April 25, 2008

Ruby’s memorable first trip to England

 Hey guys! This is Ruby, we just got back from London this afternoon. London is amazing! There’s so much to see and do! On Wednesday, our first day there, we went to the British museum. It had some really amazing artifacts to see, from all over the world. After that, we decided to have a look at Covent Garden, and we had a delicious tea at a lovely little restaurant called Paul. After that, my dad, sister, and I (being the insane Sweeney Todd fans that we are) had to go take a walk down Fleet Street. It was nothing special, but it was cool to be there anyway. After that, we had dinner at a total tourist-trap restaurant. Thursday was REALLY busy. First thing, we went to Buckingham palace and saw the Queen’s Gallery. It had amazing paintings and incredible jewels. Next, we travelled next door and visited the Royal Mews. The carriage horses were huge, beautiful Greys* and Cleveland Bays, and the carriages were incredible. Next we walked to Westminster Abbey which was AMAZING. The architecture was incredibly detailed and beautiful, and it was filled with the tombs of past Kings and Queens and other important people. It included the tombs of Elizabeth I, Henry VII, Edward I, and Oliver Cromwell. All people I have learned about in school, and was very pleased to be able to see where they were buried. After Westminster Abbey, my mom went to the Tate Modern, and my dad, sister, and I went on the London Eye. It was SO COOL! The weather on that day was really off and on, raining, pouring, and then turning sunny and beautiful. Luckily, when we went on the Eye, it was beautiful and there was almost no wait at all. The view was amazing, though it was a little scary to look up, because the fluffy clouds floating by made it look like the wheel was tipping over. Then we went to tea at an adorable little tea room called Shipps Tea Rooms. Then we went to a delightful production of The Importance of being Earnest. It was proper British theatre, with funny actors and beautiful sets. The actors really were great. They really captured the essence of their characters magnificently, (and Algernon was really cute!)**. The actor that played Jack was in the recent movie of La Vie En Rose. This morning we went to the Tower of London which was really cool to see, after learning so much about the Tudors in school. Just a few hours ago, we had a very exciting (and painful) experience. Robin, my mom, and I took Chaos and Darkness out for a nice little walk. In the very beginning of the walk, we went through a field of big fluffy sheep and their adorable little lambs. One of the lambs came right up and let us touch him, which rarely happens. All the lambs were bleating at us the whole time. After we passed through the field, we came to another field with a cute white pony in it. We started to pass through the field, and I held out my hand to the pony. He came right up and let me pat his neck. However, I think he must have been hungry or missing someone, because he was very cranky and promptly rushed ahead and began kicking at me. Unfortunately, one of his kicks connected with my leg. The pony wasn’t actually trying to hurt me, so he didn’t put any effort into his kick, but it was very painful nonetheless.*** We went back to the Third House and I rested my leg for the rest of the afternoon. I’m going to have a really nasty bruise. We just had a lovely dinner at the Mews, and are soon going back to the Third House.

*Footnote from Robin, who is a meddlesome old cow:  does anyone know if ‘Windsor grey’ is anything remotely resembling a breed?  Or is it only an honorary title for grey horses that hang out around the Queen and Buckingham Palace?  Which are presumably at least a type? 

** Does this mean that the search for cute British guys has finally been successful?  Inquiring minds want to know.

*** And I’m sure Hannah’s life passed before her eyes when she heard Ruby cry out and turned around and saw the pony irritably moving away and Ruby all bent over and holding on to her leg.  Mine certainly did–I saw it happen.  I’d seen the pony’s hindquarters bounce and his legs strike out, but in that split second when It All Goes Pear Shaped I thought–well, I thought two things.  I thought, crikey, you shouldn’t have a kicking pony in a field that a footpath runs through, and I thought, but he’s just warning her off, he won’t have connected.   Yes, it’s all my fault because I’m both the native guide and the old hand with horses, and I’d seen this one pacing–my guess is his field mate or mates was or were off being ridden, leaving him by himself–and I know Ruby is horse mad, and she’d even asked if she could say hello.  I did say be careful, you shouldn’t mess with other people’s animals . . . but I’d also watched her go up to him and seen him prick his ears and let her pat him.  At which point I was distracted by Darkness somehow climbing out of his harness, which has never happened before, and while I was grasping frantically at various escaping hellhound limbs I saw the pony move away, Ruby follow, the hindquarters bounce and . . .  I suppose I was also thinking that she’d recognise warning signs;  she’s been horse-mad several years now, went to residential horse camp last summer and so on and one of the absolute bottom pragmatic lines with horses is that you don’t let yourself be in a position to be kicked ESPECIALLY with a horse you don’t know. . . . But she’s also only twelve, and I’m fifty-five.  Ruby’s Memorable First Visit to England.  She’ll sure want to come back now. 

