First snow fall

No blogs in a month and then 2 in as many days! I must be feeling guilty or something.

I just wanted to make a note that we have had our first dusting of snow here in Uxbridge. I don't think it's going to stay around long but it is pretty... Here's a picture from this morning from our window.

November flew by

I just realized I haven't updated the blog in weeks! We've been busy the past few weekends...

We went to a scary play two weekends ago - The Woman in Black - which has been playing nonstop in London since 1989! It was very spoooky (but I am a wimp about these kinds of things. Keith watched it stoically). The movie version from the early 1990s scared me silly when I was a kid so I prepared myself by watching the scary bits on youtube over and over again. The play was still scary though, especially the second act. Although it's all done with sound effects, lighting and only 2 actors on the stage (or are there 3? dun dun dun....) it is amazing that they can get an audience to scream out loud! We also bought tickets for War Horse in January (as a reward for finishing my two essays, due earlier that week). It's supposed to be fantastic (done with life-size horse puppets) so I am really looking forward to that.


What else did we do?... a few weekends ago we went out to the Museum in Docklands (part of the Museum of London found all over the city) in East London. The day was very cold and rainy so it was a great day to spend indoors learning about history. Keith was excited because one of the talking heads in the museum's video displays was the English actor Tony Robinson who hosts his favourite tv show Time Team (and is also known as the dimwitted Baldrick from Blackadder). The museum covers the history of the Docklands area from Roman times when it was the centre of trade to the present day, including the heavy bombing of the area during WWII and its rebuilding as a financial centre during the 1980s. My favourite part of the museum was Sailortown, a recreation of the Docklands area in the shady 19th century. It was complete with the strong scent of urine which certainly added a sense of realism. We weren't sure if this was an effect added by the museum staff or added by the museum patrons taking advantage of the darkened lighting to relieve themselves. Either way it was spooky (if smelly) fun.


We also attended a Remembrance Sunday service with some of the kids in Keith's school. It was held at the cenitaph in Uxbridge. It was very special to be part of a Remembrance Day parade in England, as both of our grandfathers served in WWII.


This past Saturday was our "uncultured" break - we went to the mall. One thing we saw which I am sure would never be found in Canada was a giant indoor snow globe - people were lining up to play and cavort in the plastic "snow"! If you put that in a mall in Canada people you would have to pay people to go into it.

Mini-break in Cardiff

Last week was the half-term holiday for school kids, so we took the opportunity to take a mini-break to Cardiff (or Caerdydd in Welsh). My approach to identifying Cardiff as our destination of choice was very simple: I googled a map of the UK, looked around at cities that seemed not too far from London and were relatively largeish and (most importantly) I had already heard of, and said, "ooh Cardiff. How do you like the sound of that?" Keith said it sounded good to him. This is why we're married.

We took the bus from downtown London (which required a bit of backtracking westwards) and in about 3 hours were in the city centre. Cardiff is a lovely Ottawa-sized city, the capital of Wales. Although my selection of this destination was pretty random, it was a great choice for a short holiday. Our super-budget hotel was ideally located between downtown Cardiff (to the north) and Cardiff Bay (on the Bristol Channel to the south) about 15 minutes walking distance from each.

When we arrived in Cardiff we passed by some North American-sounding tourists in the midst of asking each other the age-old question: What language do the Welsh speak? One really interesting aspect of Cardiff (and another reason why it reminded us of Ottawa) is its bilingualism. All the English-Welsh signs were interesting to look at and try to pronounce (we had more success with the English parts). Our hotel tv also had an all-Welsh channel that made for some fascinating (if mindless, on our part) listening.

One of the highlights of our trip was a visit to Cardiff Castle - - like many historic sites in the UK the site has been in use as a fort or castle for 2000 years (originally by the Romans) but the current buildings date from 1000AD and the late 19th century (a wealthy local family moved in to the castle grounds and added some fantastical buildings to live in, in the gothic revival style). We also visited the National Museum Cardiff (or Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd in Welsh) which houses historic information about the geological and early history of Wales as well as an art gallery on the second floor. There are some very interesting exhibits about the early people of Wales including lots of archeological findings - arrowheads, pots and jewelry - and some paintings and portraiture by Welsh artists of the 18th and 19th centuries. We also went to a fantastic concert held at St. David's Hall (or Neuadd Dewi Sant) in the centre of town, played by the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera - Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead, Ravel's piano concerto in G, and Stravinsky's Firebird Suite were fantastic.

We finished our trip on Saturday with a walk down to Cardiff Bay and a waterbus tour across the bay. A barrage built about 10 years ago has created a freshwater lake and has also resulted in the increasing worth of waterfront property - there were many new condos all along the waterfront and this has hopefully brought greater prosperity to the city.

We would love to go back to Wales in the future and see more of the countryside. Perhaps when we are a bit braver about driving in the UK we will!