I almost forgot! (Sorry, Blogger.) Our kitchen reno is all finished!
Since my last update, several more finishing touches were applied. In September, we decided against the glass mosaic tile I picked out last summer, after the supplier refused to do a custom blend for us (too small a job, apparently). Which is fine, except that they took three months to make that decision and communicate it to us - argh. So I chose another, similar, mosaic pattern, with 1"x1" glass squares in greens, whites, greys and light browns. As it turned out, this is an almost-perfect match for our quartz countertops, so I'm very pleased with the end result. By October, we had a tiler come in to do the work of installing our tile backsplash. Unfortunately, we hadn't done a very good job of measuring, so he got about 90% of the work done before running out of tile! We had more delivered a few weeks later, but by then he'd moved on to other work...and it was mid-February before he returned!! Tradespeople - what can you do?
But with that job completed, we can truly say that the Great Kitchen Renovation is finished. It took nearly 14 months from start to end, but we are so happy with the end result!
My kitchen reno photo diary on Flickr has been updated and is now complete, and can be viewed here (latest pics on the second page).
26 March 2010
08 December 2009
In Memoriam: Fawn the Bun
Fawn: born Dublin, Ireland, April 2001.
We adopted Fawn, along with her mother, Ginger, from the Dublin SPCA in May 2001. She was one of four kits in the litter; her other three siblings were all red, just like Ginger, but Fawn was "agouti"-coloured, like all European wild rabbits (greyish-brown on the fur's surface, sooty black beneath). The photo below shows Fawn (on the right) with one of her siblings, at the DSPCA - aged about five weeks, in May 2001.
She was the smallest of the litter, but made up for it with a sometimes bullish temperament; as a youngster she would often "box" with us, retreating to a corner, getting up on her back legs and swatting with her front paws when we tried to pick her up against her will. She was very active and curious, always getting into scrapes. When she was a year old, her hijinks resulted in the dislocation of her hip, which fortunately healed (though as we discovered later, it left long-term damage).
When we left Dublin in 2004, Fawn made the journey with us back to Halifax - even though it meant thirty days in quarantine (at my in-laws' home) before her import papers could be stamped by Canada Customs!
Many domestic rabbits live for a period of 8-10 years (sometimes more) and certainly in the last year or two, we noticed that she began to slow down. But fortunately for her, as the years advanced and she became elderly, she remained healthy. It was only this past July that we noticed she had developed a limp in her left hind leg. When the limp had not resolved itself after a few weeks, A. took an x-ray which confirmed his suspicions. The hip joint was badly degraded, and Fawn was suffering from arthritis - brought on almost certainly by the dislocated hip she'd suffered in her youth.
As the months passed, her mobility became more and more impaired, to the point that by November, she was unable to use either of her back legs. It was very difficult to watch her struggle. Over the past week, however, it became clear that she was experiencing pain. We knew it was time to do the kind thing, and put her to sleep. Earlier this evening, we said our goodbyes to Fawn, then stayed with her as she was sedated. Finally, A. administered an injection that stopped her heart. Her passing was quiet and peaceful.
Fawn was a wonderful, much-loved pet - the longest-lived of any of our rabbits. We will miss her very much.
Fawn: died Halifax, Nova Scotia, 8 December 2009.
01 November 2009
Blondie at the Casino
A few weeks ago, when I found out that Blondie were coming to town to play two shows at Casino Nova Scotia, I decided to check it out. Sure, they're well past their heyday, but with such a wealth of brilliant, classic songs, it seemed like a show not to be missed.
It didn't disappoint. We checked out the show last night at the Casino's Schooner Room (my first time in that venue, which seats 1,000 and is quite pleasant). The set was a shortish one, being just shy of 90 minutes. But the performances were solid and they cranked out lots of classics - "Call Me", "Hanging on the Telephone", "Maria", "The Tide is High", "Atomic", "Rapture", "Heart of Glass", "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence Dear", "One Way or Another". Granted, Deborah Harry's voice isn't quite what it used to be, but at 64 (!!) that's to be expected. She looked fabulous in a tight, sequined fuschia dress with matching eyemask (it being Halloween night and all). And I nearly snagged the mask as a souvenir at the end of the night! Debbie tossed it into the crowd as they left the stage, and both me and another girl grabbed it. That person wouldn't let go, so I told her we'd play Paper, Stone, Scissors for it. She won...bugger. Ah well.
My only real complaint about the show had nothing to do with the band - but rather, with the lethargic audience. Most of the people in the crowd sat on their arses the entire time! Which I could understand if the place was mainly full of old folk, but it wasn't. I ended up leaving my seat and heading down to the front after the first couple of songs, to dance with the rest of the people with pulses - which was a lot of fun, and livened up the mood considerably.
