summertime

 Last week the heat was really overpowering.  I'm not really a summer person, so I was sort of dragging myself around, hating everything and complaining a bit, and wondering how on earth it could be so hot in June, until I finally checked the temperature and was shocked at how low it was (only like 20C)!  Sam says I can blame pregnancy (as I do for all things now) but seriously, how will I ever move to somewhere with actual hot summers if temperatures that low make me want to lie in a dark, cool room by myself all day? 

I managed to almost enjoy myself this weekend, though, especially when it got a bit cooler on Sunday.  I told Sam his pre-Father's day present was me not wasting money on a present or a card, because he really hates wasting money on cards, so there you go.  It was a fun day, anyway, especially when some friends has us over for fajitas and then a few hours later made scones and we had a nice cream tea (minus the tea or any other beverage, really).  Sam thought the clotted cream was a bit gross, and eventually just ate his scones with jam, but clotted cream is one of those things I might have cravings for once we're back in the US.  I think it's delicious.  We've also spent plenty of time watching the World Cup, or at least (for me) listening to it while trying to fall asleep at 12 o'clock.  I did stay awake for yesterday's US-Ghana match, which was a bit excruciating.  It's so much easier watching teams you don't care about at all.  Sam is definitely enjoying it all, though, except when I talk about how by the next World Cup we'll have a little boy who'll be almost four.  Scary stuff.  For now we're still hoping for a good job opportunity, and starting to get sick of filling out applications.  He'd make a really good employee, if someone would just hire him.  So that will probably be our summer: trying to enjoy the heat and pregnancy without worrying too much about our future and where we'll be one year from now.  It has been really nice to be here for two years, and I can't wait to be settled somewhere a bit more permanently.  (Moving is awful.) 

little things

Lots of little things lately have added up.  The weather is still beautiful, with cold nights and sunny days.  It's not too hot, though, which is why March is lovely.  You can enjoy flowers and sun and still wear cardigans.  Sam said yesterday that he thinks the English talk about the weather incessantly.  "Everyone brings it up constantly, and we have the same conversations over and over again: yes, it's raining; I thought it might be sunny; yes, I got soaked on my way in etc"... and he's right.  But somehow I find myself talking about it all the time, too. 

We've been missing London lately, too.  Museums and buses that run all the time and being surrounded by people.  All those plays and parks and long walks.  It's expensive, yes, but living there was wonderful.  Instead we're by the seaside and the downs, which definitely has its advantages.  Maybe nothing is better than salty sea air and the sound of waves.   

Sam is on his placement, and we're starting to worry about finding jobs next year.  Oh, job hunting.  Is there anything more soul-sucking?  Writing out hundreds of CVs and cover letters and emailing them in, never to hear back.  So there's all that to look forward to, assuming the next few months go as planned.  Plus I am already dreading having to move again.  I really despise it.   We'll have to sell our furniture, but will probably end up giving most of it away, and then we'll need to buy new furniture in a new place.  But that is months and months away, so for now, it is March, and the sun is shining, and I get to go off to France soon. 

signs of spring

Now that February is almost over, there are little signs of spring just about everywhere.  It makes me so happy to see flowers and buds on the trees and sunny days.

  

I love the changing seasons.  I get so excited when the signs for a new one first start to appear, and springtime might just be my second favorite season.  (My husband lobbies hard for the opinion that spring is the best.)  Having sun and flowers around mean that cleaning our apartment no longer feels so fruitless, and cooking is starting to be fun again.  Right now Sam is in the kitchen making tortillas for our dinner, so everything is pretty great. 

all things Christmasy

Christmas may have been and gone, but that doesn't have to stop me from writing some more about it.  Sam and I had a really lovely time, from our Christmas Eve traditions (Indian food for dinner and the Hobbit in the cinema) to Christmas morning stockings, waffle breakfast, and a British Christmas dinner.  (I think we'll have to have roast potatoes, carrots, and parsnips forever.)  I love getting Christmas cards in the mail and putting up decorations around the house.  This year, my family gave me some at Thanksgiving to bring back and put up, so it was especially fun.  We didn't have our own tree, but we've been lucky enough to spend plenty of time with friends who do.  Maybe next year we'll finally get one of our own.  And maybe next year will be the first we send out own own cards.  My parents never send out cards, so I'm not in the habit, but I really love getting them, so maybe I should start.  

