So I’m settling into the new job. Well, it isn’t actually very settled – very much oscillating between panic and boredom at the moment – but I’ve started to learn InDesign, the program the architects use for putting together brochures and other documents and which did NOT come at all intuitively to me. As one of my new team mates pointed out, progress is being made – I started out disliking it, then moved to ambivalence, and have now reached a “mehh” sort of shrugging, hand-waggling stage.

Other than that, things have been pretty calm. The weather has changed. Though it still isn’t cold, it definitely isn’t summer anymore. I haven’t been in the back garden for any length of time in weeks. In one sense, we’re already settling in for the winter, getting used to coming home in the dark, eating dinner and snuggling on the sofa under a blanket. I can certainly think of worse ways to pass the time…

But on the other hand, we’ve been doing quite a bit. In the last month, we’ve visited Long Melford, the village where Matthew’s grandmother lived in retirement (very charming, full of antique shops) and been to the theatre (to see War Horse, which was genuinely very impressive), a birthday party that featured food, billiards and karaoke, and, since the screening season has started in earnest, at least one film a week. We’ve got several concerts coming up, and my graduation from Westminster. The ceremony will be held at the Barbican Centre, widely considered a Brutalist masterpiece and, in my experience, very difficult to find your way around. One of my classmates joked that maybe the final test is actually finding your way to the ceremony - if you can do it, they'll give you the degree and if not, you've just wasted a year of your life. (I think that last point may be debatable, even if we find the auditorium, but spilt milk, right?) So fingers crossed on that one...

After graduation, I’m going to Edinburgh to visit my friends the Bednars. I’m looking forward to several days of pretty much non-stop chat, interspersed with thrift-shopping and eating. I feel a little bad to realise that their younger daughter Josie is almost a year old and I still haven't met her, but if her Halloween photos are any indication, she is a very cute little piggie. I mean, girl.

4th of July - Cupcakes and Bunting

As per usual, we had a cook-out to celebrate the Fourth of July. The novelty this year was that we actually had it on the Fourth. Last year's was on the fifth, since US Independence Day is not recognised holiday in the UK and everyone had to work on the day. This despite the fact that, as Matthew points out, you'd think the British would've been glad to be rid of us if we were going to be so cranky and rebellious. Or something like that. He has a similar line about Thanksgiving, like being thankful to not have to deal with those dreadful colonials anymore. And then he usually says, "Present company excepted." Usually.

Anyway, we had some people over and had a nice day in the garden. It was lovely and hot, unlike the preceding week, which had been hellish and hot. Our practice barbecues paid off - in a way. Matthew has gotten pretty good at setting up the barbecue with the briquettes and firelighters but his attention still wavers and neither of us is very good at determining when things are cooked as opposed to just charred on the outside while still harbouring dangerous bacteria on the inside. Fortunately, the guests were there to help out. It was sort of audience participation, with everyone taking a turn to flip burgers or turn sausages or say, "Actually, this is still raw inside, I'm going to put it back on."

My position is that I cook inside the house, not in the garden, so I focused more on the baking. We had cupcakes again this year, with flags, sprinkles and little decorations that my parents sent in a pre-Independence Day care package. This is just a sample. There were many, many more than this. Thanks to my friend Adrienne for helping with the icing and decoration. To anyone who got little bits of paper stuck to the back of their flag deco, that was my fault, not hers! I think I have discovered the secret to good icing. I've tried margarine and real butter, with very disappointing results, but apparently the key is shortening. Or as they call it here, vegetable lard. Sounds yummy, huh?

I also made a Victoria sponge cake, which English people just love. It's like a layer cake, but without the icing. There is jam between the layers and the top is dusted with powdered sugar. I added fresh strawberries to this one and dusted the top just before cutting. There were obviously some issues with the filling, which was on the oozy side, but it still tasted very good.
To continue this summer's theme of all bunting, all the time, I made some special red, white and blue bunting, with fabric kindly supplied (and even cut!) by my mom. All I did was lay it out on the floor to decide on the order, then pin and sew. It was great. The flags are raw-edged, with the top folded into seam binding and zig-zag stitched.

And you know how at a party, everyone congregates in the kitchen, no matter how cramped? Apparently the same principle operates at barbecues, as you can see below. Everyone is crammed within 20 feet of the grill (just out of site to the left), while the other 2/3 of the garden is empty, except of deck chairs and a red/white/blue picnic blanket. I just don't get it. Though, to be fair, they may feel they need to keep an eye on the grill in case the cook wanders off.