It also allowed me shoot a couple of surreptitious videos. Herewith a clip from "The Tide is High":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lKjjHECyzk
For their three-song encore, I was surprised to find that the band performed two covers. The first was a tongue-in-chic, very Blondified version of "My Heart Will Go On" (yes, the Celine Dion song...hehe). The final number was a tribute to Michael Jackson - "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"! A very cool end to a very fun show. Here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNKrLiAhv3E
It didn't disappoint. We checked out the show last night at the Casino's Schooner Room (my first time in that venue, which seats 1,000 and is quite pleasant). The set was a shortish one, being just shy of 90 minutes. But the performances were solid and they cranked out lots of classics - "Call Me", "Hanging on the Telephone", "Maria", "The Tide is High", "Atomic", "Rapture", "Heart of Glass", "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence Dear", "One Way or Another". Granted, Deborah Harry's voice isn't quite what it used to be, but at 64 (!!) that's to be expected. She looked fabulous in a tight, sequined fuschia dress with matching eyemask (it being Halloween night and all). And I nearly snagged the mask as a souvenir at the end of the night! Debbie tossed it into the crowd as they left the stage, and both me and another girl grabbed it. That person wouldn't let go, so I told her we'd play Paper, Stone, Scissors for it. She won...bugger. Ah well.
My only real complaint about the show had nothing to do with the band - but rather, with the lethargic audience. Most of the people in the crowd sat on their arses the entire time! Which I could understand if the place was mainly full of old folk, but it wasn't. I ended up leaving my seat and heading down to the front after the first couple of songs, to dance with the rest of the people with pulses - which was a lot of fun, and livened up the mood considerably.
It also allowed me shoot a couple of surreptitious videos. Herewith a clip from "The Tide is High":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lKjjHECyzk
For their three-song encore, I was surprised to find that the band performed two covers. The first was a tongue-in-chic, very Blondified version of "My Heart Will Go On" (yes, the Celine Dion song...hehe). The final number was a tribute to Michael Jackson - "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"! A very cool end to a very fun show. Here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNKrLiAhv3E
27 August 2009
Kitchen Reno Update - Late Summer Ad Hoc Edition
Ah yes, the kitchen reno. To the casual observer, not much has happened since we started being able to use the new kitchen back in March. As you can imagine, after so many months of hard work and disorder, we felt like taking a bit of a break from kitchen stuff, and just enjoy the new space. In the interim, though, we got on with lots of other jobs that needed doing - painting the front hall, getting some guys in to paint the aluminum siding outside, and having our driveway paved (three years after it was first torn up!).
Still, since my last update, we've done lots of little jobs in the kitchen that needed finishing up - like installing a new pendant fixture in the dining room (to match the ones in the kitchen) and the last of the cabinet hardware (which was backordered and took three months to arrive). The door and window frames (some of which were removed and altered during the reno work) were re-installed and painted. But a couple big jobs got finished too:
So those were the biggest accomplishments of recent months. Still several big things left to do, though:
So, that's where we are at the moment. Next time I update this reno diary, I hope I'll have pics of my new tile backsplash to post!
Still, since my last update, we've done lots of little jobs in the kitchen that needed finishing up - like installing a new pendant fixture in the dining room (to match the ones in the kitchen) and the last of the cabinet hardware (which was backordered and took three months to arrive). The door and window frames (some of which were removed and altered during the reno work) were re-installed and painted. But a couple big jobs got finished too:
- Paint: Argh. What a palaver. Over the winter, before the cabinetmakers came in, I painted the empty shell of the kitchen in "The Thames" by CIL - a pale green I thought I'd love. It turned out to be too minty, however. So the search began for a suitably neutral sagey-greeny-grey colour. Six test pots later, I finally found a winner - "Blue Gray" by Farrow & Ball. Despite the name, it's much more greenish than bluish! And it's very soft, as well. I was worried that grey paint might look too cold, but this one is anything but. And it goes fantastically well with our countertops, too.
- We used the same colour in both kitchen and dining room. Originally, I had planned to leave the dining room with its original yellow paint, which I really liked. But as our kitchen designer/neighbour advised us months ago, once the renovation work was done we could see that with our new open-plan design, the kitchen and dining room would really look best if they were painted the same colour. Luckily, I think the "Blue Gray" looks nice in there too:
- Crown moulding for the dining room: another case in which we should have listened to our kitchen designer/neighbour. When planning the work for our cabinetmaker, she suggested that we replace the existing crown moulding in our dining room with something that would match what was being installed in the kitchen. I poo-poohed the suggestion, however, as I thought the existing moulding was perfectly nice, and at that stage I was determined to keep unnecessary costs to a minimum. So the cabinetmakers went ahead, installed new moulding in the kitchen only, and made the transition between the two rooms as neat as possible. Once the job was done, however, I could see that our designer was right, and that since the space was now essentially one big room, it would look much better if everything matched. So in April, the cabinetmakers came back to take out the old crown moulding from the dining room, and install the new one. It makes for a much neater, cleaner finish - no doubt about it. The moral of the story? When you've put so much time, effort and money into a big job like this, you shouldn't cheap out on the finishing touches.
So those were the biggest accomplishments of recent months. Still several big things left to do, though:
- Backsplash Tiling: ARGH. OK, granted, the delay on this is my fault as midway through the reno, I changed my mind about the kind of tile I wanted. But by mid-April, I'd decided on a variation of this glass tile design, from Olympia Tile:
- I asked Olympia to customize this standard pattern, replacing the blue tiles with a mid/dark green. Along with the greenish-white, grey and brown colours in the pattern, it looks as though it would be a perfect complement to my quartz countertop (which has all those same colours in it). I also love the mini-brick shape (the individual tiles are 1"x2"). Being a custom order, however, we of course wanted to have a sample made, before making a final decision. Placed that sample order at the end of April...waited...and by the end of July and much hassling of our designer to find out what the hell was going on, Olympia admitted that they'd lost the sample order. (Why it took three months to find this out is another matter altogether.) So - currently, I am awaiting my sample, and hoping very much that it will arrive in the next week or two.
