But I thought it was worth marking the end of this month, the longest of all dreary, grey, months; a month that I believe the British just lift their chins and bear year after year and feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of it for having tolerated 31 days of dark, dull, and wet. Ironically, as I type, I'm squinting due to the sun coming through the window - a soft, pretty winter sun that we've actually had the benefit of seeing more than a few times over the past week, as well as earlier in the month, so 31 days ends up being something of an exaggeration. On a clear day it's apparent also that it's staying light later into the afternoon, and I saw the tips of crocuses out front contemplating making a go of it, so can spring really be far behind?
January was a pretty good month, really, all things considered. After recovering from our Christmas & New Years visit and shoveling up the pine needles from our "no-drop" tree, we settled in nicely. Kyle interviewed for admission to a well-reputed culinary program that begins in September - fingers still crossed as he hasn't heard back yet. Chris & I visited the Churchill War Rooms & museum which were extraordinary. We also took advantage of a sunny Sunday afternoon and visited Holland Park in Kensington, which was lovely! I took lots of photos on my iPhone (Japanese garden, peacocks, parrots) then unfortunately lost them all when I plugged said phone into my desktop computer and iTunes restored all of my previous settings from my old iPhone... nevermind, too long a story, but they were great photos, darn it. (And yes - there really were peacocks & parrots!)
Saw the movies "The King's Speech" and "127 Hours", both of which I would recommend. We spent a lovely weekend in Bath (see my previous blog), and then last week Chris & I attended a Burns Supper at our local butcher shop, which was a lot of fun, complete with the reading of the Burns poem and the serving of the haggis. We'd tried haggis in Scotland and found it somewhat tasty. I found last week's haggis tolerable as well, although keep in mind - I did grow up occasionally eating Spam & canned corned beef hash for dinner. Now that I think of it, if you can imagine the two of those things mixed together and cooked inside a pig's stomach lining, you sort of can imagine haggis. Anyway, at the Burns Supper they served the course with a taste of Scottish whiskey, which made it go down much more easily than it should have, resulting in my eating too much of it and paying the price later. Consider it safe to say that I will most likely never eat haggis again. (Given my above description of it, I'm sure you're wondering why on God's green earth would anyone try it to begin with?)
This past weekend I took Chris to the Wallace Collection to show him what all of the fuss is about, then spent yesterday mostly vegging on the couch and taking Baracca (the UK's version of Airborne) in order to fend of a pesky cold, and I think it worked, as today I happily ended the month on an up-note, walking with my wonderful fitness walking group and enjoying blue skies. February looms, but if it's anything like its predecessor, winter here in London is shaping up quite nicely. (Yes, I'm knocking wood, thank you very much.)
No photo album this time, but enjoy this one taken just moments ago out of our back window. With apologies to the folks shoveling snow in the mid-Atlantic and northeast, Happy Winter! :-)
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