Falling in Love with the Cotswolds

The parentals visited me in London way back in the last week in April. A fabulous time was had by all. They even scored some nice weather (it was touch and go there, but the sun was generally shining).

During their 10-day visit, we spent a weekend in the Cotswolds and then the town of Woodstock to visit Blenheim Palace. For those of you unfamiliar with the Cotswolds, I'll break it down: a series of quaint English towns, surrounded by beautiful hills and countryside.

Here are some shots from the trip.

I love this house. I will live there one day. This, and several of the following, are from the town of Chipping Camden.


I felt like we were walking through the scene in a book. A scene in a Jane Austen book to be exact. I wondered why I didn't rent a period outfit and sit around waiting to be swept up off my feet. I guess that would have been a touch too dramatic. Just a touch.


A thatched roof.


It was a bit cold, but we meandered around and stumbled upon this lovely scenic view.


What kind of place has streets like "Sheep Street"? I'll tell you what kind of place: Chipping Camden.


This house was in the town of Woodstock. We were there for the 900th anniversary of the town, or something. Whatever. Everything is so old here, 900 years probably isn't that big a deal. Ok, it sorta was...Oh. And funny story of the week: we show up to the town late at night, without the hotel's correct name, its address, directions or phone number. Hummm....that was a little tricky. Thanks to some local folks we did eventually find our B&B.


Blenheim Palace. Thankfully we were there for a special medieval weekend event: jousting. Don't worry that everyone else watching had children under the age of 3...


The lovely lake/pond area. I'm gonna make me one of these on my gigantic property when I have a house.


More scenes from the lovely grounds around Blenheim Palace.


All in all, a lovely weekend. More photos from the remainder of their visit to come!

I Live in London, Not in a Movie

In case you were wondering, here are two ways my life is not like a movie....

Public transportation. I'd say 'nough said, but it's not enough said if you don't know what it entails. Think crowds and crowds of people. Nasty brake dust in the tube and never averaging more than 10 miles an hour. Seriously. It takes me 45 minutes to get to my nearest friends' house. In the states, it'd take me less than 4.5 minutes.


Lack of modern conveniences: aka a clothes dryer. Our tiny flat constantly looks like a laundromat with clothes strewn about everywhere. You have to time the washing of "intimates" to make sure people won't be over at your place before they can dry. We also don't have a dishwasher, nor insulated walls, nor double paned windows, nor proper heating, nor AC.

Trip to the Land of Ire

So over the Easter holiday, the first weekend in April of this year, I headed off to Ireland with a few people. It was totally worth it.

Here's the math: 55 hours of work in the 4 days leading to the trip, 20 hours of driving over the weekend, 5 people in a tiny tiny car, 3.5 hours of sleep the night before the flight, 2 rainbows and 1 head cold, 0 leprachans/boxes of Lucky Charms/four leaf clovers = 1 awesome trip.

Blarney castle grounds. Yes, I did kiss the Blarney stone.

Blarney castle grounds #2



The windows weren't so big back in the day.

Some awesome fort.

Some cool random street.

Another random street

I loved the old Irish men.


This dude was just drivin' down the street on his electric wheelchair, and I was jealous. It'd take an electric scooter over a Harley any day. Ok, not really.

Look familiar? Think the cliffs of insanity from The Princess Bride

Some stone slabs

What's sadder than...

going shopping and realizing that the shirt you're wearing (which you bought a few weeks ago) is still on the racks, meaning you pass by the shirt in the store, while wearing it?

I'll tell you what's sadder than that: about 30 minutes after that embarrassing situation a lady sits next to you with her lunch and she's also wearing the same shirt as you (and the one in the store), only she looks better in it than you....and she's about 50 years older than you. Yea. That's sadder.

By the way. This was totally hypothetical...........

What's better than...

a street performer? Well, I'll tell you: a street performer that has literally no experience in what they're performing.

Case in point: a saw/heard a street performer playing the trumpet on Thursday evening. It would have been kind of nice, except that it seemed as if the guy had never played the trumpet before. Maybe he was just warming up....but I literally laughed out loud when I realised what was going on. Regardless of his lack of talent, he carried on like a super star.

While I didn't have any type of recording device on me, youtube has helped me out and this is sort of what it sounded like:

Windsor Castle

Back in March, I went with a little group of folks and toured Windsor castle (my official residence once Prince William pops the question. Which of course he will since I have a bank account in the UK).

Enjoy the pictures


The Queen was there, hence the flag flying.

Cutest kid with an afro (I add the afro in so none of my siblings can protest the term "cutest" being applied since none of my nieces/nephews have afros).

He marched around and around. It was way more entertaining than the guard himself.

Check out this place. They didn't use levels back in the day to test the right angles.

Ancient Well, self-explanatory:

Farewell Dinner

The same day we rode the circle line, March 21, our friends threw a lovely dinner in honor of our friend who headed back to the Motherland (aka Utah), even though he's from New Zealand: Dan Jones.

Great weather, great location, great meal and best of all, great crew in attendence.

The man of the hour, Dan Jones.

As I may not see him for years to come, I thought it'd be a cool idea to do some age progression estimates.

A fellow artist hard at work

View from the window. Your typical London residential street which is always atypically gorgeous to me.


With about 12 hours left in London, what do you want to do...learn how to french braid of course!!! I was Dan's test subject.

His first ever attempt which was really quite good.

Prepping for our photo session. With my mind-reading abilities, I decided to help you the viewer out and interpret everyone's thoughts (click to enlarge)

The crew

We miss you Dan!