Surprise!

Don't you just love it when you get a surprise? I started to write unexpected surprise, however, isn't that was a surprise is after all? Silly, silly, me.

Yesterday, after unloading the car from the market, which was super by the way, I checked the answering machine for messages. Good grief, it was a woman who bought a canvas and other prints from me last October while in town for the annual "Fresh Summit" convention. New readers will be puzzled by that name, older ones, maybe not. Several years ago I was approached to bring my artwork to that very same convention and I did. Boy howdy, it was a bust for me. Never, in my wildest dreams would I have suspected that a year or two later an attendee would find me at the market. So, here's the shock! She not only ordered FIVE large canvases yesterday, she asked me what else I had in the way of fruits and vegetable photographs. Oh my, oh my! This morning I've spent time perusing my photo library and finding more than she could ever want or need. Or, maybe not? I'll let you know how it all plays out.

When last we met we were still in London town. We're moving on now my friends. Nancy went back to Memphis last Thursday, driving more than 13 hours to do so. In her honor, I cleaned the oven on Friday. As well, I finished painting the bathroom while Bruce was home to move the large mirror. There was other cleaning accomplished which escapes me at the moment. I do so hope I'll be able to keep things looking spiffy.

One of the reasons we made such an effort is that on Saturday afternoon, August 20th, our home will be the site of a reception for Beth and Eddie McNicholas. Once again, my faithful will recognize Eddie's name as the Mr. Roger's son who underwent multiple surgeries and treatments in the last couple of years for a rare sinus cancer. He's cancer free now. Earlier in the year, he and Beth went on a Carnival cruise during which time Eddie proposed. It was then that they decided to marry on the cruise ship which is what they did this past Saturday.

It was quite a rigamarole for the guests including us. We arrived at the docked ship at 10, going through security, getting a badge, eating lunch, roaming the ship, and finally at 1:30 the ceremony followed by a small reception.We had to be off the boat by 4, prior to the 5:00 departure. The newlyweds will cruise for seven days in a corner suite with an amazing balcony.

The bigger reception will be at the Peck home as mentioned above. Let us hope the weather is good! This was the first time I met Trish's mom, who I knew before meeting, I would like. My intuition was right. Can you believe how much they look alike?

I could not get over it! They are so darn photogenic as well. As is Mr. Bruce, pictured below during the reception:

Those are purple velveteen walls behind him for those interested in that sort of thing. I have to say that this is one of my favorite pictures I've taken of my darling husband. We will soon be celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary. To say that our wedding was unlike Beth and Eddies is more than an understatement. Here's hoping their marriage is as wonderful as ours has been.

Lately I've been having some first time experiences such as going on a Carnival cruise ship. I have NEVER in my life seen anything so gaudy. I told Bruce that there was not one place for your eyes to rest. I love patterns, but they love them more. I'm pretty sure the velvet wall was the only solid color on the ship! Here's more of that room:

How is this possible?? On the right in the suit is Mr. Roger, feeling fine once again.

I've seen two movies of late that were firsts as well. Jane and Michael invited us to join them to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Feeling sociable I agreed although I've read none of the books or seen any of the films. Surprise--I enjoyed it way more than expected. The same cannot be said for "Cowboys and Aliens", which I agreed to see with Bruce. Harrison Ford was severely miscast or something. The alien part was just as stupid as I expected. I did, however, keep my mouth shut the entire film whereas normally I would have been making grumbling noises throughout.

Corrine is much improved now that she has a new cardiologist. Did I tell you she had to be re-admitted to the hospital? Finally, I believe she's on the right medications. I made some soup and cookies for their supper one night last week. Peanut butter with chocolate chips below:

They don't look very pretty do they? Well, I've never made this combination before and I'm not sure I will again. Just not as chewy as I like my cookies. I will say they are all gone though so they weren't all bad.

While at the Polasek last week they asked if I would photograph the couple below for the monthly newsletter.

They work diligently in the gardens year round. Jeff recently revived this fountain and water lily pond.