            And remember I’ve told you that while I have a homeopathic first-aid kit in my knapsack, I carry arnica in my pocket?  I don’t carry my knapsack on walks but I fished the emergency bottle out of my pocket and gave it to Hannah to start doling out to Ruby while the bewildered hellhounds and I sprinted back for the car.  Allow me to put a good word for my hellhounds here.  Their afternoon walk was a little on the late side (they remarked) so they came boiling out of the car–we’d driven back out into the country, you will recall, for lambs and bluebells–and the first thing that happened is that I had them cranked in on a no-inches lead for walking through the lamb field.  The next field was the pony field . . . and then we quick-marched back to the car and bundled them back in it . . . and I drove a weeping Ruby and a rather pale Hannah back to Third House, where they were going to peel poor Ruby out of her jeans and see what the bruise actually looked like.  I went off finally to have another attempt at hellhound walking, and while said hellhounds were obviously hoping something dog oriented was going to happen soon they were perfectly well behaved about it . . . allowing a certain slack for twenty-month-old hellhound ideas of ‘well behaved’.  When I got back Hannah had rung their doctor in Manhattan who’d cross-examined Hannah and decided Ruby did not need to go to A&E [accident and emergency:  where I did not get my hand x rayed seven months ago and where Peter did get his hand stitched up two months ago] and the arnica was having its effect.

            I’d already said I was letting them off bell ringing–sacred home tower bell practise tonight and Cormac was supposed to come take photos, but in fact Cormac–and his camera–and Becki gallantly came along.  And Cormac did take pictures, and we’re going to try to load them onto my computer tomorrow so brace yourselves.  Hellhound photography is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and it’s supposed to be a beautiful day, so supposing Cormac gets his eye in photographing 30 mph dogs–they have a terrier–we should, by tomorrow evening, also have hellhound action photos and maybe a little video.  And then I may sit here and torment you for a while . . . or I may just bail on the bell ringing ones.  Cormac did tell me, delicately, that he understood that I had to focus when I ring, but that I should perhaps try to look a little less grim.  Snork.  So then he took some photos of me trying to smile and look like I’m having a good time, which will probably turn out even worse.

            But here’s my news:

I RANG A PLAIN COURSE OF STEDMAN TRIPLES

 

I mean, you know, successfully.  I think I’ve only ever rung this at all twice before, and the first time was a complete disaster and the second time we did make it through to the end, but that’s only because Edward was shouting at me every stroke.  Sigh.  And he just sprang it on me tonight–I barely had time to have a fast glance at the line [pattern] again–and I had Cormac and Becki there flipping watching me, not that they have a clue or anything but they’re there.  And I did it!  I did it!!!!!!   I didn’t have a minder and Edward only yelled at me once!

            Which doesn’t mean I’ll ever do it again, or at least not for another six months.  Still.

            And I hope Ruby gets some sleep tonight. . . .

April 25, 2008 | Filed Under guest blog | 27 Comments 

Variety is good in all things, including blogs

 Hello there.

Well you’ve heard from my children and now it’s my turn. 

And I wish to begin with a cautionary tale which also happens to be the story of our day in Bath. 