The postscript is that today I have eaten half a blueberry muffin (Matthew's friend Vincent brought 2 dozen homemade muffins!), two cupcakes, a hamburger and sausage sandwich, and some baklava (brought by Adrienne). I feel slightly sick, but mostly in a good way. I like to think, the American way.

P.S. Apologies on the wonky formatting lately. Blogger is doing my head in!

Paradise Gardens: the Vintage Arcade

The other weekend we went to Paradise Gardens, a free festival in Victoria Park. There were bands and food booths and lots of people sitting around in the grass. My favourite part was Carter's Steam Fair, an old-fashioned carnival that tours the southeast of England with vintage attractions and rides. I took a lot of photos, but my favourite part was the vintage arcade, with all the old penny games. They don't take pennies anymore, but the tokens were 8 for £1, which I thought was pretty good, and according to Matthew, they are the size and shape of old pennies, i.e. really big and flat.

As you can see, these aren't really games of skill, more just "pull a lever and see where the little ball goes". I preferred the ones where I knew I would win something, or at least get some info. We didn't do this one, but a more traditional Love-o-meter said Matthew is a cold fish! I think he was a bit disappointed, but I found it pretty funny.

I consulted the Matrimonial Bureau regarding a future child and this is what I got:

I'm not sure what I think about it. Not only is the baby black - I'm not a geneticist, but I believe that would be a highly unlikely outcome of the two of us procreating - but it also seems to be poor! While we are so solidly middle-class! I wonder if this machine is perhaps not terribly reliable and that it might have given me a picture of someone else's baby.

I was much happier with the results of the X-ray photo machine below:

As you can see, they were very accurate:

Cabbages and Frocks

On Sunday, we went to the Marylebone Village Street Fair, which featured Cabbages and Frocks, a craft fair that normally takes place every Saturday in the churchyard of St Marylebone Parish Church. Almost every single thing was very, very cute! These are some of my favourites:

The theme for the day seemed to be bunting and cupcakes, and although these ladies didn't have actual cupcakes at their table, their items were so sweet, I almost went into a sugar coma anyway. As with all the vendors, I asked if they minded if I took a photograph; when I said it was for a blog, they said, "Oh, we love blogs!" Me too!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a card or web address for them and can't find anything Google-able in my photos, so I have no choice but to go back next weekend so I can link to them.

Linda of Handmade to Measure had a gorgeous table dominated by owls, but also featuring cats, cushions, little coin purses and a dachshund draft excluder. She uses vintage fabrics and some carefully chosen reproductions to make these really bright, beautiful designs. As I was taking these pictures, I heard a passerby say to her friend, "Didn't we make owls like that at school? With fabric and bits of felt for the face?" The friend murmured something vaguely affirmative, and the woman said, "Well, I know how to do that, then!" You may know how to do it, I thought, but you didn't do it. Linda did.

Oh, and there was a roast pig.

Stella James makes beautiful organic knits, mostly for little people. This booth actually made feel a little bit sad that I'd managed to buy and send my niece's birthday present (more or less) on time!

Tarts of Temptation are Cabbages and Frocks regulars. They have cupcakes, tarts, cake by the slice and cake-y things like candles, magnets and little knitted cake ornaments (or maybe pin cushions?)

Just a few tables down was Peggy's Cupcakes, which does what it says on the tin - all cupcakes and nothing but. I am sick with jealousy over her gorgeous, fluffy icing, having recently tested and rejected a new recipe for my 4th of July cupcakes.

I'm also quite jealous of her precious cake stands. I've got my eye on a rather different one on Amazon, but these are so sweet.

And it's probably rude to call Chelsea Pensioners sweet, considering that they are all former soldiers, so I asked these gentlemen if I could take their photo because they looked so resplendent. They couldn't refuse after that - who could?

Italy, part 2

Argh. I don't know what the problem is, but obviously I'm having trouble posting images so that you can open them at a larger size. You know, so that you can actually see the images as opposed to just a small, colourful blob breaking up my text. I will keep working on it, but here are my Italian pictures in a bigger format for your viewing pleasure.

This is Isola Comicina, the island where we saw the attractive (and not quite so attractive) Italian people. We were all so hot by that point that Zach, one of the sons/groomsmen, actually stripped down to his underwear and jumped in the water. It looked so cool and inviting, but all the other guests just looked on with longing, as none of the rest of us were 19 or quite so, um, athletically built, shall we say.

This is the menu from the reception. As you can see, the cover features a lovely painting of Villa D'Este in 1847, which if anything, is even fancier now.

