On Monday (this would be 18 May), we took a day trip down to Brighton. Other than a one-day visit in 2000 to attend a ceremony for my graduation from the University of Sussex, I hadn't been back for nearly 11 years - and J. had last visited me there in 1997. The drive down was lovely and it was wonderful to see the South Downs coming into view as we drove towards the coast.
On arrival, in need of sustenance, we headed for the Mock Turtle, a landmark teahouse just off the seafront of which I have fond, fond memories from my student days. We were gutted, however, to find that it is closed on Mondays! Argh! And I had so been looking forward to some hot buttered toast, a morsel of cake, and a lovely cuppa, served on their wonderful collection of faded, chipped, mismatched china. Ah well. We had to make do with coffee in Bartholomew Square instead, before setting off for an hour's wander around the wonderful Lanes. They are unchanged (except for many of the shops, of course) and as atmospheric as ever. I was impressed with the whole town, actually - it's smartened up a good bit over the past decade, while keeping its distinctive, rather hippyish and bohemian air.
While J. contented herself with lunch at the Hotel du Vin, I hopped on the no. 25 bus (just for old time's sake) and headed out to the Sussex university campus in Falmer village, about 20 minutes away. I walked up to the far end of campus, to the Brighthelm residences where I lived for the first few months after I arrived in England in the autumn of 1995. I headed straight up the hill behind the house where I lived, but was surprised to see that the hillside was under cultivation and there were wire fences everywhere. Eventually I found a way through and was able to climb to the top of the hill, and look down at the wonderful view across the campus and away over the South Downs. I will never forget waking up my first morning there, and looking out my bedroom window at that view. The "green and pleasant land", indeed.
After I took a bunch of pictures, I headed for the Arts block and went to the office of one of my old supervisors, C.D. It was lovely catching up with her again - she's a great person and quite inspirational in many ways. She showed me the manuscript she has just submitted for a fabulous-looking book on the social history of glamour! I can't wait to read that - hell, I wish I was the one who'd written it!
After our lunch, I got the bus back into town, then walked up North Street and Western Road, popping into the shops and noticing all the changes that have taken place over the past decade. Eventually I turned right and walked up to York Avenue, and the house where I lived during most of 1998. I knew that the former owners had sold up and moved on a few years ago; as a result, the place has really changed, and sadly not for the better. The beautiful garden at the back of the house, which my studio overlooked and which the owners kept so meticulously, has been torn up and gravelled over to create tenant parking spaces. And the whole house had a whiff of neglect about it, which was sad. Feeling a bit melancholy, I went two blocks further along the road to Brunswick Place, and checked out no. 66, where I lived during 1996-97 - unlike York Avenue, it is still much the same as I remember it and retains an air of genteel shabbiness. ;-)
By then it was time to catch up with J. again, so I headed back to The Lanes and a "bar du chocolat" called Choccywoccydoodah. Silly name, oh-so-serious gourmet chocolatier. We rolled out the boat and ordered the "Decadent Chocolate Lovers' Banquet" which was so, so delicious...ooh. By rights, we should have walked back to London that evening, just to burn off the calories!
It was so nice to see Brighton again, though it also felt a little strange. My years there seem like they were a whole lifetime ago, and so much has changed. (Weirdly, over the past year I've had several vivid dreams about re-visiting the town and going to see the places where I used to live - only to find that, instead of the familiar streets I remembered, the area was all open fields. Very odd.) At the same time though, by the end of the day, I was definitely getting my bearings again, and remembering why it's such a popular and attractive place to live. I'd like to visit again sometime!
The following day, Tuesday, was the first full day in London together for J. and I. In the morning, we stayed in the neighbourhood and visited the Old Operating Theatre, about a ten-minute walk from our flat. With J. being a doctor and my interest in medical history, it made for a very interesting visit. The theatre is located away up under the rafters of what used to be the women's wards of St. Thomas' Hospital, and dates from the early nineteenth century. This was the pre-anaesthetic era, when medical students would have crowded in to watch as surgeons dosed some poor soul with alcohol or opiates, before commencing surgery. It's remarkable that it survived at all.
