Northern highlights - Part 1

Continuing a look back at our UK trip, here are some photos from "the NORTH" (as the motorway signs call it, forbiddingly).  Specifically, Ilkley Moor, from a walk one morning by the Man and the Girl.

This may be the last blogpost for a few days as I'm going somewhere with little internet access - yay!  Tune in again next week...

Tour de force

Time for a little retrospective on our recent trip. First off, some photos from the Harry Potter Studio Tour.  If you've seen the films you'll recognize the images.  If not, well, you'd better rent the videos...

Throughout the exhibition we were impressed by the attention to detail in the sets and props and special effects.  Even items that would never appear on screen were created to look completely convincing.  That seemed to sum up the dedication of the thousands of people who worked on the movies - all striving to make something extraordinary for millions of others to enjoy.

A few photos: can anyone identify the sets or the characters?

 

 

 

The tour came to a sensational surprise ending - I'm not going to put in any photos of that in case you ever go!

Out with the old, in with the new

For a few weeks AT&T had been sending text messages to my phone telling me I needed to swap it for a new one by the end of the month as mine (a 2G) would be going out of service.  So I duly turned up at an AT&T store today and requested my free replacement phone.

The young man I spoke to seemed baffled - this was all news to him.  I presented him with my trusty state of the Ark, not-smart-at-all Nokia, and he looked at it as if it was something rare that I should take to be evaluated by the Antiques Roadshow.  He may have had a point.  Eventually a colleague confirmed that, yes, this phone swapping deal thing was for real (though not many people had asked about it, presumably because not many people stick with the same mobile phone for six years), and I'm now the proud owner of a new GoPhone.  But what a shame no-one advised me first to save all my phone contacts, which have now been lost forever.  Sigh.

Back at the house, some rather more dramatic updating took place today.  We had our pool liner replaced.  The old one had reached the end of its useful life, to the point of the vinyl sagging and bagging and springing a leak, so we've finally done the (yikes, how much???) necessary.  I have to admit, it's a huge improvement. 

The Boy briefly braved the new water, which at just over 60F is about 25 degrees colder than a few weeks ago at the height of the July heatwave.

Mail order

In Linton we heard tales of Dave the Postman, a dedicated fellow who daily braves every crazy barking dog and suffers every inadequately-sized and/or snapping letterbox in the village while on his rounds delivering the mail.  As he is generally on foot, and delivers right to the door I imagine most villagers know him to say hello to.

On our American suburban street, the mail is delivered by a mailman in a white mail van.  Since he doesn't have to get out of his van (he just reaches out of his window) to put the mail into our box at the bottom of the drive (or to take it out if we have the flag up to indicate mail for collecting), it's not often that anyone gets to say hello to him. Today, however, I happened to be standing on the drive when his van came along, so I took my mail directly from him.

"So, you been on vacation?  How was it?"  he asked.  (He hasn't had to stop at our house for the last two weeks because we put our delivery on hold.)

"Very nice, thank you!"

"Where did you go?  England?  Visiting family and friends?"

Whoa! It's a little unnerving when someone you've never spoken to apparently knows all about you. But I daresay the mailman, without ever stopping to chat, knows more than most about everybody on the street - our interests, what we've ordered from Amazon, who shares our surname in a foreign country...all sorts of potentially fascinating details.  Who needs electronic surveillance?

Journey through space and time

And we're back, after a long but thankfully uneventful journey.  We trundled our cases down to Watford Junction to catch the bus to the airport this morning, and, thanks to the magic of the time difference, we arrived in Albany on the evening of the same calendar day despite being in transit for nearly 17 hours.

At Heathrow the kids invested the last of their English money on treats to share with their friends here - a selection of crisps and sweets, which somewhere over the Atlantic, I suppose, turned into chips and candy...

Time now, I think, for an early (or is that very late?) night.

Last full day

Our last full day in the UK.  My brother and family came over from Oxford, and the Man's parents came from Reading, and we twelve crowded round my parents' table for lunch and later tea.  Lots of chat for the adults, while the kids set each other treasure hunts which involved multiple journeys up and down the staircases of my parents' tall house - who needs a running machine?

Tonight we are packing and tomorrow morning we'll be heading out to the airport and back to the States...wondering if England will seem as unreal to us when we're there as America feels to us when we're here.