Un Fine Settimana Rapido

A couple of weekends ago, we went to Italy for a quick visit – we flew on Friday, arriving around 7pm, spent all day Saturday attending the wedding of Matthew’s cousin and related festivities, then came home on Sunday. We had a great time, but it was exhausting. And I got sun-burned on my scalp, where I part my hair. Who would think to put sunscreen there? How would you even do that?

The people getting married were Matthew’s cousin Tone and her partner Deen. They have been together for 25 years and have two grown sons, but two years ago, Deen whisked Tone off to a chateau in the south of France and proposed in front of a room full of assembled friends and loved ones. That sounds pretty impressive in itself, but for the wedding itself, they really pulled out all the stops. Thus I attended my very first Norwegian-Nigerian wedding. In Italy. With the adult children of the couple serving as groomsmen. It was awesome.

The wedding was in Como, in the north of Italy. There is no family connection with Italy; as far as we know they picked it because it is absolutely beautiful. We had an unremarkable flight to Milan, then took a train into Como, through very picturesque countryside and little towns. From my admittedly limited observations, I'd say Italians like to have some green outdoor space; almost every place had a little garden or patio or even just a balcony with potted plants and a chair where one presumably sits in the morning and enjoys the first espresso of the day. Although Como itself is fairly flat, it is surrounded by extremely tall, steep hills, which makes for very dramatic scenery. We stayed in the old part of town, which is utterly charming, with the slightly run-down, romantic look of Cinema Paradiso or Il Postino. (We took a taxi back from the reception and saw that the newer part of town is much less charming. It has a lot of concrete buildings that seem to be crumbling in the humidity, rather unromantically.) It was a short, pleasant walk through a couple of piazzas from the station to our hotel, which was itself on a piazza. After a quick freshening up, we went to yet another piazza to meet everyone for dinner. This was quite relaxed - we sat around with some cousins and ate pizza while a street artist recreated "The School of Athens" on the pavement in front of the café and swallows (or swifts or possibly bats - there was much conjecture) swooped down from the cathedral bell tower eating bugs. Then we wandered through a few more piazzas, stumbling upon a Mexican/Cuban band playing an outdoor concert as part of Como's cultural festival, and ate gelato before heading off to bed.

The next day we took a boat cruise from Como to another town down the coast, to a hotel on a hill, where the ceremony itself took place. I don't know the name of the town, only that it was very, very hilly and that the hotel was not really very close to where the boat docked. I think the trek was worth it, though, as the hotel was very pretty and had a fantastic view over the lake. Matthew's young cousin Jake (age 12) kept saying, "Can you believe this is just a 3 star hotel?" like the seasoned world traveller he is. The ceremony itself was lovely, very personal and emotional. A close friend of the couple said a few words, there were two readings, and we all sang the Carpenters' song “On Top of the World”. The mayor of the town came, wearing a very impressive and official-looking tricolor sash, and read long passages from the Italian civil code, making the whole thing legal. These passages were then translated (more or less) into English (more or less) for the benefit of the entire roomful of people there who didn't speak Italian. Tone's sister Anne made a very sweet speech. I got a little misty-eyed, as I often do at weddings, from thinking about love and stuff. I get a bit overwhelmed at times, thinking about Matthew and how utterly surprising and unlikely it was that we ever met. I find weddings the perfect venue for indulging in such sentimental thoughts. It's nice, though, because when I start to get a little freaked out about how easily we could have not met, I always realise that, however improbable it was, we did meet and we are together and I am confident that we always will be because, among other factors, we have fun together, we like so many of the same TV shows, and we have an enormous mortgage together. Oh, the ties that bind... Anyway, after the ceremony, we adjourned to the terrace, where we had a light luncheon. I call it light because it was made up mainly of finger foods, but I realised on this trip that I could eat nibbles, especially crispy, deep-fried ones, for hours and hours without stopping. So not that light. And as we were waiting for the loo afterwards, Matthew and I saw a scorpion. My mother, sister and grandmother have all been stung by scorpions; I never have but I used to be deathly afraid of them, literally screaming and running away like a crazy person whenever I saw one. I guess I'm over that, since I was much calmer with this one. We took some photos, but the camera was still on the black and white setting that Matthew used for the wedding, so instead of scary, the scorpion looks timeless and romantic.

