New Year's Eve with George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh

I've received some positive feedback from some of you, and I'm glad that you're enjoying seeing what Bob and I have been up to thus far in the adventure. My favourite review, though, has to be the email I got from my dad, which began, "I enjoyed reading your whatchamacallit, a visual record of your life in London." Thanks dad!

Anyway, there are some fireworks happening tonight down at the London Eye--but we didn't even consider heading down there (the chaos caused by Vancouver's summer fireworks "festival," held right at our (old) doorstep succeeded in making us even less interested in fireworks crowds than we already were) and decided to have a quiet new-year's-eve walk instead. We passed by the oddly doubly-signed

built in 1807. It was originally one square, but was abruptly divided into two in 1812 when a road was built through its middle, which of course angered the surrounding high-class residents, who then sought more dignified accommodations. George Orwell is said to have written some of 1984 while living on the square and Evelyn Waugh lived just around the corner. Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell, also lived on Canonbury Square. (Information courtesy of a book from the Stoke Newington Library!) The square was deserted when we were there, but it was more than beautiful enough on its own to compensate: A lovely tranquil new-year's-eve scene.

Happy 2007 to all of you, near and far!

Foodie Saturday

Today's Saturday and we've been finding that during the week we work on getting ready for so-called real life here in London, and on Saturdays we play a little. The day started out sunny, so we decided to head to Hampstead Heath. On our way to the rail station, we spotted this fantastic tree,

and when we looked to see what street we were on, we realized we were on our friend Jonathan's old street. (We had also just left Fiona's old street and were within a one-minute walk from the street where Gerald was born--suddenly London seems quite small.) Almost as soon as we arrived in Hampstead, the sky turned grey, then dark grey, then black. I managed to snap just one pic (more waterfowl) before the rain started and we retreated to the high street,

where food beckoned. We were going to try a sandwich shop in a small lane off the high street, but then we both spotted the familiar green and blue design of Parisian street signs . . . in Hampstead? When we went to investigate, we discovered a tiny crêperie stand. I had the galette complète (mmm! buckwheat!) and bob had ham and cheese. "I should have had something more adventurous," he said while watching the different crêpes being made, but his must have been yummy, because he ate it very very quickly.

After lunch, we remembered we were out of coffee and decided to get some of the good stuff. On the way, I noticed this odd sign in the Leicester Square tube station:

Tube humour. It kind of made me feel nostalgic about being on the NYC subway! Back home again with some purchases, once again posed on our kitchen counter:

Monmouth Coffee is amazing. We had trouble deciding which beans to get and when we asked one of the staff for advice about two of their numerous kinds, she described them and then offered to make us samples, if we had time. If we had time! She took small amounts of beans from both bags, ground them individually, then brewed about a medium cupful of both. While we tasted both coffees, we noticed other customers staring at us and our samples, probably wondering how they could get so lucky. It was a good thing that we tasted both, because we immediately preferred one over the other and bought a pound, er, 500 grams--and for not much more than our favourite beans in Vancouver or Seattle. Oh, and maybe you're wondering what's in the unmarked white packages beneath the coffee?

Cheese!--but not just any cheese. You can buy Neal's Yard Dairy cheeses in Vancouver too, but we wanted to check out their shop and we weren't disappointed. Here are the two that we bought:


Tiny slivers, mind you, but extremely delicious.