I bought some sunflowers the other day. Don't you just love their cheeriness?

It's easy these days to forget that we are parents to four sons. Unless there is some emergency. Bill called just as we were leaving for the wedding, telling me he was so puzzled because his sliding glass door was open part way when he woke up. Furthermore, the door latch was still in the locked position. Yikes! Turns out, nothing was disturbed, however, his neighbor was not so fortunate. Soon after our conversation, while looking outdoors, he noticed the police car next door. Speaking to them of his experience, they showed him a mark on the door where the burglar popped the lock. He's feeling lucky his possessions were spared, but his level of confidence in the lock is naturally compromised. His dad told him about another way to secure a sliding glass door.

Then, last night, the phone rang with David on the line. He was in major abdominal pain. I talked him through all his symptoms, pretty confidant it was not too serious. He seems to be okay now.

This morning there was a picture attached to an email from Jonathan. He's broken his little toe. What do I do Mom? Tape it son.

The saying goes something like this: A son is a son till he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter all her life. I think it's pretty true so I don't get upset when I don't hear from my boys because I've been preparing myself for this eventuality. But then again, every now and then, only parents will do which is fine by me.

Whimsy

Back by popular demand--LONDON! And BATH!

As anyone who has perused my baskets of photographs for sale knows, I am a big fan of whimsy. Actually, I call it "funk", however, I believe that is going to change beginning this very weekend. Whimsy is such a delightful word, don't you think?

I will warn you in advance--this is going to be a VERY photo-intensive post. None of my ramblings; hopefully the photographs will do the talking!

So, let's see...where shall we start?

How about this crazy sight, seen during our visit to the Columbia Road Flower Market? The sad dog's owner was nearby, and if my memory serves me correctly, he was playing some sort of musical instrument. Undoubtedly, Matthew or Bruce can fill in the details for me. Sad, but true, using a blind dog to attract money.

I guess this person really wants a pet? I took this early one morning while doing my breakfast run.

On our first day in London, we strolled along the Regent's Canal from Hackney to Shoreditch. But you already knew that didn't you? Silly me. Matt wanted to keep us moving, lest we fall prey to jet lag. During this pleasant stroll, Matt explained that artists were encouraged to make a piece of art that was enhanced by the location. This person had the right idea.

Aren't folks so clever?

Although, not technically whimsy, I thought these flats along aforementioned canal were super cool:

One of the nice things about taking photographs during our stay was the lack of intense sunshine. What is that supposed to mean you ask? Well, in Florida, the light is so darn bright, invariably, there are what I'm calling "hot spots" in the photo. For example, the walk, pictured on the right would be so bright as to take away from the photograph. Technical details that mostly I ignore, but even I know that much!

Moving on, very roughly in order, Sunday evening while in Soho with Bruce, I saw this funny sign in the restaurant:

It kept flashing off and on, amusing this blogger. After dinner, we roamed around a bit, taking in the sights. People, people, and more people! There was a big crowd around this:

Years and years ago, or more specifically, while I was pregnant with the twins, Bruce worked in an exhibit shop here in Orlando that made things such as this huge sparkling pump. Pump, now there's a funny word for you. This makes me wonder about the origin. Then again, where did the term stiletto come from? Curious.

Here in Orlando, this might cause quite an uproar, however, no one seemed fazed to see this on a busy street:

The say sex sells, so probably I should include this image in one of my collages...

This wasn't the only time we encountered SUPERBOY!

He seemed to be flying all over East London. (taken through bus window)

Near the entryway to the Museum of London, we came across this:

Play Me, I'm Yours. How cool is this? Decorated no less.

Later on, before our Tift Merritt concert, I wandered in a little shop that sold clothing and accessories--like dresses made out of comic fabric, to name one of the items. Who knew you could use old vinyl for flooring material?

Here's one way to look at what is happening on the street:

Even in the "World Heritage" city of Bath, I discovered graffiti:

I couldn't pass up this street sign:

Our niece Laura came to mind. Last I checked, she was using it for her Facebook profile picture. :-)

The garden behind the fun wine bar we went to had this bright little whirligig amongst their nasturtiums.

