Matt had to work yesterday so I did something unusual and got out of the house not too long after he left and at least a little before the tourists started to flood the cathedral close. No tourists meant that I could finally take a decent photo of Mompesson House.
Mompesson was built in 1701 and I'm sure there are those who love it for it's historical value. I guess you could say I love it for it's historical value as well - just a much more recent history. If you're a big fan of Sense and Sensibility you might recognize this as Mrs. Jennings' London home which means...Alan Rickman was here.
I couldn't find a photo from the actual movie but you can see the same sign to the right of Mr. Rickman in the first photo.
We actually went inside a couple of weeks ago when Matt's dad and stepmom came to visit but we'd already been walking around quite a bit and the bump and I had had it so after taking a glance at the extensive Turnbull drinking glass collection and the album of photos taken during the shooting of Sense and Sensibility (the above photo is one of them), Matt and I sat outside while they took a tour.
Colonel Brandon is one of my favorite roles Rickman has played because it shows that he can be a good guy just as well as he can be a bad guy. Brandon is also probably my favorite Austen male character (and not because Rickman played him in the movie). I've never been a big fan of Pride and Prejudice (gasp, I know) and never really liked Mr. Darcy (double gasp) either. Colonel Brandon is where it's at.
Unfortunately, my pleasant, quiet day took a turn when I opened the front door and heard the phone ringing. My glucose test results were back and...I have gestational diabetes. Anything above 7.8 is abnormal and mine came in at 8 so I failed it by a ridiculous, maddening amount. It's not life altering or anything, thankfully, but I was still disappointed and had a rather rough rest of the day.
I can tell you right now that my problem isn't sweets but those other tasty things that break down into sugars like the baked potatoes I've been craving and that we have for dinner at least twice a week. Oh how I'm going to miss baked potatoes....
I have an appointment to talk to someone about my diet and pick up my machine on Friday and then another appointment with a midwife who isn't my regular midwife the following Tuesday but I was so thrown by the results that I honestly have no idea exactly what the midwife appointment is for. I have an appointment with my midwife (my last, unfortunately, as she's moving to Scotland) on Thursday and am really looking forward to talking to her about it.
Time to get ready for knit group where I should be able to finish up the sleeves on the tiniest cardigan ever!
Thanks for all of the suggestions regarding the fate of the little green sweater. I'm still deliberating but will let you know the outcome soon, I'm sure!
In the meantime I picked up another sweater that I'd started awhile ago but sent to the naughty corner due to ginormous holes under the arms. This time I was able to pick up the arm stitches with only small holes that were easily closed up so it's finished and blocking on my big pink yoga mat. As overcast as it is here, it might take a week for it to dry....
I have something else fun to talk about, though. A couple of weeks ago I sent out my first two Postcrossing postcards - one to Colorado, USA and another to St. Petersburg, Russia - and yesterday I received my first!
This card came from Germany - isn't it beautiful?
If you haven't heard of Postcrossing this is how it works: you sign up for free on their site and request and address (up to five when you first sign up). They'll send you and address as well as a code that you write on the card. Once your card is received and the code is registered, they send your address to someone and you get a card in return from some mysterious location. I definitely need to start a postcard stash so that I can request more addresses- it was so nice to get a real piece of mail yesterday! Although, we have been getting a little more real mail than usual since my parents have started sending us a baby card a week. It's been really nice since we're so far apart. Granted, reading them makes me a little teary but we have them lined up on the mantel and seeing them everyday makes me really happy.
Speaking of things that make me happy - we went to Fisherton Mill for tea yesterday and managed to glimpse this bit of cuteness on the walk home.
This mother really has her wings full. It was really cute to hear them chirping to one another as they passed under the bridge.
Ack, it's been three weeks since I've updated! Mom and Dad's visit was fantastic. We did a million things yet there were a million more things we didn't get to (just to name a few - Oxford, London and the Isle of Wight) that will just have to wait until the next visit.
Strangely, I didn't take many photos but here are a few from our days out...
This was probably my favorite day - a warm, sunny afternoon in Brighton.
It was even warm enough to have chips and a cold beverage on the beach.
We also spent a cold, rainy day in Bath where we started out at the Fashion Museum where Matt's sister, Ruth, works.
And, of course, the Roman baths. And, yes, that's a duck over there on the right!
Of course, we took a trip to Stonehenge. I'd never been even though it's only about twenty minutes away from Salisbury. I'd had heard you couldn't get close to the stones any more and was expecting them to be so far away you'd need binoculars but was pleased to find that they were only about a hundred yards away or so.
On the windiest day of all we drove to Old Sarum where the remains of the original cathedral stand.
