Sunday in London

The weather is being very kind to us, well we think it is. Today we had arranged to meet cousins   in the city.  It seems to be a long time since we have done a walkabout in London and I had just about forgotten how interesting the City is . Our station was closed today, and so was he train line we wanted to use once we got into the city. Bother. I think we had become a bit used to all the liens working as they were during the Olympics and Paralympics. Oh well there is always an alternate route.  We were only a little late to meet up. It was great to be able to share family history details with a fellow enthusiast. The Man is great when I go granny hunting, but you can tell by the glazed look, as well as the fact that he has been known to doze off while I am enthusiastically looking through old documents at different archives, that it is not as good an occupation as going fishing.

After arming the new granny hunter with information, we had a nice stroll around the city, chatting and stopping for coffee here and there, until suddenly we noticed the time and decided that we really should be going our separate ways and head home.

I did take some pictures to add to my 'Interesting Architecture' file

I don't know what it is, but it is an interesting comparison between it and the shiny Gherkin.

An interesting reflection of the Shard

Entrance to the very expensive hotel,

Topiary at teh entrance to the Savoy. We were disappointed to discover it was plastic

Lazy saturday

What a lovely day. Still and sunny a bit cool, but not unpleasant. Excellent to get all the washing done. Might not seem an important task for a sunny Saturday, but it really was, I had almost 2 weeks’ worth of washing to get done. I think I’ve said before that the laundry in or building has set hours that it opens and closes. So when I work until 1730 and by the time we get home it is too late to get any washing done because the laundry closes at 1900. It is a good thing that both The Man and I wear a work uniform. I think mine makes me look more like a hairdresser than a nurse. But it does mean that I don’t have to wear my own clothes to work in. Using the dryer does go against my greenie grain, but it beats turning the place into a Chinese laundry for the weekend.

So domestic chores done we grabbed the granny trolley at and went to the supermarket to stock up Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. There is a store around the corner called Iceland. Just about everything it sells is frozen, and you would be surprised at what you can get thee, Today I spotted chocolate covered strawberries.  They also have fried rice and veg, and all manner of Asian and Indian pre-prepared dishes, fish and chips, roast dinners, fully assembled hamburgers, just heat and heat; and all manner of desserts.

A couple of weeks ago during one of my lunchtime outings  at Canary Wharf I walked past a film crew, and the same chap who was talking into the camera was the narrator in a wildlife doco we have just been watching.  

We spent a very lazy afternoon, The Man dozing over a National Geographic and me with sorting out my genealogy folder. Tomorrow we’re meeting up with the son of a cousin who is interested in the family tree.

Friday usings

Ah. It is so nice to be sitting at home, G & T in hand. Knowing that tomorrow The  Man and I don’t have to get up early, absolute luxury. We’ve had two weeks of early starts and late nights, easy peasy when you are teenagers, but unfortunately The man and I can no longer call ourselves that. 

The teenage girls who ran away with her teacher has been located and her teacher mate taken into custody. Well he is one teacher who won’t be working at his chosen profusion for a very long time, if at all.  I thought he was a music teacher, but it was maths that he taught. I reckon he couldn’t do the math.  Something quite wrong with running away with someone who is under age. Though I thought that I heard today that the age of consent in France is 15. Looks like he will possibly be a guest of the government for a long while. 

I’ve just switched TV channels and caught the tail end of an add for a horror movie that makes the claim that   ‘you will never sleep again’ I don’t do movies like that; don’t want those sort of images in my brain, thank you very much. As those who know me will already be aware of I’m more a ‘Finding Nemo’ sort of person. Years ago I read The Exorcist and that freaked me out enough not to want to go anywhere near anything like that again.  I’m not at all keen on the blood and guts beat em up movies at all. Though a bit of action like the Bourne movies is ok. Don’t do bad language either. F this and F that is guaranteed to turn me right off. 

water, water, everywhere...

Not sure what to write about tonight so I will just tap away until the muse wakes up and helps me with something interesting. It seems that in the week we wee away in hamburg the weather has undergone a bit of a shift an d has become quite cool and wet.  Morning temperatures have been between 8 and 11 degrees.

Talking about water reminds me of a headline about NZ I saw on stuff this morning. It was about the threat of water shortages again in Wellington this coming summer. Why is it do you think that the powers that be always wait until there is a crisis before encouraging people to conserve water. It was the same here last summer. Now Britain is in the midst of the worst storm in 30 years which has caused flooding and even contributed to a couple of deaths. But back to the water thing.  I remember when The Man and I lived in NZ’s Bay of Plenty. In The nearest city (about a 20 minute drive away) the local council changed the rules and installed water meters in every household. OK it didn’t happen overnight, but after a relatively short time the every house had a meter. So what happened next?

I’ll tell you. What happened was the people who were using the water suddenly realised how much the precious liquid was costing them and became very conservative in their use of it. That meant that the expected income from the water usage dropped considerable, well it wold wouldn’t it if folks took more care. So what did the council do then? They put the fee for water up.  Incentivising the population even more. People bought special set ups to catch rain water from their roofs to use to water the garden.

Todays news

There has been a bit of a fuss over here about a 15 year old schoolgirl who has run away from home with her 30 year old teacher. The interesting thing is that the two of them being watched by the school because previously they had been spotted holding hands at a school event. The mother has been on TV basically saying come home all is forgiven…yeah right.  The news has been full of it since the weekend, you’d think that nothing else had happened in the world. 

Oh but there has, Andy Williams has died aged 84. Andy who, do I hear you say. Andy Williams. He sang  Moon River, oh come on you must have heard of that song. It was the theme from Breakfast at Tiffanys. His TV show included regular appearances of the famous Osmond brothers. Now you must have heard of them. No! Donny and Marie Osmond were the famous brother and sister, part of the group. We would look forward to watching the show each week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flm4xcOyiCo

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/7735661/Moon-River-crooner-Andy-Williams-dies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b_6u6XmyFE

Had a phone call from The Man this morning that I wasn’t at all impressed with. What did he have to tell me?  That he was going to work late. Hmm that means that I will have no traveling companion for the trip home, good thing I have a book on my phone to read.