It's all about color coordination folks!

Before we left Bath I just had to take a picture of those pesky seagulls perching on all the rooftops. I never knew they could be so loud!

Please don't take offense at this silly graffiti we saw during our tour:

You have to admit it's pretty well done.

Ben Eine makes an appearance once again. This was taken from the vestibule of the restaurant, Cargo, where we took a short break in the action during our tour. Some years ago, Banksy did a show there. To prove it, there are two old Banksy pieces preserved under plexiglass. Shepard Fairey makes an appearance there as well.

The full piece says scary....gosh that red is good! I neglected to mention previously that for about half the tour there were these people from France filming the tour for a documentary. Gotta keep the cameraman dry!

Finally, the South Bank was full of goodies, such as this cool art piece documenting children's immigrant experiences in London on paper.

The fountain provided much amusement, watching the folks playing in the cooling waters:

It was mostly kids, however, I did see a few brave adults.

While Bruce was perusing the book stalls, Matt was enjoying watching the children play in the giant sand box set up for the summer, possibly remembering his childhood.

This is the kind of thing that suburban dwellers, like ourselves, take for granted. Our children just loved playing in both of the fancy sandboxes Bruce built for them. In the distance on the far right is the Charing Cross station in case you're wondering.

I roamed while they were doing their thing, coming across this:

I'm thinking this one was done with permission. I just now noticed that one of the eyes is a heart...

This seems like an appropriate place to end this photo excursion---- from my heart to yours. Thanks for joining me.

Back at the Ranch

Well, not strictly speaking a ranch, but we do live in what's commonly known as a ranch style home. Indeed, if you've been along for our London journey what I have to say today may not be all that exciting to you, however, to me, it's very much so.

As you may already know, one of my sisters, Nancy, has been in the house. Make that for about four weeks. Saturday she left, joining another sister, Maureen and her friend Lynn for a week at the beach. She is missed already. After so much time Baxter was thoroughly taken with her, showing his displeasure while she was leaving by tucking his tail. That's how we know he's unhappy. You should see his tail when he's happy; he wags it like nobodies business. Isn't wag a funny word?

Nancy, unlike me, is a maintenance machine. Cleaning and organizing makes her happy. The sloppier or dirtier the better. Personally, I can overlook both, but I'd have been a fool not to accept her offer of help, although at times, not without a bit of fussing on my part. Good enough is my way of looking at things, she, on the other hand is not so easily satisfied. So, we cleaned and I mean more than I might do in a year. Yikes! It was a wonder I got any blog posts written.

In our absence, Nancy began with the linen closet in the hallway bathroom. What was once a jumble of towels, sheets, and various linens, now looks like this:

That isn't the entire closet because the bathroom is so small I couldn't get far enough back to show you the rest, but you get the idea. What you don't see are index cards on the left wall detailing what is on the upper shelves. To date, I've just kept washing the sheets on our bed because I don't want to mess anything up! How she folds sheets so neatly is beyond me! I suspect she'll be unhappy if she sees this photo because the towel on the bottom shelf is misplaced; I must get a stool out to put it in its rightful place. Allegedly I won't be buying things I already have if I study the contents of the little drawers which are clearly labeled.

Feeling guilty, I washed our quilt at the laundromat, a task I'd been considering doing for well nigh a year. Good grief, it was so simple once I finally did it. A little more than a mile away a spotless laundromat was waiting patiently for me:

The cost was $3.75 and worth every penny. I'm not sure if we're sleeping better now that the mattress pad, quilt, shams, and bed skirt are clean, but I will say it looks better!