Afterwards, we hit the local Sainsbury's for some groceries (so nice to have our own kitchen!) before heading for Holborn tube station and the first of several wonderful London Walks we took during the week. This particular walk was "Literary Bloomsbury and the Old Museum Quarter" and it was excellent, taking us to see sights we'd never have found on our own. I love Bloomsbury, especially its wonderful squares (Red Lion, Russell, Gordon). It doesn't require much of an imaginative leap to picture Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot, and Ted and Sylvia living there...not to mention great artists like Rossetti, Morris and Burne-Jones, among others. We finished the walk with a stroll past Senate House at the University of London (inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984!) and then the forecourt of the British Museum - both places I know so well and spent a great deal of time in, as a student.
But the day was not over yet! We raced home to our apartment, made some supper, then headed out again, walking along the riverside to the Globe Theatre, about a mile away from our flat. I had never been, but after learning about it on my last trip to London and being intrigued, I suggested to J. that we give it a go, and got tickets for a performance of "Romeo & Juliet". I knew the Globe was a pretty faithful reconstruction of a theatre that had stood on the site in Shakespeare's day, but thought that it might be a bit twee and touristy. I was very happy to be wrong about that! I knew from the moment we entered that it would be something very special - members of the cast were on stage as the audience filed in, in costume, playing music and generally clowning around.
And once the performance started - well, it was unlike anything I've ever seen before. The atmosphere was magical, and the production itself very, uh, earthy (hehe...Shakespeare really did write for the common folk). We really got a sense of what it must have been like, to see these plays performed as Shakespeare himself would probably have intended. Truly, a fantastic evening!
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In the next installment, flowers, fairies, shopping and sipping (tea, that is).
N.B. I've decided to work on the travelogue from my recent trip in sections, just to try to make it more manageable. I'm working on creating an album of pics over on Flickr, but in the interim, I'll post a few to this here blog, as we go.
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Arrived at Gatwick Airport at the crack of dawn on Friday 15 May, after an overnight direct charter flight from Halifax. I went straight to the flat of our friends C. and P. (the couple whose wedding we attended in Venezuela two years ago), as they kindly offered to put me up for that evening. Their building, The Circle, is located very close to Tower Bridge, on the south bank of the Thames, and is very cool - the neighbouring buildings are old riverside warehouses, now converted into flats.Shortly after my arrival, C. and P. headed off to work, and I dispatched myself to London Bridge train station, about a ten-minute walk away. I had plans to spend the afternoon doing one of my favourite things - visiting a National Trust property. I jumped on a train and headed east, out of the city to the town of Bexleyheath, in Kent. From there, I walked to Red House, the former home of the Arts & Crafts designer William Morris.
I have always been a great fan of Morris, and was excited to visit this remarkable property, which he designed along with some of his Pre-Raphaelite brethren. I spent some time exploring the small but lovely garden (where I had a staring contest with a red fox in the underbrush) before being taken on a guided tour of the house by a rather doddery old man who was a font of information. I took lots of photos and came away feeling quite inspired by Morris's vision.I got back into the city around 3pm, and since I had time to kill and an all-day Travelcard to use, I took the Tube up to King's Cross-St. Pancras, to have a look at St. Pancras Station. St. Pancras has always been one of my favourite buildings in London - it's a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture. During the years I lived in England, it was in a very sad state, with no regular train services; I used to pass by regularly on the way to the British Library and always wished something could be done to revive it. Fortunately, over the past decade, it has risen from the ashes, and has been completely refitted as the new home of the Eurostar service to Europe. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I walked inside, and saw the wonderful iron girders of the station's enormous glass-roofed train shed, which stretched away endlessly into the distance (my photos don't do it justice!).
The scale of the place is awesome - and the restoration of the wonderful red-brick Victorian Gothic architecture is a joy to see. Beyond the train platforms, St. Pancras is also now home to smart shops, cafes and public art, including a statue of the poet John Betjeman, who led a campaign to prevent the station being demolished in the 1960s. His pose is the very one I found myself adopting as I caught my first glimpses of the station's interior:
At the end of the Eurostar platform, this colossal sculpture can be found. It's called "The Meeting Place" and I think it's wonderful - though apparently lots of snooty art types hate it. Go figure.
Friday evening, I went for dinner with C. and P. (and baby J!) to the Butler's Wharf Chop House, on the river, in a block of buildings recently renovated by Terence Conran. We had an excellent meal - actually, throughout the trip I was really happy to discover how much easier it has become to get good food at reasonable prices in London. It used to be a nearly-impossible task!
