I'm baaack!

I'm back home.

I took the flight home yesterday; there were no offers to be bumped.

My cold is raging now. I went to work the entire day. I'm thinking I might take a sick day tomorrow. My bed looks like a crumpled tissue farm since I came home tonight.

My funny plane story is this: a family of 4 was in the row ahead of me. The kids were little, maybe 6 or 7 years old. They were quiet the whole flight, until the end. When we landed, one of the kids yelled out, "Touchdown, Jets!" and the other one said, "No, it's 'Touchdown, Continental!"

Tomorrow Pete goes for his medical exam for the visa. It's all the way in London.

So....what do you take when you get a cold??

Saturday night in England

Today we got up late, again...I never really was on UK time. Even on Tuesday when we got up at 8:30am, I went back to bed after breakfast and slept til noon. or 11:30. We've been staying up til 1 or 2am.

I leave tomorrow. Continental is showing the plane to be entirely full (even in first class) and I am entertaining the idea, if it's offered, of volunteering to be bumped from the flight just so I can stay an extra day. This is in violation of my boss's "must know 5 biz days in advance of vacation time" rule, but I'm mulling it over.

So today we hung out in Warrington. We hit the local pub for "pub grub". Pete had "bangers and mash" (sausage and mashed potatoes with "mushy" peas):



I had cottage pie. I wanted to have Shepherd's pie but I guess I'll just have to have it at Olives in Princeton.



Here's the front of Pete's house:


Here's the inside of Pete's front door, which has the postcard I mailed yesterday-it arrived already!


Pete's front room is all set for Christmas now. I encouraged Pete to set up his tree, and he also put up what they call "fairy lights":


Pete's house tour isn't over yet! Here's his bathroom:


This is his fridge. It fits under the counter and doesn't really have a freezer:


Here's his washing machine. His dryer is called "the great outdoors"


No microwave, no dishwasher. I should note that Pete only has one built in closet in his whole house, and that it just about holds his Christmas tree and vacuum cleaner! His house has the kitchen and bathroom added on to the back as I believe the house was built before indoor plumbing.

So the next post may be from New Jersey, or it may not! Stay tuned!!!

I leave you with a little something from LOL cats:


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

post-Thanksgiving day in England

I woke up at 11am today. I'm back on Eastern time, even though I'm still in England! We thought about going to the Hat Museum but we wound up staying around Warrington instead. It actually hailed this morning!

We went to the Warrington mall today. Here's a deer:


Here are the Warrington Christmas lights:



Warrington's Christmas tree:


We went to Sainsbury's grocery store again to buy something I forgot for Christine. Since it was Friday night, it was really packed!

Pete's house tour continued. Here's his den:



Here's one angle of his bedroom:


And another view:


We had lunch in a coffee shop, soup at home, ate a lot of junk food while watching the Daily Show and QI that Pete had DVR'd.

Tomorrow is my last full day in England. I fly back to Jersey on Sunday morning. Sigh!

Pete's still coughing, though it is less frequent. My sore throat has pretty much gone away. Overall my joints are doing ok; it's just my left knee that hurts a little bit.

Happy Thanksgiving from England!

Today was our "day off". Last year we swam off the coast of Maui for Thanksgiving, had Panda Express for Thanksgiving lunch, then flew back to NJ that night, sob. This year we're at Pete's house in Warrington.

Took some pix of Pete in his lemon Christmas pajamas. He's slept in them for 3 nights at this point:




Wore my Happy Thanksgiving t-shirt:


Ate most of my Thanksgiving turkey chocolate:


Watched a tv show called "Mock the Week".

Had Thanksgiving Dinner at Pizza Express. I love PE!! We walked there and back, which was great. We're doing a good amount of walking this trip.

More Christmas lights:


Stockton Heath is the only place in the world where I've seen Christmas trees shoved into flag holders (and I've seen this for several years now):




My Thanksgiving dinner (as suggested by my mom, why not go non-traditional?). It's a pizza with a hole cut out for salad.



Pete's Thanksgiving dinner:


Our dessert: me: pistachio and chocolate gelato. Pete: cheesecake


We walked past the bus depot. Here's where the buses sleep for the night.


Spent a LOT of time looking at LOLCats, FailBlog, and GraphJam. We think LOLCats is the best of all of them, but that GraphJam one is often funny too.

My sore throat is almost gone, but Pete's still hacking up a lung. My left knee is hurting a little? Ankles ok, back ok-ish.

No rain today!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I leave you with something from LOLCats. It helps to know that "nom" is food (or as in the sound one makes when eating--nom-nom-nom) and that they intentionally misspell everything as if a cat was speaking English.)

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Wet wet wet rain rain rain

I have a sore throat...oh noooo....Pete is coughing like some TB patient.
But we still had fun in Manchester!

First we hit up breakfast. Pete scored with eggs benedict while I chose poorly with the sausage baguette. I wish I had the eggs benedict, my goodness, the yummiest sauce around!

No pix of breakfast.

Here's a picture from our hotel brochure:

Write your own caption.

The floor in the room was mostly covered in carpet but the part that wasn't reminded me of the flooring in my door room in college:


The monsoon shower was really neat (even if the temp control was in centigrade--I don't even know what temperature I like to shower at in Fahrenheit!)


We packed and hit the streets of Manchester.

We went back to the Christmas shoppes. They're temporary wooden buildings, like this one:


Pete offered to buy me this purse for Giftmas that I coveted and I said yes. I know it's for a 5 year old but I just love the cleverness of it.


He also bought me these pins:


Marks and Spencer (Marks and Sparks) is kind of like Macy's:


I love these askew Christmas trees just plopped into pots until they are planted:





We went on the Wheel of Manchester (I don't know what it's really called).
This is what it looks like at night.


We went on it during the day while it was rainy and windy.




I always forget that Pete is afraid of heights:






We ate mini-pancakes and waffles from the, well, mini pancake and waffle stand at the Christmas shoppes (no picture--time was of the essence eating the warm, just-made goodness in the cold rain).

Took the train back to Warrington. Had dinner at Nando's (a chicken restaurant). I kind of messed this up. Nando's was supposed to be for Thanksgiving dinner as it was the closest thing to Thanksgiving dinner that I could come up with.

My hot chocolate complete with the Nando's logo:


Pete and his tea:



Then we went grocery shopping. More lights:


Left: choc for a coworker; right: an oven mitt for me


Oh, squirrels. I wish this was in jute:




Tonight we watched a show called "Embarrassing Old Bodies". Wow, they show a LOT on English tv.

Running behind on Pete's house tour. Here's his living room from one angle:

and from the other:


His dining room:


Good night! Happy Early Thanksgiving!