24-Hour Chocolate Ukuleles

The simplest things can turn out in unexpected ways. Take our newly purchased clock radios (for the spectacular price of £3 each, we splurged and got "his and hers"):

We've never owned clock radios that could tell James-Bond time before--in Canada, we use the 12-hour clock, with A.M. and P.M., but here our clock radios only tell 24-hour-style time. On our way to Fiona and Gerald's for dinner tonight, we decided to get off the bus a few stops before Angel and walk down a side street that we had noticed from the bus: Camden Passage.Although most of its businesses were shut today, we found a wonderful assortment of shops, pubs, restaurants, and a chocolate shop that looks very promising indeed. The short street had a wonderful feel and reminded us how many treasures there are to be found off the main streets in this urban labyrinth. After our short walk, we took the tube from Angel to London Bridge and then the train to Sydenham, where we were treated to a delicious dinner of beef casserole, leeks, and potatoes, followed by a multi-course finish of hot mince tarts with clotted cream, a cheese platter, fruit, and after-dinner drinks! Fiona's parents, Grahame and Josephine, are in town for Christmas and so, together with Gerald, we all had a lively time talking about England, how to distinguish different types of cream, what "agistment" meant, whether Bob is related to Robin Hood, whether there really is a Robin Hood, Winnie-the-Pooh, and some of the interesting and unexpected things that Bob and I have encountered three-and-a-half weeks into our adventure. Some of us even got musical.

Three Signs and Our First Ready Meal (28 December)

Those of you who know me know that I like getting a good deal--which we've been doing a fair amount of here in London, as long as we forget alllllllll about the Canadian dollar and just think in £. Even the bank manager at our branch (we had an appointment to set up our joint account today) laughed when we moaned at how little our bank transfer from Canada amounted to when converted into £. "You have to forget about dollars and just think in pounds," he said, "or you'll feel all crazy and pack up and go home tomorrow!" Anyway, even though I think I have a keen eye for deals, sometimes you need luck and timing to get the best ones, and we missed out on this one, spotted tonight NEXT DOOR to our flat:

I especially like the cute stationery and the smiley face--double the friendliness! It was tough to leave this treasure behind, but we already bought these items last week and I hope that someone else who appreciates such generosity scooped up the bag after we passed it by.

Bob and I are both finding that even the simplest of information can often be a fun challenge to process. Take this sign outside Tesco, whose fine print doesn't quite match what's above, at least by our Canadian expectations: And this one, inside,
which struck us as very odd. I still can't look at this photo without thinking that the photo doesn't quite match the text! But rutabaga is also a strange word, so who am I to comment?

After another busy day of shopping (we now have enough things in our flat to make a mess--which is simultaneously comforting and annoying), we decided we were too tired (I would say "pooped," but Fiona informs me that people don't use that word here for anything except, well, the past tense of pooing) to cook and decided to take advantage of a) our "new-to-us" secondhand microwave, purchased today from a couple in Clapham South who were moving back to Australia, and couriered home by Bob on the tube and b) the amazing variety of "ready meals" available in London supermarkets (sorry Hugh).

While part of me is embarrassed to say so, our dinner was great! The flavours were less complex than Vij's boil-in-a-bag takeaway, but everything was mighty delicious and the naan had that wonderful naan-y texture that even typing makes my mouth water. The price certainly can't be beat: this made a huge meal for the two of us for less than £6. I should have taken a photo of the refrigerated isle from which we picked these items, because the Indian section alone was enormous and we had some difficulty choosing--more for another time, I guess-- although I do feel a bit funny "cheating" on my beloved Sainsbury's . . .

Haberdashery

Well, today was another shopping day. When you're setting up house and the sales are everywhere, there isn't much choice!

I know, I know: using an Evening Standard headline is pretty predictable, but their headlines are always such an exercise in excess that they never fail to amuse. A great little London 'zine did a photo-spread a while back about all the uses of the word "chaos" in Evening Standard headlines and it was pretty funny to see all the types (tube, educational, financial--you get the picture) of chaos apparently plaguing London.

Today we got two laundry hampers, after scoping out quite a few in various shops. I can't remember the last time I shopped for a laundry hamper in Vancouver, but there certainly wasn't this type of selection. Storing one's dirty clothing seems to be an art here (with prices to match). Speaking of prices,

I went into Liberty for the first time today. From the imposing Tudor exterior to the equally moneyed wooden interior, it's one place that's definitely out of my price range, even with the 50% off sale. I saw a lovely handmade tea cosy (so cute! so great!) that would have been a great partner for our newly purchased £5 teapot, but for £52 I gently set it down and walked away...far away.