- Floors: When we had the kitchen floors refinished in March, we planned to have the guys come back later and give the dining room a light buff and re-coat, as it's got a few scratches. We'd hoped they'd be able to do that this month, but (surprise) there have been delays, and they will come sometime in September now. In the meantime, my buffet and hutch (and everything in it) have been moved into the spare bedroom, in preparation.
- Heating: back in June, we ordered new radiators - European-style, thin ones from Runtal. Given the tight space at the end of the kitchen (and the need to be sure that we had enough clearance to open the door of our lower oven) we couldn't go with standard radiators. However, the good thing about a custom order, of course, is that you can get exactly what you want. The three new rads arrived last week - one will go in the entryway, one under the far window in the kitchen, and one in the bathroom next door (as the baseboard heater in there has never done a good job of heating the room - it's freezing on winter mornings). So a call will be put in to the plumber shortly, to get them hooked up - and voila! We will have heat this winter!
So, that's where we are at the moment. Next time I update this reno diary, I hope I'll have pics of my new tile backsplash to post!
18 August 2009
Short Break in PEI
We went to Prince Edward Island this past weekend, for a little three-day break; a photo album has been posted here on Flickr.
Last time we visited, we focused mainly on the central part of the Island. I had very much wanted to see some of the eastern side, and in particular, to stay at the Inn at Bay Fortune as I'd heard good things about it. But you can't do everything all at once, of course, so we resolved to go back another time. It took us four years, but we finally made it! We booked a two-night package at the Inn, and headed over this past Saturday morning, catching the 10.30 am ferry from Pictou County to Wood Islands.
From there, it's an easy drive to get to wherever you want, as PEI is so small (you could drive the island end-to-end in less than four hours). As with our last trip, we had wonderful weather, and I was struck once again by how pretty and tidy the province is - Islanders take so much pride in their properties. On Saturday morning, we did a meandering coastal drive around the southeastern end of the province, stopping at the Panmure Island lighthouse, before pressing on for the Inn at Bay Fortune. It was really hot by mid-afternoon, and we wanted to get to the beach ASAP.
After checking in to our small (but still comfortable) room in the South Tower, we got changed and headed for Bay Fortune's back beach, just down the road from the Inn. It was a lovely spot, with a long stretch of red sand scattered with seashells. Hardly anyone on it, either, which surprised me (on a Saturday afternoon, you'd think it would be full of kids - but then Islanders are spoilt for choice when it comes to excellent beaches). Spent a lovely couple of hours paddling in the water, strolling, and crashed out on deck chairs with a book, before heading back to the Inn to get changed for dinner.
The package we'd booked at the Inn included dinner on both nights, as the place is famed for its cuisine (and rightfully so). On the first night we had a great three-course meal - I had scallops, followed by veal, and a "reimagined" (!) fruit salad for dessert. The dining room (which is located in the glassed-in veranda of the Inn) is open to residents and non-residents, and was pretty packed that evening. Afterwards, we lay out on the big Muskoka chairs on the front lawn, looking up at the incredibly bright stars (not much light pollution on PEI!). Not only was the Milky Way very clear, but we even caught the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower. I saw four shooting stars in the space of about ten minutes - but then we high-tailed it back inside as the mosquitoes were fierce!
On Sunday, we had a lovely breakfast (lots of fruit, yogurt, yummy homemade muffins, and PEI blue-potato pancakes with poached eggs and spinach), then picked up the picnic lunch we'd ordered from the inn's kitchen before setting off for the beautiful white-sand beach at Basin Head. It's one of the nicest and most famous beaches on the Island, and is known for the curious natural phenomenon of "singing sands". As we discovered, the sand squeaks when you walk across it. We got there before noon, but the main beach was already busy with families, and plenty of teenagers. Luckily, a five-minute walk up the beach took us far away from all that, to a deserted stretch where there were few other people. The perfect spot to set up our chairs and just relax - though the sun was fierce and I was wishing we had one of those big umbrellas! Luckily the water was fairly bracing, so it was easy to cool off by taking a quick dip. We spent the remainder of the afternoon strolling along the water's edge, swimming, and reading, in between bouts of applying sunscreen (though I still managed to get a bit of a burn on my back!).
By 4pm a few clouds had rolled in, so it seemed like a good time to pack up and head off. On the way back to the Inn, we took a detour north of the town of Souris and drove a couple of the waymarked Scenic Heritage Roads that have been designated throughout the province. These are all so pretty - unpaved, red-dirt roads in the middle of the countryside, often used as shortcuts in years gone by, and many are canopied by large trees. They all make for very peaceful drives.
Soon it was time to go back to the Inn, shower away all the sand and sunscreen, and dress for dinner. As it was our last night in PEI, we were booked to partake of the chef's five-course tasting menu in the restaurant. It didn't disappoint. We had a lamb broth with scallops to start, then a garden salad, followed by a lovely piece of swordfish. A scoop of grapefruit sorbet was followed by the main course - roulade of veal topped with salt-cured oysters in tempura, the same dish I'd chosen to eat the night before! Oh well, good thing it was delicious - I didn't mind eating it again. And for dessert, a glass of port and a very nice chocolate mousse. A fine meal - and surprisingly, I didn't walk away from the table in pain! The portions were just right.