London tour de Grandpa

We contrasted our day of forest fun yesterday with a day in the city today - a trip to London, planned by my Dad.  He is quite an expert on all things London, especially new architecture and transport, so we were intrigued to see where he was going to take us.

Since the Olympics, the East End has been where it's at, so we headed there via rail, underground and Docklands Light Railway.  We spent a long time in the Crystal, a fantastic free facility sponsored by Siemens that explores all aspects of planning and building sustainable cities.  The kids were fully engaged by the interactive displays.  Over the course of a couple of hours I felt like I only absorbed a fraction of the information on offer.  We'd all like to visit again.

From there we took the spectacular Emirates Air Line cable car across the Thames, though the view was marred by constant rain.  So that's something else on the list to do again. 

A delicious late lunch at Wagamama restored our energy before we went to explore the O2 building, which the Man and I last visited (with a very baby Girl) in 2000, when it was still called the Millenium Dome.  Back then it was pretty much filled with generally disappointing exhibits.  It's now packed with eateries plus a concert venue and cinema.  A museum of British pop music should be opening soon.

Then we took the tube to London Bridge and explored that area - looking up at the newly completed 1000-foot Shard and eventually crossing Tower Bridge (pausing at the central crack) - before returning to Euston to make the journey back to Watford.

Even in the pouring rain, London is a cool city - and with new buildings going up and new attractions opening all the time, it just seems to get cooler with every visit. 

If you went down to the woods today...

We spent last night in Newmarket, so as to arrive nice and early this morning in Thetford Forest where we had a date with some apes.

Though actually we were the apes - high up in the ropes course run by the Go Ape company.  Man and Girl did the full tree-tops course (including high zip lines and "tarzan swings"), while the too-short Boy and I tackled the (still pretty high-up) Junior course

 
Good times were naturally had by all, but the Girl probably relished the experience the most - she's always been quite a fearless climber.

We hung out for a while in the forest, exploring climb-on constructions the kids had enjoyed when they were littler, plus a "musical forest trail" featuring all sorts of instruments to jump on, bash with sticks and so on.  By the time we left in the early afternoon the car park was packed, and though it never felt at all crowded it was really great to know that so many people were there having fun in the woods.

East or West, friends are best

We were sorry to leave beautiful North Yorkshire today, but it was time for us to head south again.  On the way we stopped briefly in Sheffield and managed to cross paths with S (sometimes known as Kawasaki Jack), my best friend from college days - we studied Japanese together. 

Since he lives in Japan and we're usually in the States, we haven't seen each other for quite a few years, so we were very happy indeed to grab this rare opportunity to get together. 

We first met nearly thirty years ago. Of course we're much older and more staid now than we were back then...

...or maybe not

.

With friends like these, who needs anemones?

We've had an excellent day today with the Rockfish clan who are holidaying here in Yorkshire. We've walked for miles along rock-pool strewn beaches and cliffs, filled up on fish 'n' chips on the seafront, enjoyed the peculiarly British charms of Peasholme park (including dragon-shaped pedalloes and a guy playing show tunes on an organ in the middle of the lake).  Then we all drove up the coast to Whitby, for a cup of tea and a good explore down Diagon Alley-style streets and out along the harbour wall, enjoying great views of the cliffs and ruined abbey.

We've ended up at the Rockfishes' holiday cottage sharing pizza and laughs (and Wi-Fi).  My family should really sleep well tonight after so much fresh air and fun.  Even the Girl might manage to sleep through what she dubbed the "snorechestra" informally formed by the rest of us in our tiny shared bedroom.

Scarborough fair

We're in Scarborough.  It's a fine place which I will tell you about in more detail when I have better access to WiFi than our Youth Hostel can provide - it's hard work blogging on a phone from bunk bed.

Parting party

We drove up to Yorkshire today to attend Auntie Pat's funeral - a sad day, but with so many people gathered from far and wide to remember her it was a celebration too, which I think she would have appreciated.  The crematorium was packed to overflowing.

I have caught up with numerous relatives and family friends, and the kids have reacquainted themselves with cousins once and twice removed (or however it is that they are related) and we've all enjoyed the hospitality of my eldest cousin and family.  There was a grand spread of food and a house full of people and I don't think Pat could have had a better send-off.