In spite of such ridiculousness, or maybe because of it, shopping isn't as devoid of cultural worth as this roll shutter, spotted just off Tottenham Court Road, suggests. For example, I heard a word today that I've never heard uttered aloud, when a shop employee gave directions to the escalator by suggesting a left turn at haberdashery. Haberdashery! Okay, maybe I'm the only one who gets such enjoyment out of that word. Anyway, it's also fascinating (if exhausting) to witness which daily norms quickly get erased (such as standing on the right on escalators to let people pass on the left; and studiously avoiding bumping/pushing/crashing into others) and which remain firm-- queuing is still the rule. My favourite moment was in a department store elevator, which we decided to take since the one item we wanted to look at was on the top floor of the shop. As one woman very aggressively shoved her way to the back of the elevator, stepping on a man who was nicely holding the door open for the rest of us, he muttered, "I'm here too!" without getting any response. When the same woman pushed her way back to the front of the packed lift to get off at the very next floor, the same man yelled, "Oh, just going one floor, are you then? Well done! Excellent! Cheers!" The elevator was full of smiles as the doors closed.

Barbara Kruger on Boxing Day

It appears that we didn't learn our lesson last week because we headed back to Oxford Street to check out the Boxing-Day sales. Since we were looking for household stuff, rather than clothes, we stuck to department stores and ended up getting a chef's knife and a rice cooker, both 20% off. Selfridges was probably the craziest of all today, packed with people swarming for savings on the most stylish goods. I don't think I'll ever get used to their Barbara Kruger advertising, though. Apparently, she's been working with Selfridges since 2003 and has not commented about that relationship, but I wonder whether the shopping elite feel validated or mocked (or both) by her banners, glaring her trademark red throughout the shop, as they proclaim, "You want it, you buy it, you forget it," "It's new, it's you, it's everything, it's nothing," "Buy me, I'll change your life," and "I shop therefore I am."

Christmas Day

Hello friends and family! After spending a while getting photos on this blog, I've finally sent all of you the link so you can see what we've been doing since you last heard from us. As I said in my introductory post, I'm hoping to add new photos each day so you're up-to-date on our adventures in this huge playground of a city. The posts will probably make the most sense if you start at my first post ("YVR-LHR") and work up from there, but where you go from here is up to you...

Last night we talked about what we were going to do today for Christmas. Our yummy dinner was all planned, but what should we do during the day, when practically everything was shut for Christmas? We decided to go to Richmond Park to see some of the 650 deer that roam the park. We figured out how to get there and were excited about our plans, but then I flipped through a brochure I had picked up at some point during our tube journeys, Travel Information for the Festive Season, which informed me that there wouldn't be any tube, bus, light rail, tramlink, riverboat, or national rail service on Christmas Day. We were stunned, since it had never occurred to us that all public transportation would shut down. We would be, in effect, stranded in our neighbourhood. So, one change of plan later and we walked over to

to see our neighbourhood deer instead.

After our Christmas dinner of roast lemon chicken, new potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and brussel/s sprouts (the sprouts on the branch are SO sweet and delicious); and our dessert of Christmas pudding, drizzled with double-cream, and dotted with my hard-won blackberries, we sat down for some Christmas-Day Scrabble.

In case you're wondering, I lost 353 to 402. Not fair, considering I made dinner!

Christmas Eve

There's been very little rain and certainly no snow since we've been in London, but some resourceful people at a nearby construction site didn't let the lack of snow stop them from spreading some winter cheer:

And although we did most of our grocery shopping yesterday, there were a few things we still needed to get before the stores closed down for Christmas and Boxing Day, so it was back to Sainsbury's for us. We thought it would be busy, but completely forgot about the concept of perishables being marked down before a two-day store closure, and were shocked at the end-of-the-world crowds and mentality we encountered, especially in the produce section. The markdowns were substantial though, and I soon found myself stocking up on some fruit and vegetables at some very very reasonable prices.