Monday morning, after a final breakfast in the dining room, it was time for packing up and checking out. As we weren't planning to get the ferry back to NS until the afternoon, we decided to spend the morning visiting one of the local historic sites - the MacPhail Homestead in Uigg, not far from Charlottetown. I wasn't familiar with Sir Andrew MacPhail, but it turns out he was quite an accomplished physician, scholar, and man of letters in early 20th-century Canada. The house in which he was born, and later spent his summers with his children, is now a national historic site and open to the public. We had a little tour around (a rambling old place, and quite pretty), before taking a stroll around the grounds. The estate still comprises about 140 acres and is now home to an ecological forestry project. There are several waymarked trails through the woods, which made for nice walks.
Soon, it was time to head for Wood Islands and the afternoon ferry crossing back to Nova Scotia. Although we were away for only two nights, it felt longer - always a good thing. A fun and relaxing trip - the sort of thing we should all be doing more often!
Last time we visited, we focused mainly on the central part of the Island. I had very much wanted to see some of the eastern side, and in particular, to stay at the Inn at Bay Fortune as I'd heard good things about it. But you can't do everything all at once, of course, so we resolved to go back another time. It took us four years, but we finally made it! We booked a two-night package at the Inn, and headed over this past Saturday morning, catching the 10.30 am ferry from Pictou County to Wood Islands.
From there, it's an easy drive to get to wherever you want, as PEI is so small (you could drive the island end-to-end in less than four hours). As with our last trip, we had wonderful weather, and I was struck once again by how pretty and tidy the province is - Islanders take so much pride in their properties. On Saturday morning, we did a meandering coastal drive around the southeastern end of the province, stopping at the Panmure Island lighthouse, before pressing on for the Inn at Bay Fortune. It was really hot by mid-afternoon, and we wanted to get to the beach ASAP.
After checking in to our small (but still comfortable) room in the South Tower, we got changed and headed for Bay Fortune's back beach, just down the road from the Inn. It was a lovely spot, with a long stretch of red sand scattered with seashells. Hardly anyone on it, either, which surprised me (on a Saturday afternoon, you'd think it would be full of kids - but then Islanders are spoilt for choice when it comes to excellent beaches). Spent a lovely couple of hours paddling in the water, strolling, and crashed out on deck chairs with a book, before heading back to the Inn to get changed for dinner.
The package we'd booked at the Inn included dinner on both nights, as the place is famed for its cuisine (and rightfully so). On the first night we had a great three-course meal - I had scallops, followed by veal, and a "reimagined" (!) fruit salad for dessert. The dining room (which is located in the glassed-in veranda of the Inn) is open to residents and non-residents, and was pretty packed that evening. Afterwards, we lay out on the big Muskoka chairs on the front lawn, looking up at the incredibly bright stars (not much light pollution on PEI!). Not only was the Milky Way very clear, but we even caught the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower. I saw four shooting stars in the space of about ten minutes - but then we high-tailed it back inside as the mosquitoes were fierce!
On Sunday, we had a lovely breakfast (lots of fruit, yogurt, yummy homemade muffins, and PEI blue-potato pancakes with poached eggs and spinach), then picked up the picnic lunch we'd ordered from the inn's kitchen before setting off for the beautiful white-sand beach at Basin Head. It's one of the nicest and most famous beaches on the Island, and is known for the curious natural phenomenon of "singing sands". As we discovered, the sand squeaks when you walk across it. We got there before noon, but the main beach was already busy with families, and plenty of teenagers. Luckily, a five-minute walk up the beach took us far away from all that, to a deserted stretch where there were few other people. The perfect spot to set up our chairs and just relax - though the sun was fierce and I was wishing we had one of those big umbrellas! Luckily the water was fairly bracing, so it was easy to cool off by taking a quick dip. We spent the remainder of the afternoon strolling along the water's edge, swimming, and reading, in between bouts of applying sunscreen (though I still managed to get a bit of a burn on my back!).
By 4pm a few clouds had rolled in, so it seemed like a good time to pack up and head off. On the way back to the Inn, we took a detour north of the town of Souris and drove a couple of the waymarked Scenic Heritage Roads that have been designated throughout the province. These are all so pretty - unpaved, red-dirt roads in the middle of the countryside, often used as shortcuts in years gone by, and many are canopied by large trees. They all make for very peaceful drives.
Soon it was time to go back to the Inn, shower away all the sand and sunscreen, and dress for dinner. As it was our last night in PEI, we were booked to partake of the chef's five-course tasting menu in the restaurant. It didn't disappoint. We had a lamb broth with scallops to start, then a garden salad, followed by a lovely piece of swordfish. A scoop of grapefruit sorbet was followed by the main course - roulade of veal topped with salt-cured oysters in tempura, the same dish I'd chosen to eat the night before! Oh well, good thing it was delicious - I didn't mind eating it again. And for dessert, a glass of port and a very nice chocolate mousse. A fine meal - and surprisingly, I didn't walk away from the table in pain! The portions were just right.
