Pictures of Bristol

So, as promised I am posting pictures of a jaunt I took last Wednesday. I'm happy to report that Mark's computer is healed and looking very nice after its stay in hospital. :) Last Wednesday I was getting ready to do my daily walk and was feeling a bit tired of my typical route. It then occurred to me that I do have options and could just hop a bus to walk about the more historic parts of Bristol's city center instead! So I grabbed my camera and a map and did just that. It was a glorious day and likely the last of the warm ones we'll be having this year. Here I am a week a later posting this, and as I write it is raining and cold. But I like that contrast and intend to go walking today too in raincoat and gloves! :) I think I'll take the camera again and perhaps post a contrasting jaunt.

I liked the arches. This is just a side street in older Bristol

Lovely pond on the way up to the top of the hill with Cabot Tower

And the Tower itself

I loved how this was all laid out

View as I approached. Everything really is that green.

I don't know what these are called but I love them

View of St. Mary Redcliffe from the hill

Mark's school is near the church that Queen Elizabeth I called the 'goodliest, fairest church in England'

Lovely sailboat on my way to St. Mary Redcliffe

I've been inside the church before, but am never tired of how lovely it is. And they had some gorgeous floral arrangements that day.

As you can see in the photos, Bristol has some lovely areas. I like the area around Cabot Tower as it is a beautiful park and affords some of the best views of the city and harbor from the top. And yes, it's named for John Cabot, famous explorer, who spent a lot of his time in Bristol.

Here comes the rain, duh duh duh duh....

So I felt I should let everyone know that yes, we are still alive. Sorry for the delay in posting but Mark's computer went to the computer hospital last week and is still awaiting a checkout date. Pleasingly, it is still under warranty and so the hospital stay is covered. I feel in some way it is my fault his computer is in the hospital. I was the one using it when it decided to freeze up after all. All I did was turn it on and look at a recipe site. And then it just froze. So for those of you interested, yes, my power over computers is still very much present and dangerous. :)
But that is not very fascinating to read about so we shall move on. I almost considered not posting because I have some lovely pictures from an adventure I took last week, and I didn't want to go out of chronological order. (The history teacher in me is twitching a bit) But, I thought to myself, it has also been awhile since posting and a kind friend has allowed me use of her computer so I decided to let the world know that the Wilsons are indeed still bopping about Bristol.
Actually, this past weekend, we bopped about London on a very lovely day and for a great reason--we were welcoming the Newmans back to the UK. I found this particularly appropriate since I was also at their going away party in the US. :) But we went to a lovely home in the north part of London and I got to meet a lot of Daniel and Mark's friends as well as be re-united with Brooke and relax in the comforting and clear sound of an American voice. I have beent trying to explain to people that I am not the one with an accent, but they don't believe me. :)
I am really starting to appreciate Bristol as I get to know it better, and in fact even went a bought a small little pocket book guide for touristy things to do in the city. However, it amuses me that most of these things the natives haven't even seen! I'll mention some restaurant or market I want to go to and the typical response is 'I've never been there either! I should check it out too sometime!' I have now taken the bus on my own to numerous locations in the city and am feeling a bit more confident with it. But I'm also enjoying my daily walks, both for pleasure and necessity, and it must be admitted I'm enjoying the way my cloths fit as well as enjoying the scenery. :) I'm also more used to walking on sidewalks with cars parked half on the street and half on the sidewalk. Standard procedure if  you're going to leave room for a car to get by on the street. Note I said A car, as they may technically be two way streets but in order to do that, one person has to pull over in some gap to let the other pass. I'll do another blog on the intricacies of Bristol driving. It will take time to explain.
I'll just end by noting that today was delightfully misty and made me think of the poem which has the line 'misty, moisty weather' (Robert Louis Stevenson?) Anyway, I liked wearing a scarf and gloves and braving the elements for my groceries. :)
Hopefully I can post pictures soon and I shall share my recent adventures. Cheers!

Strolling in Sunshine

So England is doing its best to surprise me. Oh, we've had our share of rain, but so far the bulk of the weather has been sunshine. Windy--oh yes--after all Bristol is very close to the sea, but gorgeous blue sky and sunshine has been occurring a lot and today is the best of them all! Today is also the day I decided to stroll furthest afield since I have been walking around enough both by myself and with Mark to see what is on our road. And I must admit, despite the risk of sounding condescendingly American, that I just love the small shops, tiny roads, and ways that the British have which have not changed much over the centuries. Certainly, modernity is all around us as well. And I realize that the small spaces necessitate certain lifestyles. Still.
For example, today I decided to go look at a bedroom furniture store which is going out of business, to see if I could find Mark and I some better pillows at a good price. But I also decided on the way to pop into any shop that took my fancy as well as run some information errands. So one of the first stops was the butcher shop near us to find out if they do indeed stock fresh turkey around Thanksgiving. I asked this and the butcher (who looked quintissentially like a butcher should: short, balding, in a white coat, and somewhat stout) had to ask me the date for Thanksgiving. Ah yes, religious persecutions from 1620 are not big on the radar here. He said to check back in October--he'd have more information from the poultry farms then!
After passing two bakeries I decided that fresh bread would be next on the list and then headed down further to look into an Oriental market we passed the other night. I was not disappointed and picked up a few items for future Thai food consumption. By the time I crossed the street to stroll up the other side, it was clearly tea time and people were taking the advantage of the nice weather to have their tea outside in various little shops. I really wanted to get flowers from one of the many shops I passed, but know enough now to see that they were more expensive than I needed to pay. So, I got myself a lovely fat loaf of whole wheat bread and came home to make a cup of tea myself and have some toast with it.
All this to say that I was just feeling rather like a character in a book who did all the cliche' English things. Except that cliche' or not, they really do go to various little shops and get different items and toodle about before tea time and then hop a bus for home. Yes, they have supermarkets, but clearly the small shop is still very much alive in Bristol at least. :) On a final note my box of American baking goods arrived today and just in time too. It's just the sort of weather for gingersnaps! (Besides it will cover the smell of my first piece of toast which burned to cinders in a very powerful new toaster. ) Love to my fam!!

