Once Upon A Time In London

This is the tale of the adventures of a native Oregonian in London.

25 December 2010

I Wish You A Merry Christmas!


Wishing all my friends and family (and loyal readers) a very Merry Christmas! May today be filled with light and love and the joy of the season. And not just today, but every day of the year!

24 December 2010

Christmas Eve 2010

I got up this morning at the crack of 9am, then lolled about for awhile eating bon bons.

Ok, no bon bons, but still.

Since there were no bon bons I had to satisfy myself with my traditional Christmas Even morning repast: Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake. Nom! Nom!


Ok, so it doesn't look pretty, but it sure is tasty! The snowman mug holds Starbucks Christmas blend coffee. Double nom!


I would have hung my stocking by the chimney with care, but I don't have one, so instead I hung it over the wardrobe next to the Christmas cards.

Here's what it looks like "under" my tree. Which is actually really the bottom of my TV stand.


And here's the tree! Which is really just sitting on top the telly.

Right now I'm watching Hercule Poirot. What better way to spend Christmas Eve? lol


The Company Christmas Party


My company Christmas party was on 9 December. It was at the super posh Hyatt Regency Cumberland just around the corner from our office.

We all arrived to a sort of cocktail hour with little snacks and beverages of both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety. There was music playing from fabulous CDs compiled by yours truly! The was also a professional photographer to snap our pictures for posterity. (All pictures in this blog post, however, were taken either by myself, or my friend, Amaury.)

Me with the lovely Luciana:


The wonderful Anna:
Lucia... isn't she just fabulous!


From left to right: Dawn (who sits next to me at work), Louisa (from reception) and Penny (who sits across from me).


Me, hanging with the monsters. Er, I mean boys! Cristiano on the left and Evandro on the right.



We finally sat down to dinner and a noisier dinner you never did hear! There were six tables of ten people each. One of the tables decided they needed to start chanting about how great they were. So started very LOUD chants of "TABLE FOUR! TABLE FOUR!" Of course, that couldn't be allowed to stand, so other tables started chanting. This was NOT a calm, orderly dinner. The tables were nicely
decorated, though.

The starter wasn't good. The options were trout (Most of you know my feelings on the matter. Fish belong in the sea, not on my plate.) or foie gras. My feelings about THAT sort of nonsense are equally strong, but I went with foie gras as at least it wasn't fish. Unfortunately, it was beyond nasty. So I just ate the bread that came with it.

The main was either turbot (again with the feelings) or Angus beef. The beef was DELICIOUS! So tasty and perfectly cooked. It had black truffle jus which was very tasty. MOST delicious.

For dessert there was either a walnut p
arfait or sticky toffee pudding. Bet you can guess what I picked! Unfortunately it was a let down. While it was very tasty indeed, it was definitely NOT sticky toffee pudding. It was just an ordinary plain cake which they had put a few dates in, topped with a drizzle of toffee sauce and then slapped some icecream on. As you may or may not know, this is NOT sticky toffee pudding. But if one viewed it as simply a nice pudding, then it was good.

There was also a gift exchange. Each person bought a £10 gift, wrapped the gift and brought it to the office. We arranged the gifts under the tree, then before dinner each person chose a gift. We kept the gift under our chair until the end of dinner then we opened it. Now here is the fun part! I have been drooling over Le Cruset for AGES. I especially have been drooling over the mini casserole dishes (I showed you some of these when you were here or I was there, I think.). Well, that is what I got. Even better, it was a turqoisey blue colour. Thrilled!!!!!!!! Even in a silly gift exchange, one can be blessed.

Here's the amazing and wonderful Iara! She's lovely. She works in accounts and I've been to her house for dinner.


This is our boss's hubby, Luis. Very nice man and hilariously funny!



And here's our boss Jacqueline with LO (pronounced Elio).

I had asked Filipe to burn a CD with some forro music. He loves forro as much as I do. So I slipped the CD to the event planner and told her to play it after dinner. VOILA! Spontaneous forro dancing!

Amaury managed to snap Dawn dancing with Alam. Oooh, lala!

It was a fantastic Christmas party! Best company party I've been to!

Roots (Northern Ireland)

I don't know if you are aware, but some of my family originally comes from Northern Ireland. The Skaggs, in particular, and also the Lynns. More is known about the Skaggs, in particular that they came from Londonderry and that William Skaggs was born there in 1600.

Yeah, I know, long time ago. But I wanted to see the place where my ancestors once lived. I have a thing for history and family history in particular. Lyn was kind enough to drive over to Londonderry the day after Thanksgiving so we could have a wander and see if we could find anything.

Admittedly, there's not a whole lot left from that time period except the wall around the original city. But it's a BIG wall! Here's the view of Londonderry/Derry from the top of the wall:



This is the site of the original cemetery and chapel (Next to the cathedral.). There has been a chapel on this site since the 1600s and there has been a church of some nature on the cathedral site since the 112th or 13th century. The buildings that stand there now are a bit more recent, though. Also, the oldest graves seem to date from the 1800s, long after the Skaggs left Northern Ireland, so no luck there.


Also the church records weren't available. We did, however, get the name of someone who could help. For a price, of course. I took his name and details, just in case!