One Saturday Nancy worked on the living area. How dirty could it be? She washed everything in sight including the plantation blinds! She took them down, putting them outside on the driveway and scrubbed them like nobodies business. Sheers anyone? It's anyone's guess how long it has been since they have been thoroughly cleaned.The windows were next, while the blinds were down, making that task much simpler. I'm still marveling about that one each time I look outside. So not just the inside, but the outside as well. You can see how large the windows are in this shot. As well, here's an update on the garden as well:

It's coming along nicely isn't it? I think it must have been Monday afternoon that, once Bruce returned from work, he and Nancy took down his blinds, pictured on the right, and repeated all that nonsense. For the longest time I'd tried to get Bruce to throw away a gigantic fake palm tree in the sunroom with no success. I tried the Angela approach. No dice. Nancy, on the other hand, has clout. It's gone, as are some silly drapes that hung on either side of the above pictured window. Hurray!

While we're in the yard, here's an update on our momma cardinal:

She is no dummy, making her nest amongst the palms so that it's impossible for me to see what is inside. The only evidence visible is her tail on the right. Not a great shot, but I thought you'd want to know how things were progressing.

I believe it was a week ago Saturday that, while Nancy was busy doing some sort of cleaning, I painted our sparkling clean bathroom the same color as the bedroom I painted during our major remodel. There is something to be said for having smallish rooms for sure. 

I only wish all of the tile were the same color, however, for the most part, we like to keep things that remind us of the age of our home--only seven years younger than we are!

Bill and Dave, indeed came to get their stuff, not even waiting until the last minute. I now have the largest closet in our home mostly to myself, aside from a few boxes of Matt's mementos. Below you see not only that I have a bunch of dresses, BUT, they are all hung on matching hangars, another one of Nancy's doings. Lord knows, I wouldn't have done that. I did, however, hang them by color and sleeve length.

The closets were treasure troves of goodies. I tackled the one in what was formerly Jonathan's room and discovered a contract he wrote during his Everquest days. That will wait for another day. I did find these little guys up in the top of the closet:

I've no recollection what kind of figures they were, but I clearly recall Jonathan playing with this bus in the tub when he was young.

While I was playing bridge on Thursday morning, Nancy was working on our bedroom blinds. Upon my return I was pressed into service, cleaning the new sun room windows, which eventually led to the remaining windows in the house. Did I tell you how much Nancy loves bleach? Well, she does, using it on everything! 409 is her other favorite, a product I've never once in my life used. She's making a believer out of me! Once the windows and screens were done, Nancy used bleach on the awning, getting on the ladder to do so. We discovered that the gutters were full of leaves and pine needles. So up the ladder I went, scooping out copious amounts of gunk and dropping it down into a large garbage can. I thought I didn't have one ounce of energy left to finish them, however, having Nancy as a cheerleader, I kept it up. I think one of the best things to come out of this, if there is a best thing, is I scrubbed the white roof flashing with bleach. In the past I'd tried to do it while on the roof, this time I could see clearly how disgusting it was. Fantastic.

Earlier in the week, I think it must have been Monday night, our Chinese Tallow tree apparently suffered a lightening strike. Very strange as there was no storm. Anyway, it needed attention so I called our tree guy who came out to give me an estimate. Although he said he'd be here either Wednesday or Thursday, he was a no show. Thus, when Bruce returned from his trip, the tree was untouched. Which meant that while I was still working on the gutters he got out the huge extension ladder and went to work. Undaunted by our day's work, Nancy cut up a good deal of the branches. Good thing she is four years younger than us! Seriously, I thought I would die from exhaustion. It wasn't too much later, after a Taco Bell run for dinner, that we all fell into a deep sleep! Here's what the tree looked like pre Bruce and Nancy's efforts:

There was more, but I'm getting tired just writing this! So, instead of traveling around one of the world's great cities, we were making our little corner of the world a much cleaner place. At least for now....

The Final Chapter

This will probably do it for London. Not that I'm not ready to go back and really study the city, but for now, this will have to suffice. So, let's see a few more sights before we get back to reality. Please accept my apology for this order, I'm having some internet connection problems and decided while it was working I would upload every photo and just go with it.

