Sunday, February 10, 2008

If I can't ski, I'd rather bike

Having grown up in Ontario, Canada, I still find it incredibly surreal to be able to bike and walk without wearing gloves in February. This photo of a Magnolia bud was taken yesterday.

To give you a sense of winter while I was a child and frankly up until 3 years ago, here is a shot Tania took in Toronto just last week. While I love the snow, I need to be close to a mountain for some skiing. So, I'm not sorry not to be in Toronto ...



Now here in London, England, this weekend brought blue skies! Both Saturday and Sunday were filled with clear sunny skies only scarred with airplane vapour trails. Plus the good old gulf stream made sure we could easily spend all day outside --around 12C (yippee!)

The blue skies also meant that I wasn't going to sit in front of my computer, it dictated a day(s) out. Yesterday, as soon as we managed to wake up (we had been up late visiting with Matthew and Alex), I suggested a trip to Kew Gardens and J quickly agreed. So, after the prerequisite latte and croissant from Belle Epoque, we jumped on the train to Kew Gardens to see the Henry Moore exhibit.

I'm sure the exhibit would have been amazing on any day, but add in blue skies and relatively warm winter weather (i.e. 12C) and you have an "I love life" kind of day.
We just arrived at Kew and bought some fudge :) But it is disappointingly not anywhere as good as Niagara-On-The-Lake's fudge. Beware!

Can someone tell me how to make sure blogger doesn't rotate the pics. Sheesh!!



Here are a few shots from the exhibit and the day... I hope they make you smile and hear me say "miluju zivot!"

I think the best part of the day was as we walked from Kew to the train, some entrepreneurial young girls were selling yummy pink cupcakes. We passed by only to stop 10 feet past their booth and J ran back to get some -- yum yum. Only 50p each.


Now today (Sunday), J and I decided to give each other an early Valentine's Day present. FLOWERS!! As if Jonathan needed an excuse.

Today, I noted in the market (Columbia Street Flower Market) that it doesn't take an HP like J to buy flowers for himself. In fact, all guys here seem to find it invigorating. I was pleasantly surprised to see how at home the most tattoed, piereced and muscle-bound east-ender looked with an armful of lillies or tulips in Awww so sweet.

Believe it or not there were other great moments this weekend .. but feeling a bit weary from all the goodness. I hope you had a memorable one too.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love that bike in front of the pink door pic! if its on flickr i will fav it-
:)
and ha ha ha- we KNOW its warm there. so WHAT!!!
:)

Anonymous said...

i miss the snow. instead of snow falling from the sky, here in india there are paricles of diesel fumes floating about.
-b

Anonymous said...

I also love the bike outside of "pink door, number four"! It is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tempting to just pack up everything, including cats, and move across the pond. Only b/c now I am totally romanced by your beautiful home (which we could never recreate) and the fact that, the entire time I was in London, all I had to do was eat cheese, drink wine and get teary-eyed in Poets' Corner (Arnold! Dickens! Keats!).

I am really sad about anonymous' comment-- reminds me of being in Ecuador and fantasizing about diving into Crane Lake.....

Why the hell do I need a URL to post this????