From the top of the fort ruins, even on a cloudy day, the view of the "new" cathedral was beautiful.
We also had lunch out at my mother-in-law's farm where we not only said hello to the alpacas...
...but we also got to see the twin lambs that were born a couple of days earlier!
Actually, when I say "we" I really mean "everyone but me" because while they all went to ooh and ah, I had to hang out on the porch. Why, you ask? Because lambs can potentially carry diseases that could be harmful to pregnant women....
And I'm pregnant! That's right, Matt and I are expecting a little acorn of our own in November! I'd like to talk about it a little bit more but, honestly, that little acorn is getting hungry and if I don't eat something soon, I'll regret it. I've been lucky enough to avoid morning sickness but I do start to feel a little nauseous, cranky and headache-y if I don't have a bite of something every couple of hours. So more on our great news a bit later!
Oh and my cold beverage on the beach in Bristol? My daily diet Coke!
Even though we had watched the weather several times yesterday and even had a look at the BBC weather web page, neither of us really believed we were going to get any of the predicted snow. Just before we went to bed, Matt took one last look outside and there is was...SNOW! We almost threw on some warm clothes to head out for a walk right then but it was really late (the holiday break has really gotten our days and nights mixed up) and the doors to the cathedral close would be locked so instead we set the alarm and got up early this morning to walk over to the cathedral to take a few photos.
Snow is not as common here as it is in Ohio so there were lots of photographers out and about. And kids rolling giant snowballs. When we walked by the cathedral into town a few hours later there were half built snowmen everywhere.
I'm sure I'm not alone in the thought that this lamp post reminds me of Narnia and with the snow on the ground today I really wouldn't have been surprised to see the Faun wander by.
Eventually the snow started really coming down and we decided it was time to head home but I had a chance to squeeze in a few more pictures including this comparison shot.
Unfortunately, I've never seen the cathedral without this scaffolding and it's not coming down until 2015.
And if ever a dog needed a sweater...
So now I've had my first English snow. On the walk home I, unfortunately, couldn't help but think that I was really looking forward to my first English summer. Snow is pretty but I think I prefer picnics on the cathedral lawn rather than snowmen.
And now on to some knitterly things. After knitting this little bear for my mom (and another one for Matt that I still need to snap a photos of), I've fallen in love with knitting toys. Knowing this, Matt spotted me flipping through Knitted Wild Animals by Sarah Keen at Waterstones and decided it would be a good Christmas present (the man is really good at picking out knitting and crochet books without my help, too - lucky me!), Even though it was the hippo pattern that hooked me, I cast on the alligator first and got all the way from the tip of his tail to the beginning of his body and realized the odd skein of green I was knitting with wasn't really going to be enough and would perhaps leave me with a legless gator so I set him aside, unable to frog him quite yet but also unable to start him over in another green because I was a bit tired of the moss stitch used to make him scaly. Instead I started the tiger since the Year of the Tiger begins on February 14th and I was born under the same symbol in 1974. I've only finished two of the thirteen pieces you need to knit to make him but he already reminds me of Hobbes and that can only be a good thing.
Speaking of snow and Calvin and Hobbes, I used to love it when Calvin made snowmen!
This year, for the first time ever, I went to church on Christmas day. Or perhaps I should just say I went in a church on Christmas day. We still hadn't been in to see the decorations in the cathedral so after we exchanged presents but before we had a Skype chat with my parents (in which we drank so many mimosas that our Christmas day dinner was postponed until Boxing Day), we walked over to take a look.
I did take several photos of the amazing nativity including one rather evil looking angel but it was the new baptismal font that absolutely amazed me.
This is not an upside down photo....
...it's a reflection.
I could have gazed at it/into it for hours but, unfortunately, a tourist decided to touch it causing a ripple that just wouldn't quit. Argh.
I have had tea at Polly's five times over the past two weeks, I think. We stopped this afternoon and I took a couple of photos. None of them turned out all that great but here's a the view from our table - complete with the flapjack and brownie Matt and I shared. There's something a little odd about Polly's but I can't exactly put my finger on it. The tea is good, though - especially the new Earl Grey they're using because it's strangely sweet and I like my tea like my men...sweet - and it beats always going to Cafe Nero, Starbucks or Costa.
I'm finally branching out a bit when it comes to tea. I've found that if I have a cup of Earl Grey near bedtime I have terrible heartburn. At that hour I really should be going for a nice decaffeinated fruit tea or something but I 'm going to try English Breakfast (because, I will admit, I like to have a couple of digestive biscuits with my last cup). If anyone has a tea suggestions - teas that aren't terribly strong, that is - I'd love to hear them!