The following morning, I was up early and off, via Tube and train, to the town of Watford, northwest of London. Not on anyone's list of touristic must-sees, is Watford - but on arrival, I got a cab to that evening's accommodation, a wonderful country-house hotel outside town called The Grove, where I met up with J. who had just arrived that morning from Montreal. We spent some time exploring the public rooms (including a suite of lounges on the ground floor, located in the original reception rooms of the old house), before hitting the spa for a swim and a steam. We had the afternoon at our leisure in Watford itself, before an early dinner. We spent the evening at a small show nearby - which, in true British style, was held outdoors in very chilly weather, with hundreds of people standing around, listening to the band, drinking and steadfastly trying to make the best of things. ;-)On Sunday we slept late, enjoyed a fine breakfast, and crashed in the lounge with the Sunday papers before being picked up by friend and driven into central London. We spent the afternoon at Dennis Severs' House, in Folgate Street in the East End. It was my second time being there and it was every bit as incredible as I remembered. I resolved to visit every time I am in London. It is quite simply one of the most magical places I have ever been - part historic house, part art installation, part time machine. It's a bit of a well-kept secret, and an utter privilege to visit.
By the time we finished with seeing the house, it was time to check into our accommodation. We booked a one-bedroom flat for the week, in a new building in Bermondsey (about a ten-minute walk south of C. and P.'s apartment near Tower Bridge). The neighbourhood is one I would not have considered ten years ago, but it's been heavily gentrified since, and Bermondsey Street is now home to trendy boutiques and plenty of good bars and restos, as well as the famous antiques market on Fridays. Our apartment was small, but quite comfortable, with everything we needed for the week, and was only a ten-minute walk from London Bridge underground station.
Had a fantastic dinner that night at a place across the road called Village East -a classic Sunday roast with all the trimmings, and some excellent red wine. By the time we got back to our flat, unpacked, and checked our mail, I discovered we'd finally been allocated some tickets for a live taping of The Graham Norton Show on Wednesday night! Very excited about this, as we'd figured they weren't going to come through - J. and I both love Graham Norton and I'd applied online for show tickets back in February. With this piece of unexpected good luck, we knew we were in store for a fabulous week!
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Next installment: a day trip to Brighton, and more literary landmarks than we could shake a stick at...
May's garden pics are now posted here at Flickr. Everything's looking very lush and green, though of course nowhere nearly as advanced as the gardens I saw earlier this month in England. Still, it's my own little patch and I think it's doing great!
At last! In less than 24 hours, I'll be on a plane making my way to London. My bag is packed - and it's shockingly roomy. I'm flying with a charter and so am only allowed one suitcase, weighing no more than 45 lbs. I didn't know how I was going to manage to pack for a 10-day trip, and still have room to bring stuff home - but somehow, I did! My suitcase is a svelte 28 lbs! Luckily our rental flat in London has a washer/dryer - other than my travel outfit, I'm only bringing four outfits and one extra pair of shoes. The latter is nothing short of miraculous, frankly.
True to form, the 10-day forecast for London is showing plenty of rain, but temperatures of 15-20 degrees, at least. I've packed my brolly...
I've decided to resurrect my monthly garden photo diaries over on Flickr. I did them in the summers of 2005 and 2006, but haven't bothered during the past two summers. There didn't seem much point, what with the Great Shed Project of 2007 and last summer's extensive landscaping. But this summer will, I hope, see the culmination of several years of planning work. With the foundations of the new garden now laid, and lots of reorganization of various flower beds and plenty of new plantings last fall, I am very excited to see how the garden will look this year.
So, I've posted a few pics for the month of April, to start. May should be glorious. The trees currently have that wonderfully fuzzy pale-green frill about them - within a week, tender new leaves will be emerging. In the flower beds, we've had daffodils, striped squill, snowdrops and crocuses a-blooming, and the tulips are ready to pop anytime now. The forsythia bush is a little bit early this year also, and is nearly in full sunshiny bloom already.