The blackberries may not be as yummy as the ones that Bob and I used to pick along the Stanley Park seawall (you can't beat berries that are still warm from the sun), but they'll make a nice accompaniment to the special Christmas pudding (chocolate, of course, to satisfy Bob's chocolate tooth) that we're having with our Christmas dinner tomorrow. After bringing home our shopping, we decided to head out for a Christmas Eve walk...if we were in Vancouver, we would be heading to the Hoffman open house for good company and their splendid food spread, but I suppose since they went out of town this Christmas, at least we didn't miss anything! When we were almost home, we came across a very strange sight for Christmas Eve:

This tree didn't get to have Christmas! The garbage wasn't in front of a flower shop; it was just outside a residence. Maybe the people went away for Christmas and didn't want to leave the tree drying out while there were away? Regardless, it was a bit sad.

But to balance that sad sight, here's a pic of the tree we got a few days ago...the smallest tree I've ever had, but a cutie and a happy addition to our flat.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Market Day

We decided to wander about today, collecting various ingredients for a yummy Christmas eve and day, and although we thought we were up and about early for a Saturday, we discovered that some people had set about their errands much earlier:

I ran to the back of the top level of our double-decker bus to snap this picture, since it was a sight we'd never seen in Vancouver--an impressive queue at the local butcher shop two days before Christmas.

After picking up some veggies at the Pimlico farmers' market, we passed by this plaque, marking the place where Mozart composed his first symphony. There was a man in the ground-floor left window, eating his breakfast, but I walked past until he wasn't in the shot--I wonder how many times he's been sitting in his window when people have stopped to snap a pic of his house...

Being in this part of London felt very strange after being so immersed in setting up our flat--we've been surrounded by neighbourhood-y things for the last while and suddenly plopping ourselves in the middle of a touristy area felt very odd. But wait--aren't we tourists too? Market #2 of the day was Borough. We wanted to treat ourselves to the wild mushroom paté that was sold out last week, and the woman had a few containers left today! She told me she had been up until three in the morning all last week, making paté, in order to keep up with demand. "It's full of hard work and love! Happy Christmas!" she exclaimed as I made my purchase. From the paté stall, we began to search for lunch. Bob made a beeline for the yummy sandwich stand, but my nose caught something else that I had to have:

Real raclette! Yes please!

The man assembled the boiled potatoes and gherkins on my plate, all the while checking how much of the wheels of cheese had melted (he had four wheels going at the same time, two on his right and two on his left) under the hot plate. Then, the magic moment came when the top of one wheel just started to brown: he scooped up the cheese from the rounded side and ran a knife along the hot side, scraping off an amazingly huge hunk of melted goodness over my entire plate:
Some sea salt and freshly ground pepper and that's lunch! Very nice in the December chill.

From Borough, it was over to market #3, Stoke Newington farmers' market, to get some of the delicious vegan cake (all that cheese needed to be balanced somehow) we sampled last week--we got two half-loaves (cocoa and fig/ginger) and returned home for coffee and a slice of cake before heading out again. This photo is of one my favourite buildings on Church street, with wonderful evidence of history on the exterior brick and an aromatic flower shop as its current tenant.

Later in the day, while we were waiting for the tube, Bob whispered, "Hand me the camera...hand me the camera" and this was the result:

The woman wasn't with any children, didn't appear to be doing any shopping for children, and wasn't carrying anything else to indicate that the bear had been a carnival prize. She was just commuting around London with her bear!