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon on the boat, with breaks in another town for gelato and on Isola Comacina, an island where people dock their boats (not yachts, just regular sized ones). This was entirely populated by young, thin, very attractive brown-skinned people and older, overweight, not-so-attractive sun-damaged people. It was like a “before” and “after” for the Italian lifestyle. Along the way, we saw houses belonging to Richard Branson (rather ostentatious, with weirdly sculptured trees), George Clooney (nice, big, traditional-looking) and Donatella Versace (big but not very impressive - a bit boring). Eventually, we arrived at Villa D'Este, the venue for the reception and the fanciest building I've ever been in that doesn't belong to the National Trust. We had more nibbles, posed for more photos, and I was blown away by the beautiful ladies’ room, so much that I went back later and took photos. I will post those pictures later, but let me just say pink marble, real linen handtowels, and, the best part, bidets in the cubicles, which were, of course, lovely little rooms far larger than our bathroom at home. In fact, the whole restroom “complex,” of foyer, hand-washing area and cubicles, was larger than our old flat.

When we sat down to our five course meal, I realised why even if I can eat nibbles for hours, maybe I shouldn’t. I felt very unsettled and could only pick at my salad and risotto. Jake was in even worse shape. Being a 12 year old boy, he has even less self-restraint than I do when it comes to small fried foods and I don’t think he felt good at all. He eventually bucked up, though, and he and our other young cousin Amy (age 10) had a good enough time sticking the heart-shaped confetti all over their faces. I recovered, too, enough to enjoy the main course, which was beef and veal with a big blob of fois gras on top. I know that geese are treated very cruelly in the making of fois gras – so why, oh why must it taste so good?

There were about a dozen speeches, which could have been torturous, but they were all quite short and either funny or sweet or touching. Then there was cake and dancing and then we got a taxi back to Como, where we fell into bed too exhausted to even be very annoyed with our barely air conditioned room.

On Sunday, we had another uneventful flight back home, then got up the next day and went back to normal life. Except for the sun-burned scalp, of course.

A note: Tone's name is Norwegian. When properly pronounced, it is quite musical, with the "o" stretched out and a lift at the end. However, when I (and most other non-Scandinavians) try to say it, it sounds like "tuna." So I just call her "Toni." Deen is short for the rather majestic sounding Moyadeen (unsure of the spelling), but has the benefit of sounding exactly like "Dean" so I can just about manage it.

Keeping Busy

So what have I been doing with the time that I should have been posting over the last week and a half? Let’s see…

We got our new washing machine last Friday and have been blissfully laundering since. Matthew had several days off so he has done more than I have, but I’m trying to catch up.

Last Saturday we went over to my friend Virginia’s for lunch and got back at 2am. Hampstead Heath, hippies and Spanish people figured in our adventures, more on which later. My niece's birthday party was on Saturday, too. Judging from the photos, there were 4 grandparents and at least one federal judge present, so it had to be fun!

This was supposed to be my last week at work, but they like me so much they want me to come back! I was originally contracted to work for four weeks at an architectural practice in Central London to cover one receptionist being in the Czech Republic for a week and the other receptionist being in South Africa for three weeks. Near the end of the fourth week, we heard from the second girl that she’d developed a blood clot in her leg on the way back from South Africa and so couldn’t come back to work just yet. However, she’d been hospitalized in France and her doctor’s note was in French, so there was a bit of confusion about what exactly was going on. She’s coming back on Monday so I was prepared for this to be my last week, but on Tuesday, they asked me if I’d like to come back to do another role, which involves entering all their project contacts into a data base for use on the intranet they are setting up. Should be pretty boring, but not difficult. I really like the people there, the location is great and the office is very laid back and friendly. Also, this project should last for several weeks, which will take me almost right up to the beginning of the school term. So yay for me! To celebrate, we had a slap-up meal of George Foreman-grilled steaks, broccoli and thick-cut pan-fried potatoes. So tasty it made me wish I got a new job every day…

Also on Tuesday, I found a book club I’m going to try out. I was aimlessly googling and found a group that meets in Central London and is accepting new members. The list of books they’ve read in the past sounded good – I’ve at least heard of most of them – so I am going to their next meeting this coming Tuesday. To that end, I’ve been reading John Fowles’s 600 page novel The Magus, desperately trying to finish by Tuesday. I know I can do it, but I’m just so busy these days, ya know? Also, I’m not finding myself really engaged in the book in a way that would force me to sit down and read for 4 hours at a stretch. So, we’ll see.