It rained so hard this morning that my jeans were thoroughly soaked from the knee down by the time I got back from having tea with Sandy (my mother-in-law - it'll just be so much easier to call her by name from now on). Within ten minutes of shedding my wet clothes and pulling on pajamas, the clouds parted and there was the blue sky I didn't think we'd see at all today.
So I decided to go for a walk, feed some ducks and take a few pictures. For this outing I packed the following:
- a shopping bag in case I decided to stop at the Oxam bookshop in my way home. I did and picked up Vanity Fair and the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm already two-thirds through it and am already thinking about hunting down the second.
- a teeny, tiny, bright green moleskine
- my Filofax wallet
- my everyday camera
- my mouse change purse
- my Canon camera. When I turned it on I realized I'd left its SD card in my computer - thank goodness I had my little camera with me.
- bright pink Clarins lip gloss tossed in for some unknown reason
- camera lens
- duck food. Unfortunately, this is really only for feeding ducks whilst they are on dry land (it sinks in water) and most ducks automatically start quacking like crazy and hop in the water when they think you have food. Needless to say, a couple of pigeons were fed by me today but no ducks.
- my iPod. Soundtrack to my walk: Strict Joy by The Swell Season. If I were a little less sane, I might have thought I was really in a movie.
Of course, by the time I got to the park, it started raining again but it was light enough that I stood under a giant willow and stayed dry.
I took a lot of photos but only kept a couple. It's hard to go wrong with the cathedral and blue sky.
Or a cookie cutter cathedral...
I also really like the texture of the wall surrounding the cathedral....
I'm listening to Pillars of the Earth right now and it was really interesting to hear the bits that took place in Salisbury as they were building the "new" cathedral (this one). Even though a few people have recommended it, I've shied away from that book for a long time thinking it would be too slow and heavy like books about that time period sometimes tend to be. I bought it for $5 on Audible a few months ago but I only started listening to it last week after I (finally) finished The Road. I'm only a couple hours in (it's 41 hours long) but it's fantastic and not at all what I expected.
Okay, some french fries (see? I'm still an American!), a warm blanket and the rest of Dead Until Dark are waiting for me downstairs....
Yesterday I decided I didn't care if I looked like a tourist and took some photos I've been meaning to take for awhile along our walk to Fisherton Mill - a place that I've been meaning to blog about for awhile.
I love these clever flower pots. It's a great idea garden idea for those of you who happen to have a couple of cracked kayaks and a tiny, leaky rowboat just lying around.
This is my favorite storefront - abandoned or otherwise - and not just because it's shades of my favorite color although that's probably what initially caught my eye. I wonder what it looked like inside when it was still open for business. I'm afraid it's going to be purchased one day and, unless it's bought by a family called Knight that wants to sell fish and poultry, the front will be destroyed.
To the right is a cute little gift shop/Cath Kidston reseller called Lulu's. We stopped in yesterday to see if they had her cute mini agenda books in stock but, unfortunately, that's one of the few things you can only buy in an actual Cath Kidston shop.
Now on to The Mill. Matt and I went to Fisherton Mill on my very first day in Salisbury back in November of last year. I guess you would call it our first date even though we'd known each other via email and phone calls for a little over three months.
I remember sitting across from him, just as nervous as can be, wanting to hold his hand as it sat there on the table top, just an inch and a half from mine, but just being too afraid. We'd only hugged at the airport, after all. Even though it was clear that we were crazy about one another before I'd arrived, it was a little different once we met in real life. I was mad about him in person as well and attempted to put out little signals but I wasn't sure how he felt. Matt was too gentlemanly to be too forward and make a move and, obviously, my signals must have really been a bit weak because he wasn't picking them up at all. We worked it out eventually - although, considering that we're married and I've moved 4,000 miles to a new country to be with him, that's probably pretty obvious.
Up until yesterday we've managed to always sit at that same first table.
The Mill is half cafe, half gallery and gift shop with works by local artists. My favorite thing about the Mill, though, is their flapjacks.
I've yet to make my own flapjacks but I have a tin of Golden Syrup downstairs that's just waiting for some oats and a good recipe. I tried making them when I lived in the states using honey, I think, because we don't have Golden Syrup and they were disastrous. Little burnt hockey pucks. Tomorrow, though, I'm hoping to have a post about the honey toffee I made with GS and an insane amount of honey but we're still waiting for it to harden. I wanted to make some to take to Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night and am glad I decided to give it a test run (i.e. excuse to make something sweet) otherwise I would have made it the day of and it never would have been ready to break up and take with us.