We started out early, grabbed these amazing muffins from the adorable upscale deli, and headed off.  We noted that our fancy rental car needed petrol and soon pulled into a likely looking gas station.  My partner in navigation (and husband of 18 years) Cormac (who is very wise, despite what I am about to tell you) hopped out and filled the tank with Unleaded.  We drove off but soon noticed a jerking in the car and pulled over, with feelings of dread beginning to sprout little tentacles and take root in our souls.  I checked the booklet and it said (in really small type, hidden away) to be sure to check the inside of the gas tank cover before filling the car.  Well, sure enough (and I’m sure many of you, especially the British readers, are way ahead of me) the car took Diesel.  And we did know enough to know that you cannot drive a car with the wrong gas in it or terrible unspeakably expensive things will happen to the engine.  So we ended up waiting around for a really long time for someone to come and tow us to the nearest big town with a Car Rental office and then they kindly gave us a new car.  But not before I noticed that ALL the other cars had big red ‘DIESEL’ stickers on the dashboards AND on the OUTSIDE of the gas tanks!  Every single one of them!  Major harrumph!  So three hours later than planned, we arrived in Bath and immediately made for the Roman Baths which were of course amazing even though we had to rush and didn’t get to see the Costume Museum or have tea in the Pump Room.  And when they closed down and kicked us out (no doubt pissing off the Goddess big time) we got to see the other sights and it was a beautiful evening, causing champagne colored light to fall all over the buildings.

And now we are being fed pizza and salad by Peter and Robin who are absolutely excellent hosts.*

Hey everyone! It’s Ruby. I don’t have much time to blog today because I have to get home to wash my hair before we go to London tomorrow. This is my last blog until Friday or Saturday. Today was reeeeaaalllyyyy crazy. We woke up at 7:40, got a great early start on our way to Bath, and “broke down” halfway. My dad, Cormac (it was a total accident) put unleaded gas into our “DIESEL ONLY!” rental car. It held us up about 3 hours, but once we got to Bath it was amazing. I’ve been studying Roman architecture in school and it was awesome to see something I had learned so much about, in real life. Especially since it is still functioning after 10,000 years!!**  By the way, for all you Hellhound fans out there, Darkness is now sleeping with his paws up in the air and his teeth in a very menacing grimace and it looks hilarious. There will be pictures soon.*** Got to go now. Bye!!!

* Ah ha!  It’s a footnote!  It must be ROBIN!  YES!  It’s ROBIN!  . . . who is back to the old slave–I mean back to writing my own blog tomorrow.  I may have forgotten how.^  I was planning on being Brave tonight and not mentioning the blog because they were going to be shattered after the day they’d had, but Hannah marched in to the mews and said, okay, I have to blog NOW because as soon as I eat supper I will collapse.  –So I fell over an assortment of children and dogs in my haste to get the laptop off the shelf for her to write my blog for me.  But I wish to declare that Hannah has to say things like ‘ . . . who are absolutely excellent hosts’ at least once an hour or she starts feeling nervous and out of sorts.  Where did she get these manners?^^  We didn’t even make the pizza.^^^  Pizza Express all the way.  And when the asparagus pizza had exactly one and a half spears of withered asparagus on it and the spinach salad consisting of eight small spinach leaves and about a quarter of a tough tasteless avocado cost eight quid, I rang up and complained.  There’s something about hostly honour.  I wouldn’t have bothered if it had been just Peter and me.  Although if it had been just Peter and me, we wouldn’t have been ordering pizza take out. 

            But speaking of champagne-coloured light, it’s been a really stop-look-and-take-a-deep-breath glorious day here today, which is not only delicious in its own right but falls in nicely with my new Make Them Not Be Able to Help Themselves and Have to Come Back plan.+  See!  Look at this weather!  Do you have days like this in Manhattan?  Well . . . yes, actually.  But they don’t have bluebells. 

            The bluebells are about at their peak now and Hannah and family were supposed to be back in time tonight to have a champagne-evening-light walk before supper.  Not that they’re interested in bluebells, but I’m interested in showing them bluebells.  They’re all soppy over the lambs.  Feh.  Lambs.  Well, you don’t have them in Manhattan.  So I had plotted the Perfect Walk that had both lambs and bluebells . . . and then they weren’t going to get back anything like in time.++  So the hellhounds and I went by ourselves.  Usually I only climb in the car once a day to take hellhounds for a walk, for reasons of both time and pollution, but I was all mindset to have an afternoon walk in the country and it was such a perfect day we went anyway.