Have you EVER seen a cuter ice cream truck in your life? Part of the summer happenings on the South Bank of the Thames. Ad nauseam, we've discussed how summer lasts forever in Florida; we not only don't appreciate hot weather, at times we abhor hot weather. English people welcome what they call hot weather.  As such, from what we saw, while they could, most folks were out enjoying the "warm" weather. Summer=ice cream, right?

Years ago Matt gave me a Tift Merritt cd which I adored. The name was Tambourine Man. Get it if you can. Apparently, she makes an annual visit to London, this time on the bill with Duane Allman. Last year it was Mary Chapin Carpenter. We were fortunate enough to have a concert-going genius on board who booked the tickets to a solo gig. Tom, the history buff, is not as much of a music buff. This is where Matt comes in. I have no idea how many concerts Matt has been to in his short life, but suffice it to say, it is more than most folks. He is introducing Tom to some of his favorites. Last year when they saw Tift, Tom fell in love. You would too if you saw her. I will say that I've yet to take a decent concert photo and below is no exception, but it does document our experience. She not only did a great show musically, but was charming as well. Check her out!

Remember how I told you how long we spent in the Museum of London? The place is huge. Having history that dates back to pre-historic times will do that. This costume display was simply amazing! I only wish the lighting conditions were a wee bit more photo friendly. Nonetheless, can you imagine wearing clothes like these? The HATS! Astonishing!

Back to the South Bank friends. I may have already mentioned all the amazing street performers. This guy was particularly fascinating. It's hard to describe, but although he wasn't actually holding the ball, he moved it from side to side between his hands. You had to be there.

Below are some performers who got the audience into the act. That darling little boy on the left was such a good sport as these crazy guys did all manner of gymnastics with him.

The other day I mentioned the Columbia Road Flower Market and the huge crowds that come to buy flowers. We could only wish to have these crowds at our market! Here is a great description of the action. Don't you just love the internet? You can find out anything! I was struck by how the vendors called out their prices, however, I apparently didn't know the correct term for the vendors. According to their site, they are called "barrow boys". I highly recommend that you check out the link to learn the history of the area. Good stuff.

 Soho below. Need I say more?

During our street art tour we saw some amazing work. Can you imagine that an artist chiseled this out of the wall? I can't. Think about it for a minute......he/she was right up against the wall, so how the artist could do this at such close proximity is beyond me. Those eyes are SO expressive. I am not a fan of the taggers though. How DARE they disfigure such an amazing piece of artwork?

Regular readers will remember that I got up in the pre-dawn hours to watch the "Royal Wedding" with Angela. I was very anxious to see Buckingham Palace for myself. I kept thinking about the hundreds of photographers stationed on this very fountain to get their shots. This sure is a cute picture of Mr. Bruce--not so much of Mrs. Gail.

Leaving the city, take a close look at these tiny little Costwold cottages. The flowers! I was thrilled to see the gorgeous coral fuchsia hanging baskets which do NOT grow in Florida. The sidewalk is so tiny isn't it? So are the doorways.

 More beautiful hanging baskets. Seriously, they were everywhere!

On an early morning walk in Bath I took this photo of a bandstand as I walked through the park.  It wasn't till a little later that I realized that someone was sleeping under the tiny blue hump you see in the middle.

 

Early morning is putting it mildly. What I believe I've yet to mention is the seagull population in Bath.

Although the city is inland, somehow seagulls by the hundreds have made their home there. Around here, near sunrise, my cardinals, the mockingbirds, finches, bluejays and woodpeckers start their chatter early. But not at 5 AM! Those seagulls are louder than you can imagine. Actually, that was just fine because Mrs. Camera Crazy pulled on some clothes, slung her cameras on her shoulder, and ventured out into the city streets to see what she could see. Don't let anyone ever tell you that the sun doesn't shine in England. The sky couldn't have been any bluer one of our mornings in Bath.

Our apartment was in in the block on the left. The streets are still wet from the previous evenings rain, but on this morning, there was not a cloud to be seen.

I hope you've enjoyed our trip through both my words and photographs. You already know how much Bruce and I did.