Monday morning, after a final breakfast in the dining room, it was time for packing up and checking out. As we weren't planning to get the ferry back to NS until the afternoon, we decided to spend the morning visiting one of the local historic sites - the MacPhail Homestead in Uigg, not far from Charlottetown. I wasn't familiar with Sir Andrew MacPhail, but it turns out he was quite an accomplished physician, scholar, and man of letters in early 20th-century Canada. The house in which he was born, and later spent his summers with his children, is now a national historic site and open to the public. We had a little tour around (a rambling old place, and quite pretty), before taking a stroll around the grounds. The estate still comprises about 140 acres and is now home to an ecological forestry project. There are several waymarked trails through the woods, which made for nice walks.
Soon, it was time to head for Wood Islands and the afternoon ferry crossing back to Nova Scotia. Although we were away for only two nights, it felt longer - always a good thing. A fun and relaxing trip - the sort of thing we should all be doing more often!
31 July 2009
In the Garden, July
After such a promising start in June, July has been a bit of a damp squib out in the garden. Most of the month, it rained - causing many of the flowers to droop, rot and break. Also, the lawn has suffered because of so much water, with the old bald patches under the big maple tree re-emerging.
Still, we have had some good displays (photos on Flickr). The stalwart daylilies are as robust as ever, and the deck planters are nice. I also got foxgloves to bloom, after three years of trying!
29 July 2009
Holiday Photos
Poor lil' Panopticon-blog - you are very neglected these days, now that I spend most of my time posting to Facebook instead.
I forgot to note on here (for the handful of readers who do not see this via the blog import feature on Facebook) that my holiday photos from England and Ireland are now posted over here on Flickr.
18 July 2009
England/Ireland Trip, Part the Fourth (and Final)
On Friday morning (22 May), we were up early and practically rolled out of our beds into the famous Bermondsey Antiques Market - located just over the road from our flat. It's an outdoor market, and luckily it was a lovely morning, perfect for strolling the stalls. It's very popular with antique sellers themselves, who get there before dawn to snap up the best stuff for their own inventories. Given that, I thought it might be a bit overwhelming, but in fact it was very unpretentious, not too large, and with a cool variety of stuff on offer. I even picked up a little something for myself - this very pretty framed papercut, ca. 1830 or thereabouts. It's on display in my living room now, and I get a kick out of imagining the lady of leisure who whiled away the hours snipping at this, with a pair of tiny scissors:
Later that morning, it was time for another London Walk. We got the Tube to South Kensington, where we met a wonderful guide who took us around "The Wonders of the V&A". The Victoria & Albert Museum is my favourite museum, and has the finest decorative arts collection in the world. I've visited many times in the past, but still haven't even seen half of the enormous collection. The great thing about this particular tour was that we spent two hours with our guide (a V&A lecturer, no less) who showed us about a dozen key objects, and discussed them in depth. None of them were things I'd seen before. Our visit also reminded me of how wonderful the building itself is. After the tour, we had lunch in the fabulous museum restaurant (partially designed by William Morris!), and afterwards bombed around the always-awesome fashion and costume gallery and a fab exhibition of hats curated by the milliner Stephen Jones. By that point, however, I was seriously flagging, so I left J. to explore the museum some more before I headed back to the flat and crashed for a few hours.
I knew I'd need energy for the evening, as we had tickets to go see a show that night. We got the Tube to Brixton and walked over to the legendary Brixton Academy, where we saw...the Ting Tings. Hahaha! I was actually more excited about the venue than the band, but the Tings put on a pretty fun, high-energy show. And shockingly, we were not the oldest people in the audience - not by a long shot!
Saturday morning, I had a little lie-in, while J. went out for some last-minute shopping. We planned to meet at 11am for our final London Walk of the week, "Old Westminster". But I forgot the Jubilee line on the Underground was closed for engineering works that day, and so had to detour, arriving at the meeting point just in time. J. didn't make it, though, and so we had a frantic flurry of text messages before she arrived at the station in a cab and we hurried to catch up with our tour group. Luckily, we didn't miss much - we had a great two hours strolling the streets of Westminster, looking at the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and the Abbey. Then we ducked into some of the back streets, visiting enclaves like Smith Square to see where many of the MPs live while Parliament is sitting. Not only were the rows of Georgian terraced houses beautiful in themselves, but their facades carried fascinating echoes of the past - from 18th-century street signage, to faded public notices dating from the Second World War. Off Smith Square, our guide pointed out this notice, which reads "Public Shelters in Vaults Under Pavements in This Street". It showed passersby where to go if an air-raid siren went off and a bombing raid was imminent:
After our walk finished, we hightailed it back to Westminster Abbey, which was closing to visitors at 1.30 pm. Luckily, we just made it inside - there was quite the queue, and we waited about a half-hour to gain entry (and paid £15! It used to only be a fiver...still, the place needs money to keep it going, so we didn't mind paying up). It was my second time visiting the Abbey, but it's a place no one could ever get tired of - so much to see, and so evocative. The royal tombs, the stonework, the wood carvings, the windows, the layer on layer of the most incredible history. And to top it all off, while we were there the choir began to rehearse, sending shivers down the spine.
Afterwards, we got some lunch and walked to Victoria Embankment, where we sat in the garden for a bit and ate, before heading home. The busy pace of sightseeing was starting to catch up with us and we were feeling pretty zonked, so we took a few hours of R&R back at the flat, and did some packing as well.