We thought about going skating at Somerset House later in the day, but this was before we realized how many of the skating sessions were long sold-out. Still, we decided to head down for a peek. We got there just as the Zamboni had finished resurfacing the ice, but the rink soon filled with skaters in a lovely Christmas scene:

Crowded and Empty Spaces

Maybe we were tired of hitting the £ shops looking for assorted sensible necessities and wanted to look at frivolous items. Maybe we temporarily lost our minds. Whatever the case, for some insane reason, we decided to go down to Oxford Street--on the last Friday before Christmas. Not recommended!

This shot doesn't properly depict the crowds that were rushing to do the last of their Christmas shopping--I couldn't stop in the most crowded parts without getting trampled, so you'll just have to take my word for it. As in Canada, some shops' sales had already started, but everywhere was just too packed to do any thorough looking, so we headed home to make dinner instead. Some of you may have heard that we've been having quite the fog lately, and although Newington Green has been lit up for Christmas since our arrival in London, tonight's view was especially dramatic:

Yay for Libraries (21 December)

It's been more than two weeks since we arrived in London, and although at times we feel right at home, daily life is more a combination of discovery (where things are, how things work) and disbelief (we live in London...how very strange). Even the most mundane activities are infused with a sense of the unfamiliar--like using our housekeys.

Never in my life did I think I would have a skeleton key on my keyring; it feels more like a movie prop than a key! And the rectangular tag on my keychain is a mini-version of my library card--no need to carry the card itself around all the time. As many of you know, I'm fond of libraries. I have my dad to thank for that--when I was a kid, we would go to the library on the weekend (er, um, "at" the weekend?--I'm finding prepositions a challenge here in London) and he always encouraged me to take out all sorts of books and then we'd go back the next weekend to return those and get more. Anyway, I never feel at home unless I've got a library card or two, so we signed up for library cards at the library on Stoke Newington Church Street (I think that's supposed to be "in" Church Street) and promptly put them to use.

Here I am in the entrance of the Stoke Newington branch proudly clutching my first London library book, a highly appropriate one at that: The Rough Guide to Britain.

Five Days Until Christmas

With all this moving-to-a-different-country silliness, there hasn't been much time to get into the Christmas spirit. All our decorations are in storage, we haven't bought presents for anyone (not even each other!) this year, and our flat is still an assortment of messes (although all our clothes fit into the landlord-supplied wardrobe, so we're pleased about that). Anyway, in an effort to make things feel a bit more festive, we went in search of a Christmas tree today, but ultimately balked at paying £20 for a 3" tree. It was pretty though, and we'll try a few other places tomorrow.

Along the way, we explored the area near Angel (the tube station, not David Boreanaz). We stumbled across Chapel Market, which had cheap produce and Bob's brand of razor blades. In fact, we couldn't get away from the market, since every shop we went into seemed to exit right onto the market street. In spite of arriving home treeless, we did get to see Santa:

Not quite sure what he's doing though.

New Friends (19 December)

There are three new friends in this post:

1. On my left arm, a penguin mascot at one of the numerous shops we browsed in our continuing search for household items (I have no idea what or whom the penguin was representing, but I sure liked him).

2. And on my right arm, my (as Bob calls it) "old-lady-plaid-grocery-puller" that I, um, scavenged from beside a pile of garbage bags put out on the sidewalk for collection. It's in perfect shape and after the most minimal of cleanings, has already been great help on all our shopping trips. Bob, Bruce, and Dianne are all convinced that there's an old lady somewhere crying for her cart, but I swear it was set out as garbage.

3. And finally, the best new friend of all: our en-suite washing machine, located in the kitchen, as seems to be quite common in flats here--a luxury I haven't had since I moved away from my parents at sixteen. No more wanting to do laundry and finding the machines in use--or in Bob's case, no more taking his laundry to his parents' when he goes to watch pay-per-view hockey.