Berried treasure

We spent the day in Reading, visiting the Man's family.  We caught up on all the news and enjoyed the usual excellent spread (particular thanks to the maker of the lentil casserole - she knows who she is. Yum!).  It was good to see everyone again.

Out for some fresh air at the local play park, the Boy and I discovered a hedgerow full of ripe blackberries.  In addition to brambles we had to negotiate nettles to pick them, but we managed to fill two bags with fruit.  It didn't look as if anyone else had been picking - do people not do that anymore?

Parking and points

One last morning in Linton, spent mostly in the delightful company of Insanely Livid and family, drinking coffee from very appropriate mugs.  I did, however, regret the third cup of coffee when we got stuck in stationary traffic on the M25 for an extra hour en route to Watford...

We pulled onto my parents' drive just minutes before Cheaper Tyre and children also arrived outside the house (it turns out they, too, had been playing let's-pretend-the-M25-is-a-car-park).  We spent a lovely, if rather chilly, afternoon with them in Cassiobury Park.

The Man and I made an outing to Sainsbury's this evening, to stock up on Rice Krispies etc.  We were surprised that our store reward card still clocked up points - after six years tucked safely away in the Man's wallet.

"In spite of the rain, much fun was had by all"

This morning we were lucky enough to get a tour of Linton village college from Mathz Expert and one of the Girl's friends. We had an excellent lunch at the new cafe - Linton Kitchen - featuring delicious bread from another new venture in town: the Jigsaw Bakery.

The afternoon was a continuation of the non stop party that apparently characterizes Linton life, including friends, food, talk and laughter: tea and cakes intermittently interrupted by heavy rain showers, then back with Maths Expert and family for dinner.

A fond farewell

Here in Linton it has been a day of friends and coffee and country walks and more friends and more coffee and chickens and friends and Guinness and friends and...well, you get the idea.  A little exhausting, but lovely.

Tonight's blogpost is dedicated to my Auntie Pat, who until her recent illness was a regular reader of this blog.  She died yesterday.  Her zest for life, positive spirit and unfailing kindness and generosity will be so much missed by all her family, and countless friends.  There's more love in the world because she was in it - and there is no better legacy a person can leave than that.

Ye olde village life

Moved on today from one set of excellent hosts (my parents) to another- Insanely Livid and family

Yes we are back in our olde village of Linton. Doesn't seem to have changed much in two years apart from some improvements in the way of new shops which is good to see.

Also enjoyed catching up with April Fool and co., and looking forward to seeing other good friends tomorrow.

Magical experience

 After a wonderful night's sleep we woke up ready for a day of visitors (lovely to see some old friends who dropped by) and an afternoon of magical adventure.

My parents happen to live in Watford, which is just a hop and a skip from Leavesden, where the Harry Potter movies were filmed.  (In fact my Dad used to work there, when the site was still Rolls Royce, before it became a Warner Brothers Studio.)

We were very excited today to take the Harry Potter Studio Tour.  We had to book our tickets weeks ago to ensure ourselves a place.  And - wow!  It was amazing.  Really, a fabulous experience.  I won't go into detail here, partly because I don't want to spoil any surprises if you haven't been (and you should!) and partly because we're all pretty worn out after five hours taking everything in.  But we'll sort through some pictures and post some more soon.

Home is...

Well, we're not looking too bad after barely three hours sleep (at best) last night - they don't call that flight the red-eye for nothing.  It's good to be at Grandma and Grandpa's, and oh my, it'll be good to sleep in a proper bed tonight.

At Albany Airport...how many months ago was it?  Ah, only yesterday...a security officer, noticing our British passports, asked if we were going home. 

"Yes!"  I replied brightly.

"Vacation?" she asked.

"Yeah..."

"How did you like Albany?"

"Oh! No, we haven't been on vacation.  We live in Albany - but we're going home for a vacation..."


As ever, now that we're in England, Albany and everything about our American life seems like something we dreamt up.

In transition

We're on our travels again - for the moment (oddly enough) back in Pennsylvania.  We got here much faster this time, though.

We don't plan on sticking around.  As I write, there's an hour or so to go until our next flight...

See you on the other side of the Atlantic!