I was on the website of the Globe Theatre earlier this evening, booking tickets for J. and I to see a performance of Romeo and Juliet when we are in London next month. When I got to the booking page, I typed in my name and then opened the drop-down box to select my title. I was offered the following choices:
- Mr
- Mrs
- Ms
- Miss
- Dr
- Sir
- Lord
- Lady
- Dame
- Prof
- Air Commodore
- Baroness
- Brigadier
- Canon
- Capt
- Cmdr
- Colonel
- Count
- Countess
- Judge
- Lt
- Madame
- Marquess
- Prince
- Princess
- Rev
- Bishop
- Duke
- Viscount
- Viscountess
Finally. I have been waiting to make a post like this ever since I started this blog.
At the end of last week, I was offered a very good job (which I have now accepted). It is with the same unit in the university I have worked at since August 2004, when we moved back to Halifax from Dublin. The job mainly entails identifying and promoting opportunities for international research amongst our faculty members, helping them put together their funding proposals, and then (hopefully) assisting them with managing their successful research programmes. It's an excellent opportunity, and a significant step up from where I am now - with a greater range of responsibilities, lots of room for professional growth, and a corresponding pay rise of about 20% over what I'm earning now. Crucially, it is also a permanent position, with a full range of top-notch benefits. I can't overstate how important this is to me - I have been waiting a very long time for a job like this, and have had to work harder than I ever imagined in order to get here.
When I first joined the unit, I was hired on a long-term contract (4.5 years) to manage an international development project which the university was leading. I admit that at the time, knowing very little about international development, I looked upon the job as a foot in the door - a worthwhile stopgap that would pay the bills for perhaps six months to a year, until I found a permanent position in student services or another area where I had more expertise. I wasn't too worried. I had a vague memory that the Nova Scotia job market has always been tough. But I felt confident that with my education and five years of solid work experience in an Irish university under my belt, that opportunities would be plentiful among the seven higher education institutions in this city, and I wouldn't have much trouble in finding a great job.
Boy, was I wrong.
How wrong? Let me break down the numbers for you. Since January 2004, when I began my Halifax job search, these have been my results:- Applications submitted for advertised positions at Halifax universities/colleges: 56
- Calls to interview: 8
- Permanent job offers extended: 1 (April 2009)
You read that right. It has taken me just over five years to reach what, in my mind, is a normal, reasonable goal - an interesting, well-paid, secure job in my field. Arriving back here in 2004 fresh from Europe (and the booming Irish economy), I would never have dreamed how hard it would be to break back into the job market here, and advance my career. Last year, I even ended up hiring a career coach, to analyze my resume and interview performance and figure out how to present myself as positively as possible. I had completely forgotten how difficult it can be to find good work in Nova Scotia - which is why so many of us leave here in the first place. Coupled with the fact that the university I work for is the most prestigious in the region, and attracts high-fliers who parachute in from other parts of the country to enjoy the famed Maritime lifestyle - well, that makes things very, very tough. There were definitely times I despaired of ever getting on in my career, and wondered if moving back to this city might have been a mistake.
But now, all of that doubt and worry has been swept away. The above has been a lengthy way of saying that this new job I've been offered has been VERY hard-won. The victory is sweet - and it has been a long time coming!
For some months now, I've been ready to throw my old beast of a laptop, the Panasonic ToughBook, out the window. It's so old and slow - I bought it second-hand in the summer of 2006, so it has certainly lived a long life. It began to seriously slow down about 18 months ago, at which time I upgraded the memory from a piddly 256 MB to its maximum of 750 MB. That definitely helped, for a while, but of course every automatic update makes the operating system and associated software that much more bloated and cumbersome. It now takes forever to do its work - so it's time for it to be retired. RIP.
I've now purchased its replacement, and freely admit to having succumbed to style over substance. After some consideration, I decided to go with one of the cheap new mini 'netbooks' flooding the market these days - specifically, the HP Mini 1140 NR, Vivienne Tam edition, which is being hyped as the world's first 'digital clutch'. I'm loving the tiny size and lightness of it - it will be so easy to travel with this little machine. But really, it's all about the looks. It's the prettiest computer in the world! Look!
Like any fashion item, there are of course matching accessories to be had, at a price. To wit: a wireless mouse, a padded tote (though the machine is sold with a protective red satin sleeve), and even a chiffon scarf. I've yet to succumb to the charms of those, though.