^ Naaaaah. 

^^ Corollary:  why are we friends?

^^^ Although I make excellent pizza.  Not that it has tomatoes or cheese involved, but it’s still excellent.

+ Not only for their guest blog capacity.  No, really.

++ It’s a hoot emailing back and forth–she has a Blackberry/Cranberry/Deepdishlatticetopwithorangeglazecherrypie–when I’m going to see Hannah again in a few hours.  I can see how texting has caught on.

** Um.  It’s late at night, and she had her mum saying in that firm parental way, you have to stop now!  Either you can blog or you can wash your hair!  The Roman baths are 2000 years old, give or take, but I think it’s 10,000 years it takes the water to seep down from the Mendip Hills?  It’s even later at night now, and a fast pass over Wikipedia and the official Roman Baths in Bath site didn’t instantly turn up this crucial particle of info.  And it was a sacred site before the Romans ever got there.  The Celts may very well have been there praying to the Goddess 10,000 years ago.

*** Yes.  Gulp.  Pray for photographable weather on Saturday, because that’s the day that Cormac is supposed to immortalize hellhounds and hellhag.

April 22, 2008 | Filed Under guest blog | 33 Comments 

More guest blogging! More yessssss!

 Hey, it’s Ruby again. Today was amazing!!!!!! We woke up early, (10:00, it’s early for us especially when we’ve been up chatting all night) and we went to the New Forest. We spent about 2 hours driving around trying to find our trail, walking on the beach, and then attempting to locate the trail again. The ocean was beautiful. It was foggy and chilly but it gave a sort of calming effect to the icy water. We ended up taking a different trail than the one we set out to find. We started off walking along the path, but soon we strayed from the road and followed a couple of orangy appaloosa ponies down a hill. The ponies were SO CUTE!!! Small and fluffy (most of them were around 10 hands for all you horse people out there) with thick, long manes and tails and big, knowing eyes. We got really close to the two appaloosas and we got some really awesome pictures. Rebecca stayed back a bit, she didn’t have much breakfast and was more interested in getting to the town to eat lunch, than walking all over the place to see a bunch of ponies. I (being the horse-obsessed person of the family) went on a bunch of little adventures, trying to get close to a band of ponies. I followed a muddy trail of un-shod pony tracks through a little woody marsh. I leaped and ducked a mess of sticks and leaves, crossed a wide stream balancing on a thick branch, and sat behind a bush to watch a herd of 4 ponies. As I was crossing the stream, I noticed a flighty batch of gorgeous deer about 50 feet away. As soon as I turned to look at them, the branch I was standing on creaked. That set the deer off like fireworks. The usually calm and graceful deer stumbled over each other dashing away. After New Forest we came back to Third House and spent a very quiet afternoon reading in bed. For dinner, we went to an amazing pub. Some of the architecture in the building dated back to the 17th century. For dinner I had King Prawns with chili sauce and Fries. The food was incredible, but the dessert was to die for. We shared a few exotic flavors of creamy ice cream, and you have not lived until you have tasted the Sticky Toffee Pudding. After dinner we came back to the mews to play with the hellhounds.

Hey guys, its Becki. Today was a very..automobile-filled day. We spent most of it in the car trying to find our way around. But I’m just getting ahead of myself. Last night by the time I finally got into bed and was supposed to go to sleep I wasn’t tired at all, so me and my sister spent most of the night chatting. Then my mom woke us up at the break of dawn (aka 10 in the morning) and we went to the New Forest. I have to say, as much of a city girl as I am, it was pretty cool. It felt kind of like we were in a Lord of the Rings-esque valley (I know, nerdy reference) and there were wild horses everywhere. I am not a sneakers girl and like to wear dresses whenever possible, so going out in the muddy valley looking for horses was not a bucketful of fun for me. My sister on the other hand was having a blast, snapping 5 pictures a minute and going insane if the horse so much as moved its foot. Then we went into “town” and got food. There were horses and cows EVERYWHERE!! On the side of the streets, and I even saw some on the sidewalk. We got sandwiches, crisps, and I got some weird ginger drink that was really good. Then we went home and took a nap (HEAVEN) and went out to dinner. We went to this adorable little inn, which had great food! The desserts especially. I couldn’t get enough of that clotted cream vanilla ice cream. Then we went back to the mews, and here I am now.