Commercial break

The Man gave me a very beautiful bowl for my birthday (from the very local Live and Love Pottery), and of course he and the kids went to a lot of trouble to prepare a wonderful meal for me.  But no birthday is perfect.  Even though the Man and Girl both saw this awesome infomercial during breakfast at our hotel in Harrisburg last week, I didn't get a Perfect Polly, the ultimate mess free pet.

Watch the video. It's true. It's amazing.

A lot of Bosch

You'll no doubt be wanting the answer to yesterday's challenge.

Not an anti-mosquito device (more's the pity - the bugs are suddenly out in force and I've got bites all over); and no, not a laser pointer or anything to do with a TV.  But Old Dog is smart to remember that I've previously mentioned buying a dishwasher...

Our new Bosch dishwasher is one of those with all the controls hidden along the top edge of the door. It's so quiet, allegedly, that they've added a special light-up-the-floor feature just to let you know that it really is switched on (you might argue that this is a bit of a gimmick).  For the record, it's not some top-of-the-range model, just the one that was on special offer at Lowes. What I most like about it is that, so far, the slide-in racks haven't collapsed while full of glassware; it hasn't yet tried to wash the dishes without any water or, by contrast, overfilled with water and leaked all over the floor- all amusing idiosyncrasies of our previous dishwasher. Oh, and it washes the dishes really well, too.  So, we're very happy with it.

In other news, it rained all day.

Red light zone

We have some new technology in the house.  Any guesses as to what (and why) this is?

Hark...

The Boy hosted a basement get-together with...well, it sounded like everyone he's ever met.

I think there were only seven of them, actually, but with a set of drums and a fully amped electric guitar between them, not to mention some more than adequate pairs of lungs, let's just say they put out some volume.

Even the Boy grew tired of all the noise.  He ended up sending half of them out into the backyard, so that the rest could get on and film some comedy videos - ostensibly the reason for the gathering.

They all left, promptly and politely (they may be loud, but they are all ever so polite), at exactly 5 o'clock.  Two have since returned, however, for a sleepover...and the not-nearly-distant-enough sound of drums throbs through the house once more.

Bookstore

What with the skating competition and the epic amusement park trip, we didn't have a whole lot of time left over for sightseeing around Harrisburg (Pennsylvania's state capital).  However, we did manage to spend an hour in one of the world's most beautiful bookstores, the Midtown Scholar.

As much a social venue and meeting place as a bookshop (it includes a cafe/bakery and plentiful places to sit, read, play chess or watch a reading or performance), the main part of the building is a barn-like construction with a lofty beamed ceiling.  But there are galleries and side-rooms and winding underground passageways to secret extra rooms...and of course, books and books and books. (Including ancient complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica, yours for $350).

 All in all quite a magical shop.  We were excited to discover it.

How to make Mum's Birthday Dinner

The Man, Girl and Boy write...as Albaniana hinted yesterday, making birthday dinner for her didn't go entirely smoothly. The Girl made a card for her immediately afterwards to show what happened...

 

Turns out, the white powder in the unmarked plastic container with the baking products is not caster sugar! Thankfully, the Girl wanted to taste some of the cake mixture, but that's one batch down the sink...

Question: Is Albaniana ready for Tomato Chutney birthday cake..?

Turns out, when you pick up one of those clever cake tins with a removable bottom you shouldn't just hold it by the side (unless you want the chocolate cake mixture all over everywhere).

However, it's an excellent opportunity to taste lots more batter. Which thankfully is sweet this time.

Despite the problems with the batter, we decide to make some icing. Turns out, you should check how much icing sugar ("confectioner's sugar") you have before you start mixing in the milk. 

Man rushes to store for more sugar. Return is delayed by Police closing off road back to house!

Meanwhile Girl and Boy are given chance to learn how to cook sausages, rice and tofu. From the packet instructions and Google. Girl freaks out, and runs around trying to find pot lids, making phone calls for help, telling Albaniana 'everything's fine, don't be alarmed' and screaming at her brother, who helpfully sets the table and makes popcorn.

Inevitably, there was another packet of icing sugar on the counter top all the time. Turns out the Boy knew. (The Boy writes - in my defence I thought it was something else and they knew it was there).

'Nuff said. Except, by some miracle, everything turned out fine and the food was delicious...