That other chocolaty thing was a hedgehog cake. Good but not as good as the flapjack!
Here's another kind of blurry shot of the cafe. The gift shop part is the glaringly bright section.
Matt bought me a cute pair of tiny heart shaped earrings and these adorable buttons/badges (more things are called something else here than you realize).
Speaking of cute - there was an insanely cute King Charles Spaniel (I only know this because there was one in Buddy's puppy class) under the table next to us. Matt even offered to ask if I could take a photo because I was too shy but I just don't think they would've understood why I wanted to take a picture like that - something mundane yet, I think, as cute as a well behaved dog under a table. I need to get over worrying about what other people think and being shy because now I wish I had taken the photo!
I avoided being the Uber Tourist and didn't snap one of the red telephone box in the close on our way into town. I have to admit, though...I did take one of those on that very first trip nearly one year ago but I really was a tourist back then. :)
Matt needs to get to back to work so I'm going to surrender the computer - maybe tomorrow I'll actually catch up on my emails....
I don't know if there will ever come a time when we drive through the New Forest and I don't feel a child-like thrill to see ponies, horses and cows grazing on the side of the road. I don't mean they're grazing on the side of the road in the way those of us from the states are used to - behind fences - no, these are free to wander and graze. So you'll often see something like this mare and her foal.
I was asking Matt if he ever actually saw pigs in the New Forest or did they hide out a bit deeper, off the road and not ten minutes later we found this trio munching acorns off to the right.
I loved their snorty sounds and the way their giant ears covered their eyes.
The New Forest was created by William I in 1079 as a hunting ground for deer. The commoners have since then had rights to, amongst other things, turn livestock out in to the forest. I can't say that I understand it much past that but I did read an interesting article the other day in Country Living, I think, about how they round up the hundreds of horses in the fall for health checks and branding. That must be something to see.
Parts of the forest landscape are hard to describe. They're unlike anything I've seen in the states. The best description I could come up with was what would be created if the Great Smokey Mountains and the desert decided to get together and have a baby. Lush and green but strangely dry looking at the same time. Impossible to describe.
This is a view from Ashley's Walk and is the first bit of the New Forest that I really ever saw back when I visited in November of last year. I remember that it was amazingly windy and that I snapped a few photos of a shaggy cow not too far off the path. A horse ambled by us at one point, too. I was also probably insanely nervous because I think it was only my second day with Matt. It was really nice to walk on that same path today, less than a year later, as a married couple. The weather was perfect when I took these photos but there were no cattle or horses along the path - just a few grazing off in the distance.
We did see a tiny herd of cattle as we were pulling in the car park, though.
We were also lucky enough to spot a deer grazing beneath a tree on our way back up the path. She let us get fairly close before bounding off in to the brush.
Another breathtaking view....
And another...
And one more...
Seriously, I don't know if I could ever come here without my camera.
I met up with a new friend, Squiblet, from the Sunday afternoon knitting group today. Like I said before, I love Matt but it was really nice to hang out with a girl for a little bit. After showing me some of the sewing/craft shops in Salisbury (yaay!), we went to a cafe I'd not been to yet called Polly's, for tea and cake and, I think, had a great time. It's nice to have someone to ask what seem like silly questions like where are the best places to shop for clothes - although when you're in a completely new country, that's really not such a silly question.
As if I didn't have enough tea and sweet things, I came home and had lunch and decided a good book and more tea was a good idea since I'd yet to use the tea set for grown ups that my mother-in-law gave me the other day.
Note, Ginny, the tray and mat - now that I've unpacked it, we use it almost daily!
Ugh, unfortunately now I'm feeling all full and lethargic and not at all like doing any unpacking. We got a lot done yesterday, though. We unwrapped the amazingly well packed (by the moving company, not us) grandfather clock and took all of our broken down boxes, packing popcorn and paper to the recycling facility. It felt so to good to get it all out of the house and getting the giant clock out of the pile of boxes makes me feel like we've really made progress - it was huge. Unpacking is a slow process but it's definitely starting to feel like our home around here.
Oh, I saw someone get a ticket just a little bit ago for parking on our street which is reserved for residents only during the day. It seems like a strange thing to blog about but I was fascinated by his thoroughness. He wrote the ticket and then took photos of the front of the car and then a couple of the inside or possibly just the front windshield due maybe to a missing or expired parking sticker. After all those pictures, he took one of the restriction sign which was only a few feet away. Then he finished up the ticket, put it in an envelope with sticky tape on it, taped it to the top of the window on the drivers side, took a photo of it on the car and then wrote in his little notepad for several minutes before finally setting off in search of other villainous vehicles. See? Really thorough.