Saturday, 21 February 2009

Flat Pre-Completion Visit

Today we got to go up and visit our flat while it's still under construction so that we could see the views and measure closets and windows etc. It's still a construction zone, but the flat itself is pretty much done, as is the hallway and parking garage - they're still working on most of the public areas but so far it looks really good, especially as it was brilliantly sunny and fairly warm today, which is a bit out of the ordinary as of late...

The flat seemed a bit smaller than we remembered, but then we pictured it full of furniture and that made more sense. The view is way better than we were expecting - it's absolutely AMAZING! We even scored with the parking space - end of the row, we'll be able to drive straight in, no awkward 9-point turns required. Now we just have to get a car...

Enough of the chatter, on with the pictures:

The Kitchen


The living room


View out the living room doors


From the other living room windows


The lagoon down below our flat


Looking down the deck


View from the deck


View from our bedroom window

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

And Then It Rained...

What could possibly come after a few days of horrendous snow that basically shut down Britain for a few days? Torrential downpours that seem to be doing more or less the same thing. I have to say, they really know how to do annoying weather here. Not like in Canada, where when it snows, it SNOWS and people are more or less used to it and get on with life (for most of the country that is, disregard Vancouver in this).














So now we have slightly melted snow combined with huge amounts of rain clogging drains and flooding roads and houses - not as bad as 2007, but pretty bad. It was really bucketing down last night to the point where the kiddos didn't even want to go outside, not that I can really blame them.

The best part of the rain is the way the British media goes way overboard with its reporting - the British media are nothing if not extreme - a few headlines which greeted us this morning:

"Evacuations planned as driving rain brings 65 flood warnings"

"A severe storm is sweeping Britain, bringing heavy rain, fierce winds and treacherous driving conditions."

On an unrelated note, I've been having a nice hot bowl of porridge for my breakfast lately. Normally I put a bit of nutmeg and allspice in the milk as I heat it on the stove (we don't have a microwave, everything has to be done on the hob). This morning I was a bit tired and feeling a bit out of it due to my cold - instead of allspice, I grabbed the tin of cayenne pepper and dumped a whole load of it in. I wouldn't recommend trying this.

Monday, 2 February 2009

Snow Day!

We've just had the heaviest snowfall recorded in Britian in 18 years - so much for global warming I guess :)

London deals with snow in much the same way that Vancouver does - the entire city shuts down. We've got no bus service anywhere in the city (or the country I think), 4 of the tube lines have shut completely, most of the others have SEVERE delays, most of the overground trains are shut or running with severe delays (ie two hours), London City airport is shut, both of Heathrow's runways are shut, and most flights in/out of Gatwick are being cancelled. Joy.

What this effectively means is that neither Jamie nor I can get in to work today (along with 99.9% of the rest of Londoners I suspect). SNOW DAY!!!



Day Twelve – The Adventures of Mr. Creosote – May 31, 2011

Today was our Cognac adventure day, plus we ate the largest dinner known to man. I feel like Mr. Creosote just before he had the wafer thin...