On Wednesday, I took homemade kiwi bread to work and received general adulation. There are no photos of the kiwi bread because it mysteriously disappears every time I make it. In fact, all that’s left of the loaf I kept at home is a very small sliver that I’ve saved for Matthew. It’s not a very generous serving, but should be enough to keep him from accusing me of eating it all while he was at work. Anyway, I got one request for the recipe and many, many requests for more bread. I will have do it again in a couple of weeks, if only because the kiwis are “liberated” from the fruit bowl at work so I feel I owe it to the company to give them back, value-added. Some of them, anyway; lots of them end up in my cereal in the mornings.

Also on Wednesday, I went to my new yoga class. It’s my third week and I still feel the next day as if I’ve been beaten up.

On Thursday evening, we joined Virginia and some friends of hers for a picnic on Hampstead Heath. We sat on blankets in the long grass and ate cold sausages, potato salad, olives, pate on crusty bread, and lots of other yummy things while dogs came over to say hello, families rambled by and a boot camp style exercise class kept running past being shouted at, I mean, encouraged by their instructor. It was windy and got very cold but we had a good time and plan to do it again next week. We took the overground train home, which I’d never done before, so that was interesting too. It’s like the underground, except you can actually see things out the windows.

Friday was extremely busy at work. The practice hosted an awards ceremony for architectural students doing sustainable building projects and I had about 30 minutes in the afternoon to set up the “drinks and nibbles” area for about 50 people. It was hard work, but the most annoying thing was that I kept setting out trays of beers, only to have people keep drinking them! Actually what annoyed me was that they kept leaving the bottle caps all over the tables, making them appear very messy, even though I’d set out a little cup for the caps and even “seeded” it with one so they’d see what it was for. Honestly… Anyway, I fell asleep on the sofa as soon as I got home. When I woke up I whined a little bit about making dinner and we eventually ordered Chinese food and watched several episodes of the American Office. Pretty much a perfect Friday night…

Yesterday I did some shopping (to celebrate the Summer Solstice, perhaps?) and today I went to a crafts fair. It was fun and I bought lots of things, but I will have to wait to write about it, since I mainly bought presents for my sister’s birthday (next weekend) and don’t want ruin her surprises!

The Kids Just Wanna Dance, plus an Interesting Exchange

So we went to a children's party at a bar, but it wasn't like that. It was like this. Even without a kid of our own, we had a really good time. There were lots of cool kids (both little and big) in their alternative finest. Our friend Jackson was in a Ramones tee and his girlfriend (from nursery) Kitty had on skinny indie kid jeans and a black sweater with a skull. She also has a coon skin cap(!) which is cute almost to the point of ridiculousness. Here we see Jackson rehydrating after a bit of running around/dancing/bouncing off the walls:

All the grown-ups seemed very cool (i.e. lots of heavy-framed glasses and tattoos) so I was very surprised to find myself in a conversation straight out of a chick flick - and a cheesy one that uses cliches in place of creative writing, at that. Below is a word-for-word transcript of an exchange between me and a woman I had met no more than an hour earlier.

Woman: So, are you two thinking of having kids?
Me: Oh, uh, well, yeah. We were actually going to make that our project this year, but, uh, mmm, instead I'm going back to school. So, ya know...
Woman: How old are you?
Me: (truthful answer).
Woman: Well, don't leave it too long.
Me: (shocked silence).

First, I could not believe that anyone would ask a nearly total stranger if she intends to have children. This is a very private matter and potentially so emotionally fraught! I know people who have chosen not to have children because they are content with their lives without offspring, and others who've made the same choice because their own childhoods were less than idyllic. I also know people who want kids but have run into various physical/medical roadblocks. And there are myriad other reasons people might put off procreating. For example, after a lot of discussion and soul-searching, we decided I would go back to school (more on that later) so that we could afford to feed/clothe/spoil any eventual kiddies. Regardless of the reason, I wouldn't expect someone I just met to want to discuss their most private hopes, fears and dreams with me. Even if I were desperate for a topic of conversation, I would probably open with something like, "Have you seen the US Office? I think it holds up really well against the original." It's still provocative (Brits are insanely proud of the Office) but less likely to make someone cry.

Secondly, who asks a woman her age? Honestly? You can ask any Borscht Belt comedian from the 1950s on - we don't like it!

Third - thanks for the news flash. Is there a woman in her 30s who hasn't been bombarded with horror stories about swiftly-ticking biological clocks, artificial hormones in our food, the dangers or benefits of the Pill, etc, etc, etc? This is not new information. This is information that I have to go out of my way to avoid, skipping entire sections of newspapers and holding my hands over my ears and going, "Nah, nah, can't hear you, nah, nah" whenever it comes on the news. The media really, really want me to know about this; I don't need casual acquaintances to fill me in at social gatherings. But thanks for the tip!