Then at 7, we headed out to meet friends for dinner in the East End, on our last night in London. We decided to walk, and spent an hour strolling over Tower Bridge (on a beautiful, warm, sunny evening no less), up the Hill past the Tower of London itself, to Aldgate. From there we went up Whitechapel High Street, past beautiful Spitalfields Church, Spitalfields market, and the Ten Bells (a Victorian-era pub known to have been frequented by several of Jack the Ripper's victims). We were bound for a curry house at the north end of Brick Lane. Once home to London's Jews and the Hugenots before that, nowadays Brick Lane is the heart of the Bangladeshi community and the street is lined with curry houses, all of which have (sometimes very pushy) touts out front trying to lure you in. So we came in from the western side, to avoid all that, and met up with my friends C., P. and baby J., as well as some other folks who we holidayed with in Venezuela two years ago. C. had taken me to eat at this particular restaurant, Aladin, last time I was in London, and I loved it. Fabulous food, great service, and you can BYOB which is another plus! We ordered a ridiculous amount of food (which cost almost nothing) and wolfed it all down. It was a great evening, which ended with a stroll back to Liverpool Street with C., P. and baby, and we all caught a night bus back to Southwark!
Next morning, J. (without a watch to hand) was awake at 5 am and got herself packed up and ready to go. Since she was already up, she decided to go attend the 8.30 am service at St. Paul's Cathedral, so we said our farewells, and she went on her way for the day. Later that afternoon, she got a flight from Heathrow to Barcelona, where she continued her trip with a few days of sightseeing and then a conference for her work.
I, on the other hand, had a flight to Dublin to catch. I packed up and checked out of our lovely flat, and was then picked up by the executive coach at 9am. It took two hours to get to Gatwick, as the driver had a couple other pickups in the West End - good thing it was a Sunday and there were no roadworks or traffic. In the end, it didn't matter too much, as my flight was delayed by two hours because of an electricity failure on the luggage carousel (airline staff were taking all the passengers' luggage away on trolleys!).
But by 4pm, I had arrived in Dublin. My friends (and former co-workers) E. and A. kindly picked me up at airport - great to see both of them again! The drive into the city was fascinating - building works have continued apace since I left five years ago, with all kinds of new developments everywhere. Ominously, though, some projects - including a second terminal for Dublin Airport - have ground to a halt due to the credit crunch.
I was even more surprised to arrive in E.'s neighbourhood, near the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin 3. It was an area that was only just beginning to be developed 10 years ago, but it's got lots of impressive offices and apartments now - some newly-built, and others converted from old industrial buildings. E.'s apartment complex includes an old gasworks, which has been converted into smart flats, to quite stunning effect:
On Monday, after breakfast, E. and I headed out so I could undertake an inspection tour of my old haunts. We got the DART from the new station at Grand Canal Docks to Tara Street, then connected to the LUAS (the new light rail service) in Abbey Street. The entire time I lived in Dublin, the lines for the LUAS were being constructed and causing all kinds of traffic disruption. Since I left the city just one month before the service started up in 2004, I was keen to go for a ride and check it out. I was pretty impressed - it's clean, efficient, and seems to work very smoothly. The consensus among Dubliners seems to be that it was well worth all the trouble. We took the Tallaght line across the southwest of the city, intending to get off somewhere along the Long Mile Road so we could walk down to my old digs, but I made the mistake of not looking at a map beforehand. We got off in Drimnagh, but I didn't recognise the neighbourhood at all, so we ended up calling a taxi - we got less than a mile down the road before I figured out where we were! Haha. The cab deposited us at Crumlin Cross and from there we walked down to the old apartment in Perrystown. When A. and I left Dublin, we'd joked that the neighbourhood was going to the dogs and we'd probably find a smoking hole in the ground where the building used to be - but not so! Actually, other than the gardens being a little overgrown, the development looked to be in pretty good shape.
Not wanting to haul ourselves back to the LUAS stop, we hopped the no. 150 bus back into town. The neighbourhoods we passed through are still largely the same, except for some smart new condos in the Liberties (which continues to be gentrified). We got off in the city centre, and E. and I did a little wandering in Kilkenny Design and some of my other favourite shops, before heading for Avoca, where we had arranged to have lunch with our old boss and another work colleague. Lovely to see them - and the lunch was fabulous, as always! Manoman, I love the Avoca cafe. To start, E. and I shared an order of chunky chips, cooked in duck fat and served with horseradish mayo (!!!!!!!!!). Then I had my usual order of yummy soup, served with three chunks of my fave Avoca breads (wholemeal, fruit & seed, and cheese soda). The crowning glory of any Avoca cafe visit is always the pudding, though. I had a slab of lemon curd cake with cream - delish.
After lunch, I did a little pre-emptive Christmas shopping on the lower floors of Avoca, then did some more strolling and shopping in Grafton Street, picking up various gifties. Before we knew it, the afternoon had slipped away, and it was time to head for A.'s house in the Liberties. She lives in a cottage on one of the squares built by Guinness for its brewery workers in years past. A couple years ago, she had the place completely gutted and renovated into a very smart open-plan studio, which ended up being featured in an Irish design mag. She and E. cooked up a fab dinner and we spent another very fun evening drinking wine and chatting.
