs his turkey with gears and engine parts.
• All he wants for Christmas is 47lbs of raw meat.
• He thinks ten Lords-a-leaping is just too many.
• He could make it a while Christmas but he can't be bothered.

And... for Christmas!

Some say... he wished you a very Merry Christmas. At least, we assume that's what he's gesturing.

I must say, best advent calender. EVER.

The (Late) Christmas Post!

Welcome, dear reader, to my very very late Christmas post! I don't have many photos to share, but I thought you'd enjoy the following glimpse into my holiday season!

These lovely people make up 3 of my 4 flatmates. From the left is Tamryn, Kevin and Amanda. I was helping out Amanda and Kevin by taking their photo for a holiday card they were sending to family when Tamryn jumped in the photo for an impromptu snapshot!

On Christmas day we went down to Tamryn's friend's house for a Christmas lunch and some festive mulled-wine drinking.

There was also some festive hat-wearing.

After the lunchtime festivities we retreated back home to video chat friends and families, and begin cooking.

Amanda is vegan and so she cooked a little tiny (albeit expensive) tofurkey, as well as a lovely roast for the rest of us meat eaters. She also made all the stuffing by hand (I know, AMAZING!), and slaved over the stove for hours for the rest of us.

Tamryn is doing her part in stirring the gravy.

This is the only snapshot of our lovely meal that I managed to take before devouring all of it. On the plate you can see the following:

• Apple dumplings
• Bun
• Brocolli Bake
• Roast Beef
• Hand-made stuffing with cranberries
• Potatoes, onions and carrots
• Mashed potatoes
• Gravy
• YUM!

To say the least, OM NOM NOM NOM. It was so very tasty and we all ate so much the rest of the evening was pretty much spent sitting around drifting in and out of sleep.

And finally, to round off the festive day I present to you the build-your-own robot I gifted Kevin with in our flatmate secret santas. You can turn the little switch on underneath and he runs about chomping in a very honorable attempt to be Godzilla. Rawr.

It was a very lovely, low-key Christmas and damn, that food was good!

Shiver

As you can clearly see, the UK is in the middle of what the BBC calls a "deep freeze". I admit, temperatures of -20 isn't exactly "deep freeze" material for me, but it is for the rest of the UK population, where we're running out of gas and salt, and our poor little birds are dying, which is sad. In the meantime, it looks lovely and crisp outside, and I'm doing my part in feeding the birds.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've worked now 10 days in a row, out of choice I should mention since today is my last day and I wanted to squeeze as many shifts in as I could. I'm going out with work people to celebrate (?) my last day and as of tomorrow, I'm unemployed again. I've got a list of posts that are on their way soon enough, most of them leftover from Christmas and New Years. Oh well, we can still remember the recently-departed holiday season!

For now, I'm off to work!

Warning: Geek Alert!

Okay, if you care not for computers or anything of the sort, please advert your eyes. Because here comes a whole WHACK of it. Okay, maybe not a whack. A pinch. A pinch of nerd for you.

First, that picture there. No, I didn't take it. And no, it's not real, either. It was fabricated and I stole it off the internet to use as a background. I also rearranged my icons. And I'm quite proud of my little toolbar at the bottom. I like having all my icons down there.

As well, I finally got the SD card slot on my laptop to function! GOLD STAR FOR ME! I finally wormed my way into the device manager files and deleted a bunch to do with the SD reader and then downloaded the new driver software and TA-DA! Ooooooh yeah. Now at least I don't have to break out the card reader every time I want to import files. Ahhh.

I had to share that with someone. No one here seems to find it impressive when I organize my virtual desktop... Hmm.

That's all my nerd news for now. You can resume your regularly scheduled lives.

Spiders!

I'm not entirely pleased with this large spider that has taken up residence (and build quite an impressive web) across the front of my balcony. As long as he stays outside, we'll stay friends. And if you're wondering, he's quite large... about 2.5 inches from tip to tip. And no, I'm not going to hold up a ruler to him. His web is quite lovely, though, about a foot and a half in diameter and has one long anchor line right down to my fence.