Today's my first day of using this little beauty and I'm liking it so far. The compact keyboard (92% of full size) works very well, though people with bigger hands would probably gripe about it. Haven't tried out the integral webcam or Bluetooth capabilities yet. My next priority is to set up wireless printing and transfer files over from the old laptop. Also, I need to get MS Office installed, but must wait until Monday when I can borrow a peripheral CD-ROM drive from work - a built-in drive is notably missing from these machines.
The only thing that I'm not crazy about so far is the trackpad. The buttons - which should be at the bottom of the pad - are instead placed to either side. Maybe there's some special technique to this, but I'm finding it impossible to use the trackpad and click with the same hand. Quite annoying - but perhaps I'll figure out a way around it.
In the meantime, I am continuing to admire it as an object of wondrous beauty fair. :-)
I've booked my 2009 holiday, and simply cannot wait. I'm heading to London for just over a week in May, with a quick pit stop in Dublin on the return journey. It will be my first trip back to Europe in an unbelievable five years (after last autumn's vacation to Paris got cancelled). I will NEVER stay away so long again.
Anyway, it's a girls' holiday - I'm travelling with JT and will meet her over there. We've rented a flat in nouveau-boho Bermondsey, a neigbourhood in SE1 that I know not at all, so I'm looking forward to checking it out. (As an added bonus, my friends C. and P. live not half a mile away from our rental flat.) We've got a pretty busy week planned, including museums, London Walks, theatre, and the Chelsea Flower Show, as well as a day trip down to my old stomping grounds in Brighton and a big birthday party for a friend of JT's. It should be a blast - I absolutely cannot wait to reacquaint myself with the city.
After our time is up in London, JT is headed for Spain to attend a conference. Rather than just fly home, I decided to hop over to Dublin for two nights, for a quick visit (though now I wish I was staying longer). My old friend and work colleague E. has kindly offered me a place to stay while I'm there, and I'm really looking forward to catching up and seeing how the city has changed since I left. Not forgetting to make time for a fabulous lunch in the cafe at Avoca, of course!
Just checked the calendar - I leave in just over six weeks! Yay!!
It has been a transformational two weeks, since I last posted about the reno. In that time, we have gained a functioning kitchen. It's so amazing!
On March 9th, our Hanstone quartz countertops were installed. The colour is a grey-green called "Juniper Green" (and incidentally, that shade is being discontinued - apparently I got one of only three slabs of the stuff remaining in Canada!). Once the counters were in, everything else fell into place very quickly. The following day, I got home to find that the plumbers had hooked up the sink and dishwasher, and installed the taps. The electricians had also done their thing, wiring in the dishwasher and cooktop, and installing the undercabinet lighting and all the dimmers and switches.
Later that week, the cabinetmakers returned to do some adjustments and attend to a few small details. From that point, I was free to start filling up my new cupboards. I spent a day cleaning them out, then unpacked all my dishes, cookware and food - bringing the essentials up from my 'camp kitchen' in the basement, and getting everything else out of storage. So I've mostly spent the last week trying to get things in that area organised. I've been cooking in the kitchen for about a week now, too - and it's fantastic. Yesterday, for instance, I made a pie - and compared with my old kitchen, the experience was like night and day. Great to have so much space to spread out, and not have to deal with a horrible tile countertop (with bits of food getting stuck in the grout - yecchh).
This past Friday, the flooring guys came back to give the floors in the kitchen and hallway a final buff and polish - they look beautiful. And now, I would say we are about 85% finished. The only jobs remaining for which we need to bring in professionals will be the installation of heating, and the tile backsplash. The tiling will probably not happen for another month or two, but the delay is my fault since last month I changed my mind about what kind of tile I wanted. Still, the lack of a backsplash isn't preventing me from using the kitchen now, so I can live with a short delay.
There's all kinds of cosmetic work remaining to be done, of course. We're still waiting for some of our cabinet hardware to be delivered from Toronto. And we have to sand, refinish and install door and window frames, put up a new dining room light fixture, and repaint both the kitchen and dining rooms in one colour (the pale green I initially chose for the kitchen is just not working, I've decided). But those are jobs we can do ourselves, in our own time.
So since I now have a working kitchen, this will be my last regular Reno Diary post. I'll do ad hoc updates from now on, as and when we finish other bits of work. But in the meantime, I've posted new pics taken today to the photo diary. It's been an interesting couple of months, but I'd say things have gone quite well, all things considered. The results so far are a vast improvement, and well worth all the effort!