I made sure to turn in relatively early, though - as it was the last day of my trip. The following morning I was picked up by a taxi at 4am, and whisked to the airport to catch my flight to Gatwick and connection back to Halifax later that morning. I wished I'd spent another couple days in Dublin, but it was nice to get in a quick visit with my friends, and check out my old stomping grounds. All round, it was a great trip - some fantastic sights, good friends, food, and shopping. I will never stay away from Europe for so long again!
Later that morning, it was time for another London Walk. We got the Tube to South Kensington, where we met a wonderful guide who took us around "The Wonders of the V&A". The Victoria & Albert Museum is my favourite museum, and has the finest decorative arts collection in the world. I've visited many times in the past, but still haven't even seen half of the enormous collection. The great thing about this particular tour was that we spent two hours with our guide (a V&A lecturer, no less) who showed us about a dozen key objects, and discussed them in depth. None of them were things I'd seen before. Our visit also reminded me of how wonderful the building itself is. After the tour, we had lunch in the fabulous museum restaurant (partially designed by William Morris!), and afterwards bombed around the always-awesome fashion and costume gallery and a fab exhibition of hats curated by the milliner Stephen Jones. By that point, however, I was seriously flagging, so I left J. to explore the museum some more before I headed back to the flat and crashed for a few hours.
I knew I'd need energy for the evening, as we had tickets to go see a show that night. We got the Tube to Brixton and walked over to the legendary Brixton Academy, where we saw...the Ting Tings. Hahaha! I was actually more excited about the venue than the band, but the Tings put on a pretty fun, high-energy show. And shockingly, we were not the oldest people in the audience - not by a long shot!
Saturday morning, I had a little lie-in, while J. went out for some last-minute shopping. We planned to meet at 11am for our final London Walk of the week, "Old Westminster". But I forgot the Jubilee line on the Underground was closed for engineering works that day, and so had to detour, arriving at the meeting point just in time. J. didn't make it, though, and so we had a frantic flurry of text messages before she arrived at the station in a cab and we hurried to catch up with our tour group. Luckily, we didn't miss much - we had a great two hours strolling the streets of Westminster, looking at the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and the Abbey. Then we ducked into some of the back streets, visiting enclaves like Smith Square to see where many of the MPs live while Parliament is sitting. Not only were the rows of Georgian terraced houses beautiful in themselves, but their facades carried fascinating echoes of the past - from 18th-century street signage, to faded public notices dating from the Second World War. Off Smith Square, our guide pointed out this notice, which reads "Public Shelters in Vaults Under Pavements in This Street". It showed passersby where to go if an air-raid siren went off and a bombing raid was imminent:
After our walk finished, we hightailed it back to Westminster Abbey, which was closing to visitors at 1.30 pm. Luckily, we just made it inside - there was quite the queue, and we waited about a half-hour to gain entry (and paid £15! It used to only be a fiver...still, the place needs money to keep it going, so we didn't mind paying up). It was my second time visiting the Abbey, but it's a place no one could ever get tired of - so much to see, and so evocative. The royal tombs, the stonework, the wood carvings, the windows, the layer on layer of the most incredible history. And to top it all off, while we were there the choir began to rehearse, sending shivers down the spine.
Afterwards, we got some lunch and walked to Victoria Embankment, where we sat in the garden for a bit and ate, before heading home. The busy pace of sightseeing was starting to catch up with us and we were feeling pretty zonked, so we took a few hours of R&R back at the flat, and did some packing as well.
Then at 7, we headed out to meet friends for dinner in the East End, on our last night in London. We decided to walk, and spent an hour strolling over Tower Bridge (on a beautiful, warm, sunny evening no less), up the Hill past the Tower of London itself, to Aldgate. From there we went up Whitechapel High Street, past beautiful Spitalfields Church, Spitalfields market, and the Ten Bells (a Victorian-era pub known to have been frequented by several of Jack the Ripper's victims). We were bound for a curry house at the north end of Brick Lane. Once home to London's Jews and the Hugenots before that, nowadays Brick Lane is the heart of the Bangladeshi community and the street is lined with curry houses, all of which have (sometimes very pushy) touts out front trying to lure you in. So we came in from the western side, to avoid all that, and met up with my friends C., P. and baby J., as well as some other folks who we holidayed with in Venezuela two years ago. C. had taken me to eat at this particular restaurant, Aladin, last time I was in London, and I loved it. Fabulous food, great service, and you can BYOB which is another plus! We ordered a ridiculous amount of food (which cost almost nothing) and wolfed it all down. It was a great evening, which ended with a stroll back to Liverpool Street with C., P. and baby, and we all caught a night bus back to Southwark!
Next morning, J. (without a watch to hand) was awake at 5 am and got herself packed up and ready to go. Since she was already up, she decided to go attend the 8.30 am service at St. Paul's Cathedral, so we said our farewells, and she went on her way for the day. Later that afternoon, she got a flight from Heathrow to Barcelona, where she continued her trip with a few days of sightseeing and then a conference for her work.
I, on the other hand, had a flight to Dublin to catch. I packed up and checked out of our lovely flat, and was then picked up by the executive coach at 9am. It took two hours to get to Gatwick, as the driver had a couple other pickups in the West End - good thing it was a Sunday and there were no roadworks or traffic. In the end, it didn't matter too much, as my flight was delayed by two hours because of an electricity failure on the luggage carousel (airline staff were taking all the passengers' luggage away on trolleys!).