So Christmas was wonderful and now it's over.  I'd be sad about that, but there's still plenty to look forward to.  Bring on 2014 and a whole new year. 

(almost) wordless wednesday: oxford

I can't help but want to share these pictures.  There is almost nothing I love more than an old university town.  I may not be a student anymore, but those were great years, and sometimes I miss them.  I mean, not everything, but learning new things and discussing literature and writing essays.... it was fun.  I still really want to take my husband to visit my old university town some day (maybe this year?), but for now, we'll both just love Oxford.

 There's just something about the energy in a student town that I find so appealing.  I know that for the students, tourists are so annoying (although I never really minded them back when I was a student... for some reason, I enjoy giving directions and didn't even mind the few times when they would take pictures of us).  I really do my best to convince Sam we need to visit Scotland and my old university, because nothing beats Scotland, but Oxford comes pretty close.  It has awesome history, fun stores, and so many gorgeous views.  It's been one of my favorite places to visit, although yes, I will say Cambridge is a close second.  (Or maybe even better, but only because I have friends there which makes the experience so much more fun.  In fact, I can't wait until next month when I get to go visit friends there again.)  In any case, easy access to places like this makes all the hassle of living here worth it.  (Except maybe visa hassle.  I'm not sure anything is worth that.  Oh, well.) 

home

via

I've been thinking a lot about home lately, especially as Sam and I sometimes discuss where we'll move next, where we'd like to live, where we feel most at home.  It seems fitting that I wanted to write about this right now, when it's the expat diaries link-up here today.  It used to be really hard... I'd miss London when we left, for example, but as soon as we returned to London, it didn't feel quite like home, either.  Probably everyone who moves around feels like this.  I've lived in the UK since I was 17, so even though I wasn't born here, in many ways, it feels like home.  I went to university here, learned how to navigate adult life with things like bills and phones and paying council tax.  I know more about finding somewhere to live, buying food, and working in the UK than I do in the US.  I began my marriage here.  I can't really imagine living anywhere else with my husband, but chances are, we'll be in another country this time next year. 

For now, we'll enjoy this place and time in our life.  We'll probably be back for visits from time to time, no matter where we go next.  And when I think about moving somewhere in America, like Boston or NYC, I get excited thinking about building a new home there.  Or maybe somewhere that feels really foreign, like California.  I know I'll miss the UK, and all our friends and memories, which is part of the reason why I try to write them down.  It's nice to have a record to look back on.  I just wish that I had started earlier.  Mostly, however, the best lesson of marriage has been that I really do have a partner now.  Wherever we move to next, we'll move together.  Nowhere can really be that foreign (which I argue as I try to persuade Sam we should move somewhere like Hong Kong or Vienna or Stockholm) when you're not alone. 

(almost) wordless wednesday: countryside

I know I will never, ever tire of seeing views like this.  England is so gorgeous year round.  I love the green, the trees, the meadows and farms and flowers. Something about seeing those fields makes me feel so happy and refreshed.  So, see, I can never really live too far away from this. 

last of the Cotswolds

I finally took these pictures off my camera, and was a bit shocked when I realized my trip was back in June.  Since today is the last day of September, I think it's fair to say this summer went by incredibly quickly.  As much as I love that it's finally autumn (with chilly weather at last), I think the summertime is growing on me.  I really enjoyed the warm evenings and sometimes even the hot days. I also love any town (or city) that has some kind of water... either because its by the seaside, or because it has a river or stream running through it.  I am noting this for any future homes I find... they'll need to be situated somewhere by the water. 

I like to think of hypothetical places we might end up living, and right now I am pretty torn because I cannot decide if I would choose the city or the countryside.  There are so many perks to both.  Luckily, it doesn't really matter, because we'll just move wherever we can get jobs.  (And if I did have to choose for some reason, I think I'd want to live in a city again for the next few years and then out in the countryside for a while after that.  Variety is good.) 

on the downs

On bright, sunny days, when you venture up onto the downs, it's like a different world.  It's seemingly always windy and foggy and chilly up there, no matter what. As you drive up, it ever so slowly becomes darker and windier and suddenly you realize you can barely see anything because of the fog.