Aleida's Visit in one long super-post!

Hello, and welcome to the last two weeks, where Aleida and I have been having fun all around London. We did a lot of shopping, which wasn't exactly picture-worthy, so I didn't take too many pictures. The pictures that I did take (except for those in Brighton, which will follow), will now be presented to you in minimal order. Enjoy.

It's Aleida's face! And me, taking a photo! And Trafalgar Square!
Here's a lamp I thought was cool in Portobello Road Market.
This is the view over London from the top of Primrose Hill. We went to Primrose Hill, a supposedly fancy neighborhood, to look for famous people, and we saw none. The view wasn't as nice as people said, but it was still decent enough for a photo.
These girls were moving the puppets around in tune to some music. For money. They weren't nearly as entertaining as the Skeleton Man, so we didn't give them any money and carried on.
It was a bit windy on the Millenium Bridge, making an impromptu comb-over for Aleida. St. Paul's is in the background.
Yay! Proof we were together!

This was the sight of the neightborhood of Notting Hill the morning that the famous Notting Hill Carnival was to start. But, if we hadn't known that, I just might have started searching for a weapon against the zombies.
Ah yes. Drinks all day. In what appears to be shaving cream. In an art gallery. Classy.
Some people were celebrating by builing impromptu Cuban-style shelters, complete with big cigars.
We're getting ready to paaaaaaaartay!

Popeye!

And a fox made out of garbage bags!
This is beyond awesome. Made out of what appears to be paper-mache. I think they like the carnival.
Grabing a bite at along the parade route.
They are currently doing a live-art thingy on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Sqaure where one person gets up every hour and does whatever they want. (Read more about it here). And no, this man wasn't wearing a black loin cloth. He was nude. Tres nude.
Yep. Very nude. Note the thoughtful people that had parked their grandmother (in a wheelchair) in front of the nude man. She didn't seem to mind.
Aleida's very excited about Buckingham Palace. Jumping-excited, even.
These zombie-whore girls were part of a zombie day in Leicester Square, London. And yes, I censored the one girl's boobs. They were... ahem.... falling out.
The events even including a brain-spoon race. Although it wasn't incredibly fast.
And... continuing the zombie theme.... can anyone tell me what this building is? It has changed a bit since the movie... Now it's luxury flats.
It was known as the Winchester Pub in the movie Shaun of the Dead. It's actual name was the Duke of Albany, although it hasn't been a pub in a while. And yes, you can buy a flat there. See what it looked like in the movie here.
Aleida is pointing at the river that she can see through the cracks in Tower Bridge. Don't worry, the cracks are meant to be there.
One of our many passtimes - eating pork buns from nearby Chinatown while sitting in Trafalgar Square seeing what excitement is on the fouth plinth.
We found an Albertosaurus! Go Canada!
Here's Aleida, very early in the morning, and very excited that we've stumbled upon a filming location for the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Here's what the website says:

The ‘Acme Factory’, on the border of Toontown, where Marvin Acme is killed by the falling safe, and Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) finally gets his just desserts, can be seen in west London. Beneath the neon and palm tree dressing is the Dimco Building, Wood Lane, alongside the new Westfield Shopping Centre, London W12 (tube: White City, Central Line). The Grade II-listed building subsequently became the interior of the ‘British Museum’ in which Mr Hafez (Alun Armstrong) resurrects Imhotep in The Mummy Returns.

And here's a brief view inside. I think at one point someone was tied to that hook, but I don't remember the movie.... Aleida will have to clarify that for you.
This was during the first couple days - we were sitting in Covent Garden I believe.
Aleida holding up the big shoe from the theatre production of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert.
And, what a nice guest - she even cooked me breakfast!
And it was very tasty. But now I have no maple syrup left... back to the Canada store I go...

I'll make sure to post the photos that I took while we were in Brighton as soon as I get around to it. Stay tuned!