Despite the snow we wandered the walls and took in the views. You can even see the snow coming down in this picture of one of the towers on the wall:


This cannon is actually from the right time period! My ancestor would have been about 25 years old when this cannon arrived in Londonderry.


And here I am 400 years later on top the wall of Londonderry!


Giving Thanks in Northern Ireland (Again)

Once again, I decided to spend the Thankgiving holiday with my friend, Lyn, in Northern Ireland. As you may, or may not, recall, she lives in a town a bit north of Belfast. I flew over on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, around midday. Which left us lots of time for vultching.

We headed to the Old Post Office in Lisbane. Now I now what you're thinking: Why would you hang out in a Post Office? Well, because the Old Post Office in Lisbane is a lovely old building from the 1840 which has been restored to house a tea room, gift shop, and deli. It's all very cute and cozy and popular with the locals.

Here's why:

Yep, that's lemon meringue pie. And boy was it tasty! And then there's this reason:

Chocolate cake! Lyn said it was delicious. I will have to take her word for it as she gobbled down every bite. How rude! LOL

After our tea, we headed south to have a look-see of the sea. It was too cold for the beach so I popped out of the car long enough to take a couple pictures.



There are some truly magnificent views along the coast line.



And some... interesting... artwork in Newcastle.

Then we headed back to the house both because it was getting toward time to eat and because we were freezing our collective bewtoxes off.

For dinner Lyn put together a nice roast of parsnips, carrots, potatoes, and wee little sausages. Nom! Nom!


It was quite a spread with everything one could ask for in a Thanksgiving dinner including Turkish baklava. Why not, I say!

Yummy!


There was, of course, pumpkin pie for dessert made by yours truly. Before dinner we each said the things we were Thankful for.

After dinner our friend Conor stopped by and we had a bit of a catch up, including ways to survive a zombie apocalypse. It's good to be prepared, you know.

12 December 2010

Apple Day

Back in October, Borough Market had Apple Day. It was a celebration of the Harvest in general and the Apple Harvest in particular. I met up with Clara and another friend, Shane, to check out the festivities.

The day was sharp and cold, but the sun shown brightly with not a cloud in the sky. A rare thing for London! It was a Sunday, so other than the festival, Borough Market was fairly quiet, which was nice.

All around the Market, people dressed in traditional garb wandered about handing out fliers for the day's events and selling random bits and bobs to take home.


Every stall in the festival area sold something which involved apples. In this case (Chegworth Valley Farms), it was ALL apples! Apple juice, fresh apples, even hot apple cider! I bought a bottle of plain apple juice to take home. It was the most delightfully sweet, crisp, refreshing and tasty apple juice I've ever had! Nom! Nom!

Here's Clara, camera in hand, as usual! Behind her is the mushroom stall. Actually, I don't think they had any apples at that stand. But I suppose since mushrooms need harvesting, they were allowed.


There was a stage area where they put on a play by Chaucer. Hilarious! I laughed soooo hard! The actors were fantastic (They should be as they are all players from the Royal Shakespeare Company!) and the costumes were amazing! The play alone was worth the trip.




Yeah, I was a little obsessed with this apple stand. They even had an apple/beetroot juice. Clara liked it, but Shane said it tasted of dirt. Well, that's beets for you.

We finished up with a sandwich lunch at Pret and dessert from the French Patissiere stall. They had no apple tatin (more's the pity), so I made do with an apricot tart. It's a terrible job, eating an apricot tart, but SOMEONE had to do it!!!

Of My Last Day

My last day had arrived. My flight was at 1pm, so no major rush. Before we headed out, mom took me on a tromp through the back forty.

Here's the back of the house...


Some random... drift wood? I don't know, some sort of dead tree. With suspiciously dragon-like tendencies.


Some wildflower which I'm sure Mom told me the name of, but I have forgotten. Anyway, it was very delicate and pretty.


The view of the back forty from a safe distance.

More delicate wildflowers.

After our tromp we headed off to Spokane so I could catch the plane home. I was very sad to be leaving, but I didn't cry. Not at all. And anyone who says differently has an over active imagination...

Of the Poshest Restaurant in Town

Tell me the truth, people, where can you find such a seriously deliciously posh meal such as this:


I'll tell you where! Rita's Cucina, that's where! Thursday night we were invited to dine at the fabulous establishment of Dan and Rita Meliza. Otherwise known as my bother and sis-in-law. Rita made a delicious chicken alfredo from a Secret Family Recipe. She shared the secret with me (We ARE family, after all.), but I'm afraid I shall have to take such a secret with me to the grave!

It was really good to see the kids again. I just can't believe how much they've grown in the four years I've been living abroad.

Anna is now seven. Nearly eight, in fact. Isn't she gorgeous? I think she looks a lot like Mom.

Excellent after dinner entertainment was provided by Sarah who is a year and a half and has some seriously awesome dancing moves. She's especially smashing in her sister's glittery flip flops.

Nathan reminds me a little of a certain cousin I have called Nikki. At six, he is the biggest ham in the business. The boy is NOT camera shy.


And here's Jake (aka Little Dude.). Isn't he cute as a button! He looks so much like his brother.

And that's my gorgeous family! Well, the Idaho branch anyway.