Bus-Stop Wisdom (18 December)

Before we left Vancouver, our excitement at moving to London was overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the task. We weren't exactly living the minimalist life of magazine spreads: we had a big apartment with more than enough stuff to fill it! Selling, loaning, packing, and storing our possessions took a lot of time and energy--never mind deciding what to bring to London, all the paperwork and logistics of getting here, and the fact that Vancouver had a freak snowstorm during our last week there that made moving all the more surreal (thanks for your help, Al and Nancy!). And then there was some stress over finding a flat, the £ versus Canadian dollar in general, sorting out work, and arranging for all the rental, bank, and employment references we anticipated needing just to get our lives started here. Our last month in Vancouver is just a blur of browsing gumtree looking at flats, slowly tetris-ing boxes of our possessions into the various crawl-spaces in Bruce and Dianne's house, and bugging people we know who currently live or have lived in London or know anyone who has done so for advice. But so far, everything is working out shockingly well...maybe because we were so well-prepared, but I also suspect because things just tend to work out if you let them! On one of our trips to further equip our flat (we got saucepans, a kettle, and a toaster), I noticed this piece of friendly stenciling at the bus stop:

Sound advice.

I (Heart) Sainsbury's (17 December)

In our attempts to set up house, we've been making very good use of the rail, tube, and bus, not to mention our feet, as we venture to shops selling new and secondhand goods as well as the odd car-boot sale. These adventures have taken us to quite a variety of places in Greater London, including branches of Ikea, Tesco, Sainsbury's, and one of the most useful London institutions for outfitting a flat: the 99-pence, £1, and £+ shops. But I must admit that my favourite place so far is Sainsbury's. The selection! The prices! The cultural anthropology! I love browsing in grocery stores when I travel--they teach me more about where I am than any guidebook. What people eat, how food is marketed, and the norms of a given food culture are there for all to see. I've lived in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Montréal) and the United States (La Jolla), but only in the first two cities as a grocery-shopping adult; trying to do a "big shop" of the Sainsbury's shelves is thus simultaneously fascinating and unbelievably time-consuming (different names, almost completely different brands, unexpected ingredients, unexpected clustering of foods). It's surprising how long it takes to shop when you have to read every package, not just scan the shelves for your favourite brand's label (often without even reading the words; just recognizing the colour scheme). This is confounded by the sheer variety of goods on offer here. It's all making for fun shopping and, considering the enormous difference in the cost of grocery-store food and eating in even the most modest of London restaurants, we should save money and eat very well if we cook a lot at home.

This photo's for you, Dianne. I've never seen brussel sprouts (although according to the Sainsbury's packaging, they're "brussels" sprouts) still on the branch and thought you'd enjoy seeing them too. Bob was embarrassed when I took this photo--I suppose bringing out the camera in a grocery store isn't too dignified, but then, dignity is pretty overrated, don't you think?

This was our snack after lugging home all our purchases. Sainsbury's "basics" line is their cheeky no-name brand full of a "what more could you need?" sensibility, like the plastic food wrap we bought which proclaims, "It wraps, it covers." Packaging that makes you smile may be rare, but not at Sainsbury's! (P.S. The cheese and oaties were delicious.)

Buying eggs is a good example of the difference between shopping at Sainsbury's and, say, Canada's Safeway: there is an astonishing variety of eggs on sale here (none of which are white in colour), the packaging comes with brief narratives describing the eggs' origins, the 6-pack is a very common size, and the eggs are displayed in a regular, non-refrigerated aisle (part of the reason it took us so long to find them the first time). Plus they can be so fresh that you may get the occasional feather as proof. Very early on, while we were staying with Fiona and Gerald, Fiona remarked about something, using a word that was unfamiliar to me. After I asked for clarification, she explained that the word meant "to be very pleased about something" and that she liked the term. Well, I thought it was a great word and I liked it coming from Fiona, but somehow both Bob and I have been reluctant to use British slang (even though we hear it all the time) because it just makes us feel like we're trying to be Brits...even though that's silly, I know! But I like Fiona's word so much that I'll venture across (probably way across) the poseur line here:

I'm chuffed about Sainsbury's!