So, fine, it might not always be foggy out on the downs.  Sometimes it is bright and clear, but I'm almost certain it is always windy.  And when it is foggy, it makes it utterly otherworldly up there.  It's silent (except for the wind) and the fog hangs over the valleys.  You can see how someone might accidentally wander over the cliff edge, it's so hard to see.  

It's actually a little frightening going close to the cliff edge.  You're so high up, with nothing to keep you from slipping.  And the wind is so powerful, you worry it might actually knock you over.  Plus, everyone has a story about a dog or child who had that happen to them...it's horrifying...I keep hoping it's all urban legend, but maybe not. 

I love those cliffs.  It's so hard to get a good picture, but they are the most amazing shade of white.  They stand out from everything around them, no matter the weather.  It's the views like this that make living here so worth it. 

the Cotswolds

So way back at the beginning of July, after visiting Oxford with my mom and my sister, we drove through the Cotswolds.  We spend two days exploring small random small villages, which were all gorgeous.  The weather was perfect and the scenery was unbelievable.  Everything is so much easier if you have a car.  

In this small town, we ended up stopping for dinner.  We spent probably half an hour walking up and down the main street, reading every restaurant's menu and trying to decide which one looked good.  In the end, we probably had the worst meal of the trip, but oh, well.  We still had fun.

We also stopped by the side of the road too many times to take pictures of the fields or woods we passed.  None of the pictures here are very good, because I still haven't taken any of the pictures off of my camera (or had any from my sister and her real camera), but they're still fun.  This is the lawn of the hotel we stayed at one night, which was basically a converted, eighteenth-century manor house.  The grounds as you drove up to it were covered with sheep.  They were everywhere.  It was dark by that point, and we kept laughing as we'd roll the windows down and do our best to shoo the sheep off the road. 

The best thing about the Cotswolds is all the stone houses.  I love stone houses.  I've lived in one once, and it would probably be my perfect home.  Plus, they all had amazing views.  We also found an incredible church.  It had this entire wall dedicated to the life story (complete with weird statues) of the church's patron lady and all her children.  Her life was pretty weird, or at least, she made it sound that way.  I love finding little things like that in what you think will be a completely normal church experience. 

oxford

When my mom and my sister came to visit, we took a small trip around to a few places we've all been wanting to see.  I've visited Oxford before, but my mom really wanted to see it.  We got up early on Monday morning and drove straight there.  It was the first day of July and much colder than they'd expected (even though I warned them) but the day was actually pretty nice and sunny.

We took ourselves on a self-guided walking tour first, and stopped on the grounds by Christ's Church College to eat the lunch we'd brought.  Oxford is a really beautiful place, and the college gardens were gorgeous and so well cared for.  

My mom really loves William Morris, so when she saw at the Visitor's Centre that they were doing a William Morris and Oxford tour, she was thrilled.  That's what we did in the afternoon; wander around Oxford learning about Pre-Raphaelites and William Morris and their various connections to Oxford.  It meant we got to go into quite a few random colleges and see things like this: 

I do like William Morris quite a bit, for the most part, so it was definitely an interesting take on the usual Oxford tour stuff.  I recommend it.  I also took real pictures, like with an actual camera instead of my phone, but I'm apparently not capable of taking them off my camera and putting them onto my phone.  It's sad. 

So, that was a month ago.  Today was cold and rainy and pretty much perfect weather.  Too much sun gets tiring, even in July. 

life lately

It has been hot around these parts, and never have I loved living near the seaside more.  It's so nice to be able to walk down to water in just two minutes, and cool down without any effort.  I'm not sure if I could ever really live far away from the seaside, it's just so nice!  We've been taking walks, paddling in the water, and learning how to skip stones.  (I'm really terrible at that.)

A few weeks ago, we went on a walk that took us by a busy duck pond.  We'd brought some old bread with us so that we'd be able to feed them, and we were excited to see there were swans and goslings there, too. 

 

It's been so sunny and bright out, the water is a perfect color and temperature.  It's also been very still -- horrible for surfing, but perfect for standing in, or kayaking, or swimming.  Sam has finished his classes, and so he can visit the sea with me, guilt-free.  I'm not the biggest fan of hot weather, but this can stay for a while, and we'll definitely make the most of it with ice cream and seaside walks.