We received an invitation in the post the other day to a special exhibition on at the Charles Schulz Museum — a display of works by artist Tom Everhart. We won't be attending the special members only preview of the event, but it was nice to get such a bright glossy card in the mail.
We've been lamenting the selection of titles in our local video shop for a while now and with winter drawing in we've been starting to think about our televisual entertainment options for those long cold evenings and weekends. We've decided we won't be buying a TV anytime soon as the cost of the TV and the license is prohibitive at this point. We did however do some searching online and found a number of services that offer mailorder DVD rental. They charge a monthly subscription rate and during the month you can rent as many movies as you want and keep them for as long as you want, they just won't send you the next disc till you return the one you have. The major attraction for us is their catalog contains a lot of TV programs we feel would make our existence more tolerable ie. Buffy, Angel etc. We've now signed up for a 14 day free trial of the service and we watched our first rental last night — four episodes of The X Files. We've now returned this and eagerly await our next delivery.
Posted by Nick
It has been a while since our last post, but things have been happening. I have now found work (finally), I'm working in the information systems department of a large research facility. For my sins, I'm now supporting PC's as well as Macs so it's certainly interesting. So far the most useful I've been was instructing someone to unplug their computer at the wall — I'm so high tech.
This photo is of the building where I work. When I first wandered past, I mistook it for a derelict building — of which there are a number on the site. Fortunately the interior is not as austere as the exterior — well, not quite as austere...
The job is based in Sutton (which is in Surrey) so I have a bit of a commute each day. It takes me about 40 minutes to get there, so it's nowhere near Hayley's epic trek across London.
Hayley has been busy at work. She got the chance to visit Cambridge just the other day with a group of Russians and Cubans — The Russians and Cubans are work related, she didn't just decide to hook up with a group of foreign tourists.
Posted by Nick
We caught the 9:51 train from Platform 11 at King's Cross station (next to which you can see the famous Platform 9 and 3⁄4 ) arriving at about 10:50 in Cambridge. The glut of beautiful weather continued and we had a glorious day on which to tour. Frank (my colleague) had arranged a one hour guided walking tour to give our visitors a sense of the place. This also worked out well for me! So very quickly (and in three languages — English, Russian and Spanish) we saw King's College, The Fellows Garden, Punters on the Cam, Clare College Chapel and Trinity College's Great Court as well as a number of little lanes and lots of bicycles. It was very tranquil — although I did comment it might not be so tranquil if you were studying for exams!
The photo here is of King's College Chapel. The Chapel took over a century to build and was completed in 1547. We didn't see the inside but the outside is very impressive and visitors are welcome to attend services there. Clare College, our second tour stop, is the second oldest surviving college, having been founded in 1326. The Chapel, which was the reason for our visit, is much later than this though — building beginning there in 1763. Our guide kindly dropped us at our lunch spot at the conclusion of our tour. In the afternnon we visited Cambridge Science Park (built on land 'aquired' by Henry VIII from the Catholic Church and gifted to Trinity) to focus on the purpose of the trip — how universities operate entreprenuerially, in particular we discussed technology transfer. After this we headed back to the train station to catch a 6:15 non-stop train home and arrived back in London by 7:00. I am keen to take Nick to Cambridge for a weekend of strolling, eating and relaxing.
Posted by Hayley
Hayley and I have now recovered from the flu that left us wiped out, and our site rather neglected.
Due to this downtime we have to recap a few arrivals. Thanks to Julie and Adrian (and the babies) for a lovely card with a wonderful Listener clipping inside: Paul Pioch of Le Moulin Bakery in Wellington (once our local bakery) has been invested as a "Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Merite" in recognition of his 54 years spent baking the traditional french way. We were so excited to read this as both Paul and his wife Setha are truly lovely people deserving of every success. We also received email from both Fi and Julie to which I again reiterate, we are in fact alive. Today we received a parcel from Jane and Ian. Following my strict instructions, I refrained from looking at the customs sticker and waited for Hayley to come home so she could open it. Inside was not one but two surprises. A fuzzy Buzzy Bee hotwater bottle cover, and a bar of wonder soap
I've now retro-fitted some photos to the Paris entries of the previous month. Not all the photos are sirectly related to the text they are in proximity to but there were photos I wanted to get out there. At some stage I shall put up more Paris photos, probably about the time that the mythical London photo gallery goes online.
For everyone who's always wanted an iPod but lacked the necessary funding. I saw this on another site and felt a deep need to repost it here. The only caveat is that sound reproduction on this model is notoriously poor.
As Duncan mentioned on his site yesterday, he has now made the move to MovableType. I'm definitely feeling the pressure to join the 21st century and make the move to some form of organised content management. I think I'll try installing it locally this weekend, then maybe I'll have a better idea of whether this particular idea will fly.