But by 4pm, I had arrived in Dublin. My friends (and former co-workers) E. and A. kindly picked me up at airport - great to see both of them again! The drive into the city was fascinating - building works have continued apace since I left five years ago, with all kinds of new developments everywhere. Ominously, though, some projects - including a second terminal for Dublin Airport - have ground to a halt due to the credit crunch.
I was even more surprised to arrive in E.'s neighbourhood, near the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin 3. It was an area that was only just beginning to be developed 10 years ago, but it's got lots of impressive offices and apartments now - some newly-built, and others converted from old industrial buildings. E.'s apartment complex includes an old gasworks, which has been converted into smart flats, to quite stunning effect:
On Monday, after breakfast, E. and I headed out so I could undertake an inspection tour of my old haunts. We got the DART from the new station at Grand Canal Docks to Tara Street, then connected to the LUAS (the new light rail service) in Abbey Street. The entire time I lived in Dublin, the lines for the LUAS were being constructed and causing all kinds of traffic disruption. Since I left the city just one month before the service started up in 2004, I was keen to go for a ride and check it out. I was pretty impressed - it's clean, efficient, and seems to work very smoothly. The consensus among Dubliners seems to be that it was well worth all the trouble. We took the Tallaght line across the southwest of the city, intending to get off somewhere along the Long Mile Road so we could walk down to my old digs, but I made the mistake of not looking at a map beforehand. We got off in Drimnagh, but I didn't recognise the neighbourhood at all, so we ended up calling a taxi - we got less than a mile down the road before I figured out where we were! Haha. The cab deposited us at Crumlin Cross and from there we walked down to the old apartment in Perrystown. When A. and I left Dublin, we'd joked that the neighbourhood was going to the dogs and we'd probably find a smoking hole in the ground where the building used to be - but not so! Actually, other than the gardens being a little overgrown, the development looked to be in pretty good shape.
Not wanting to haul ourselves back to the LUAS stop, we hopped the no. 150 bus back into town. The neighbourhoods we passed through are still largely the same, except for some smart new condos in the Liberties (which continues to be gentrified). We got off in the city centre, and E. and I did a little wandering in Kilkenny Design and some of my other favourite shops, before heading for Avoca, where we had arranged to have lunch with our old boss and another work colleague. Lovely to see them - and the lunch was fabulous, as always! Manoman, I love the Avoca cafe. To start, E. and I shared an order of chunky chips, cooked in duck fat and served with horseradish mayo (!!!!!!!!!). Then I had my usual order of yummy soup, served with three chunks of my fave Avoca breads (wholemeal, fruit & seed, and cheese soda). The crowning glory of any Avoca cafe visit is always the pudding, though. I had a slab of lemon curd cake with cream - delish.
After lunch, I did a little pre-emptive Christmas shopping on the lower floors of Avoca, then did some more strolling and shopping in Grafton Street, picking up various gifties. Before we knew it, the afternoon had slipped away, and it was time to head for A.'s house in the Liberties. She lives in a cottage on one of the squares built by Guinness for its brewery workers in years past. A couple years ago, she had the place completely gutted and renovated into a very smart open-plan studio, which ended up being featured in an Irish design mag. She and E. cooked up a fab dinner and we spent another very fun evening drinking wine and chatting.
I made sure to turn in relatively early, though - as it was the last day of my trip. The following morning I was picked up by a taxi at 4am, and whisked to the airport to catch my flight to Gatwick and connection back to Halifax later that morning. I wished I'd spent another couple days in Dublin, but it was nice to get in a quick visit with my friends, and check out my old stomping grounds. All round, it was a great trip - some fantastic sights, good friends, food, and shopping. I will never stay away from Europe for so long again!
15 July 2009
New Driveway
Finally! We've had our driveway repaved - the last of the jobs remaining to be done from the re-landscaping of our property. The driveway was torn up two years ago, when we had structural work done on our shed. It's been a mess of patchy, broken asphalt and gravel ever since.
Here's the driveway (bisected by retaining walls and a new brick path) just before the work started:
Here's how it looks now (photographed while the asphalt was still steaming hot!)
Very good, when guests come over, to have parking for 3-4 cars again (since our street has almost no visitor parking). And it'll be a hell of a lot easier to clear snow now, in the winter. Plus, it just makes everything look nicer. Except the door to the shed - boy, does it look shabby now in comparison. I'll be putting the scraping and repainting of that on my To Do list - it never ends, when you're a homeowner!
Here's the driveway (bisected by retaining walls and a new brick path) just before the work started:
Here's how it looks now (photographed while the asphalt was still steaming hot!)
Very good, when guests come over, to have parking for 3-4 cars again (since our street has almost no visitor parking). And it'll be a hell of a lot easier to clear snow now, in the winter. Plus, it just makes everything look nicer. Except the door to the shed - boy, does it look shabby now in comparison. I'll be putting the scraping and repainting of that on my To Do list - it never ends, when you're a homeowner!
30 June 2009
Garden Photo Diary for June
June's garden pics are now posted here at Flickr. I think June is possibly my favourite month in the garden. I get lilacs, lilies of the valley, and lupins - what more could you ask for?
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