So it's raining....

Ahhhh..... red appliances.... :)

View of the garden behind us from our kitchen window

Looking out our livingroom window

The unpacking carnage

Why is this so pleasing? Anyone have a scientific explanation?

Tiny little oven, but notice the red pots!!!

This will no doubt come as a huge surprise to everyone, but it's raining right now. In England. What are the odds right? Actually, it's rather nice to look out the window and be reminded that I am in England. I can see tiled roofs and a fine sheet of rain--so fine that it almost can't be called by such a name, but this is very typical English weather for fall. It means that I can enjoy getting out spicey smelling candles and cook warm meals and really WANT hot tea.
Clearly, I am now on the other side of the Pond and am settling in to Bristol so I thought I would update. The first two days here were absolutely lovely with clear skies and sunshine. Mark and I walked to church on Sunday, and enjoyed the weather immensely as we did so. Yesterday was the first day of what we are calling 'real life' as Mark went off to work and I had my first day in my new flat. So I went to work and cleaned. Being that this is England, there are many older buildings that have been converted to flats and this is one of them. While there is a charm to this, it does mean that one finds many things to clean. One also finds funky uneven floorboards and heavy windows but I think this adds to the ambiance. I enjoyed taking dominion over our home and was rewarded with Christmas in September when my John Lewis wedding gifts arrived yesterday. Can you understand the happiness of opening numerous red appliances and putting away brand new dishes in your glass front cupboard? Or the knowledge that you may have registered for more wine glasses than you intended, but it's so lovely to see them fill the shelf and realize that you are READY for company! And I had the joy of cooking with my new red pots and pans yesterday. Thanks Millers and Monnettes!! I did indeed think of you.
I have also had fun walking around a bit and Mark and I discovered a very large grocery store near us. We didn't realize it was so close and this will make life much easier in the shopping department. It is called Tesco's and it was a pleasing revelation when we came across it on Sunday. I shall be making my second trip there today to grab a few more things that I couldn't carry yesterday.
You see, if I want to get around, walking is the best bet and I can't carry the groceries that Americans would put in their cars. Of course, our fridge won't HOLD the groceries Americans get, so this means more trips in the week to the store. But this is actually a benefit because it guarantees not only leg exercise, but arm strengthening workouts as well! :) Speaking of which, I need to move the laundry along, but here are some pics to give you an idea of our life. Toodle pip!

Packing to pop over the Pond

I thought it would be good to initiate my very first blog with a post before I travel to England and my new home in Bristol. I have always had the idea of blogging once I was married, lurking around in the back of my mind, and behold the time has come! Computers and I still have a shaky relationship at best, and I am still figuring out the intricacies of setting up a blog, but my youngest sister has been extremely helpful in getting this started, so here I am!
It may strike you as odd that I am travelling on my own. This is for the very good reason that I had to wait for my British visa to arrive in order to go and join my husband. You see, I am American and he is British (Irish-British just so we're being accurate here) and thus numerous paperwork hurdles had to be overcome in order for me to join him in the lovely British Isles. In fact, so much paperwork was done, I feel that if I laid it all end to end, I could walk from Moscow, Idaho, to Bristol upon it. But it is finally complete and tomorrow I board a plane for my new country. This is not to say I am forgetting my original country or renouncing citizenship. Far from it. As the song says, "I'm proud to be an American" but I'm also pleased to go and live in our mother country and call it my home, because my heart is truly there.
So this blog shall humbly chronicle our life in England and the adventures my husband and I intend to have beyond British shores as well. We both have a yen for travelling you see, and so we intend to go forth and view as much of the world as we possibly can. This may involve dragging various offspring around with us so that we can all gawk at things historical, cultural, and gastronomic.
But in this post I shall bid my beloved home country farewell. Roots are difficult things to pull up when they go deep, and I am finding this hard to do. At the same time, good strong roots can be transplanted successfully and flourish in a new place, and I look forward to flourishing in a country that has the joys of tea, Chesterton, Oxford and of course, her Majesty, the Queen.
Good-bye dear old US of A. Until we meet again...