April 21, 2008 | Filed Under guest blog | 29 Comments 

Guest Blog! Yessssss!!!!!

Hey guys! This is Rebecca, but I prefer Becki. We just got to England yesterday at 6:30 in the morning, but it felt like 3 in the morning. Since it was 80 degrees in New York City, the weather felt freezing!  Apparently when my family and I were driving here we got lost, but I was too busy sleeping. Then we got to the town. It was so cute!!! There’s a little town with some shops, and everyone has accents! I love those accents; I could listen to a British person talk all day long and not get bored. My sister and I spent the afternoon in our little cottage reading while our parents went to get food at the supermarket. It’s so hard to stay awake! I had to wake my sister up about 6 times in 1 hour. We then had an attempted Passover dinner, but none of us really knew the story well. All I could think about the whole night was how amazing it would feel to get into those cozy blankets and sleep without anyone waking me up. The next morning my mom woke me up bright and early at 12:30. I was still tired, but I sensed a chocolate croissant with my name on it. Today we went to Stonehenge, it was awesome! I like the way they pronounce it on the audio tour, “StoneHENGE.” Then we went to Salisbury, and spent about 30 minutes driving. Then we went to go get food, like a good American. We went to this café and got sandwiches and hot chocolate. It was really good! I’m ashamed to say that me and my sister went scouting for cute British guys, and failed. Then we went to go see the old cathedral, it was really beautiful. I got a little freaked out because when we were walking around, we discovered that on the floor there were little marble squares that said things like “Here lyeth the body of Joe Smith (they had more interesting names, don’t worry)” So I spent most the time trying to dodge stepping on the bodies. Then we spent the next hour or so trying to figure out how to get home. And that is our British Adventure so far.   

Hey people. This is Ruby, here to tell you a bit about our visit to England. This is actually my very first time out of the country, (YEAAAAAAAAA) and so far it has been absolutely incredible. I have an endless list of places I want to go and things I want to see, I would bore you to sleep if I even recited an eighth of either list. So, in New York around now it’s about 80-something degrees, so when we got to England, we were very unprepared for the 50-ish weather. The town that Robin lives in can be described in two words.  It is absolutely charming. I am a total country girl, (tough for a person living in Manhattan). I am obsessed with horses and I love animals in general. So, when the second we started driving, and the sides of the roads were all farms with endless cows, horses, and sheep, I was overjoyed. The town is all little shops with adorable, very British-sounding names. Rebecca and I were always on the lookout for cute British boys, (we are both obsessed with British accents and we both want to have one). Stonehenge is very high up on my list of things I wanted to see, and it was better than I had imagined. As soon as I caught my first glimpse of it from our car window, a huge, goofy smile broke out on my face and stayed there until we left. We got an audio-tour and it was really cool to hear the myths and history of the stones as we walked around them. Robin’s dogs are one of my favorite things about the trip. They look like whippets except they are bigger. Chaos and Darkness are ADORABLE!  They love to be petted and are very used to it. They are certainly not what you think of when you hear the term “lap dog” but they are more so than any dachshund or Yorkshire terrier you will ever meet. The scenery is incredible around Stonehenge. Beautiful open farmlands as far as the eye can see. The scenery in town is very different but just as pleasing to the eye. Cute, old-fashioned little cottages, all with cute, British names.  Tomorrow we are going to the New Forest. Some of it is real forest with old oak trees, and some of it is open land with bushes and wild ponies, (yay ponies!). Today we also went to Salisbury and saw the incredible Salisbury cathedral, built 750 years ago. The outside and inside were equally beautiful with intricate designs and beautiful stone. My sister was a bit creeped out because there were tombs all over the place inside. Even on the floor there were spots labeled “Here lyeth so-and-so.” That’s about all we’ve done so far, but I’m sure there’s a lot more amazing things to see and do coming up.

April 20, 2008 | Filed Under guest blog | 30 Comments 

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett