Happy Christmas!

Here in England, everyone says Happy Christmas instead of Merry Christmas, but I still say it the way we do back home. Tim and I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Party Time

Here we are acting silly last night at the Stansted Manor Hotel Christmas Party which we were invited to attend for free by our friend Bianca (who is in our small group). She is the events coordinator there and decided to invite us all out for a fun night of food, fun and dancing. Tim danced to his usual 1.5 songs during the night, and I danced pretty much the whole time with and without any alcohol persuasion. Apparently I was the least inhibited one there among our English friends! Should I be surprised? Well, we had a fun time, and a very nice meal. Our friends all hung out and chatted and danced and had a couple of drinks. The funny thing was that since the other guests at the party were from different businesses, they seemed to all want to dance to disco music and 60's rock. So, needless to say there was quite a bit of Abba! I did request a couple of hip hop tunes like Black Eyed Peas, and we young people tore up the dance floor while all the older folks took a break until their disco came back on. It was fun to just hang out and have an excuse for a dance party as far as I'm concerned!

Swan Lake

We went to visit a wetland reserve for ducks and swans where they all come to live in the winter time. Some of the birds normally live in the area during the summer when there are all fields for them to nest in, while others of them like the Hooper swans come from as far as Iceland to winter here in the flooded fields. The picture is of a field that has been allowed to be flooded during the winter to prevent the nearby river water from flooding the surrounding towns. The birds take advantage of that, and they also get fed by the nature reserve volunteers daily. We watched the feeding from inside a bird blind overlooking the water. It was very popular with ducks and swans, and right after this picture was taken, loads of swans came flying in to spend the night on the water. The Icelandic swans make the long trip over all water without stopping which takes them about 13 hours flying at 55 miles per hour! They certainly deserve to be fed everyday and enjoy resting on the water!

Boot Scrapers

Here I am demonstrating the use of these old fashioned boot scraper which can be found outside very old stone houses and stores and pubs in older sections of every town and village around here. These 2 different styled boot scrapers are located in Ely which we visited yesterday. They were used to obviously scrape your boots before going inside. I think that it would have had something to do with the damp and wet weather which probably causes a lot of mud! Now that we have paved roads, it is not as bad, but still muddy in grassy areas when it has rained, but I am guessing that in the olden days when the roads were all dirt, there was probably a considerable amount of mud!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Thanks to my mom and my creative ideas, we have decorated the conservatory with the cutest Christmas decorations! My mom, just sent me some snowflake window decals, some garland and some lights, and I have been making paper snowflakes and paper chains to add to the decorations. As you can see, it is daytime in this picture, and it is tough to see what it all looks like, but I will do some more pictures of the nighttime look. My decoration style was inspired by Elf with lots of cutesy things hanging from the ceiling. It works very well in the conservatory. It looks like a Winter Wonderland or like a store around Christmas time when they go overboard with decorations. I love it! I am in the process of adding some more paper chains as well as doing up the bedroom with lights and paper snowflakes and chains to make it look nice and festive! Merry posed for this picture because he likes to sit by the tree. It has a lovely scent of pine, but more importantly, it is a great spot for him to watch the birds!

London at Night

On Sunday night, we went to London for Christmas Praise 2008. It was a very wet day, so we didn't get there early and walk around too much. We just got there in time to walk around Covent Garden a little bit and get something to eat before the concert. (Covent Garden was nice and seemed like a great place to go shopping!) The concert was a short walk from the tube station. We sat pretty high up in the balcony of the very nice old Westminster Hall which is located right next to Westminster Abbey. The concert was nice and very Christmasy. There were some Christmas carols sung by a classical soloist, and we sang along on some parts, and then there were some worship songs led by Stuart Townend. The choir was all dressed in red and black and white who came out after the intermission all covered in sparkly garland and funny Christmas hats. On our way to and from the concert we passed the famous Big Ben Tower and the Houses of Parliament where we took this picture. It was a typical moody, misty and wet night in London.

Drinks With Friends

Thursday night, Tim and I met up with friends from our church small group. We went to the bar just opposite the church for some drinks. We basically had the place to ourselves which was nice. Pictured here from left to right are George, Me, Ruth, and Jo. We were there with our other halves and all just hung out and chatted while we drank. There is a big difference between drinking here and drinking back at home. People from church who we hang out with are all around our age and would think nothing of meeting up with other Christian friends to drink, but this seems like something that normally wouldn't happen back at home. For one thing, there isn't a culture of meeting up for drinks in general. I think back at home we tend to meet up for dinner or coffee. But here, it's similar to how it is in Europe where everyone meets up for drinks and chats and stuff. The other thing is that, there is nothing else open in the evenings if you do want to meet up with friends. It's basically a choice of pubs and that's it. Coffee places shut around here by 7pm, so that's out. It is definitely something I am not used to. I don't even really drink anything normally, but I have had a few drinks every once in a while when we do go out. But, I bet some Christians back at home would think this whole culture is completely wrong. Oh well, when in Rome.......

Need a Little Christmas?

Speaking of Cold and Winter and Frost, I have been feeling like I need a little Christmas!

Cambridge at Night

On Tuesday I went to Cambridge with my friends from our Thursday night church group. We went for a walk around and had a nice dinner at a restaurant chain there. It was so cold and windy! Brrrrrrr! Cambridge is one of those typical college towns with an old fashioned ivy league feel to the whole place. In the summer, you can go punting on the canals which is nice, and they have a great outdoor market that is there every day and all year- round which has great stuff and cheap deals on everything from veggies to books to Christmas trees (at the moment). This is one of the very quaint and festive alley ways leading off of market square. How sweet!

Frost

So we don't necessarily get lots of snow, but we do get lots of frost! In fact, everyone here either uses hot water or De-Icer to defrost the windshield because it takes a very long time to scrape I guess since it is a such a light filmy ice that is stuck on there. This is a picture I took the other morning of the frost on the leaves in our back garden. Frost is very common here on a daily basis in the winter because all of the moisture from the very damp air gets frozen on any surface it sits on. Very often there is frost not only in the mornings with the dew etc. but also in the evening. Last night we had to defrost the car when we went out around 7:00 just from the moisture freezing on the car within the last couple of hours. It does look pretty, but it is very slippery on the pavement. You have to watch out because it is just like black ice only so thin that you can really barely see it. Merry also likes to lick the frost on the leaves if he is allowed outside. We let him out yesterday and he went around crunching the frosty leaves and trying to eat the blades of grass that were covered with frost. I am enjoying the frosty mornings!

My New Job

So, I officially started my job at The Body Shop in town. I will be doing 22 hours for the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. I am hoping to continue after that, but we don't know about that yet. Basically after I finished my training yesterday, I was very excited about The Body Shop as a company who is socially conscious and very eco-freindly. Also, I feel like I am going to want to spend all my wages on Body Shop products because they are so good! Well I need to plan my purchases carefully, but to make matters worse, as a staff member, I enjoy a 50% staff discount on any purchase I make. So this makes my predicament worse/better depending on how you look at it. I need to take advantage of this discount as much as I can before I stop working here, and since I can't be entirely sure that I will be there after Christmas, I will be doing some very aggressive shopping starting next week, when I get my first pay check! I also got free make-up products to wear when I am working which is great. I love the eye shadow and the lipstick I got! Oh yes, and in this picture is Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. She was super cool and Thy Body Shop was first in its campaign against animal testing. (Does anyone remember the movie Ferngully?) Check it out; its a cute movie about the environment. Working at The Body Shop makes you want to pamper yourself and enjoy being a woman which is something I find hard doing in this country so far due to hard water and stuff, but hopefully it will help me by working at such a beautiful and nice smelling place. Our theme is: Nature's Way to Beautiful!

Healthy Food

As some of you may already know, I am a sort of a health nut when it comes to my daily life (with the exception of a few dessert indulgences), but I have to say that in this country, healthy food has not caught on the way it has in the states. I know what you're thinking. "What? Healthy food in the states, the home of McDonalds and family size portions of pasta for one person and desserts that are always much bigger than they should be?" Well, you have to remember, when you go to a restaurant these days in the states, there is always always a healthy option which mostly includes a salad or a low carb option and you can usually substitute things for steamed veggies or a side salad etc. Well, that is not what things are like here. Here, when you order a "grilled chicken salad", it may in fact be fried chicken! Yes, that did actually happen to me and it is no joke. The salads are typically not great at all, although there may be better salads at more fancy restaurants, but we haven't been to those quite yet. So, in order to get over eating WAY too many potatoes (it's an obsession over here), I have done my best to shop for my yummy fresh ingredients like veggies, fruit and whole grain items. This is a bit tricky. It is not like you can just go to Whole Foods and choose from the "garden of eden" produce section that they have there. The only Whole Foods that I know of is in London (a 40 minute train ride). So we do what we have to do. But it still is a struggle to find these yummy healthy things since I have to go to a few different stores and get a ride to most of them or take the train into town. I made myself this yummy salad of spinach, fennel, cucumber, bean sprouts, tahini sauce, and oil and vinegar. Yum! On the side is my gluten free bread from the market with egg free mayo. It was a delicious lunch!

The Second Thanksgiving

Here is a picture of the Second Thanksgiving which occurred yesterday, Sunday November 30th. This was with the members of Tim's extended family (not all pictured here) which we cooked and served at our house. We had all the traditional food including another of my pumpkin pies (which unfortunately no one boldly tried).

We used the special fall candles my mom sent me recently to help decorate the table, and I told the Thanksgiving story a bit more briefly to the family. We even had place cards with everyone's real name as well as their pilgrim name which were present at the original first Thanksgiving in 1621. Everyone wrote things they were thankful for on a sticky note which we stuck to the glass door in the conservatory. everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, and we played chronology and Yahtzee to pass the time when we were stuck for conversation. In this picture, from left to right: David Webb, Phil Webb, Me, Margaret Webb, Andrew McDonald, Alex Webb.

The First Thanksgiving

Here is a picture from the First Thanksgiving which actually occurred on November 27th around about the same time as the meal would be going on back at home at my family's celebration. That was cool I thought. I got a chance to talk to some of them before they ate dinner which was great, and then we all ate over at our friends, Ruth and Neil's house where our small group from church meets. We had the usual dishes and two brave people tried new recipes for cornbread and sweet potatoes which were both delicious! We had a very yummy meal, and then I gave a talk on the real First Thanksgiving and the history of it. Then everyone wrote a list of things they were thankful for and we took turns sharing them while we were eating our dessert which was pumpkin and apple pie and fruit. The pumpkin pie that I made from scratch was a hit! I used my mom's recipe for the filling and my mother-in-law's recipe for the crust. Tim picked up the whipped cream on the way. So it was a team effort. Everyone said they enjoyed the evening, and it did help take my mind off of the fact that I was really missing home and family a lot. We were so happy our friends Julia and Simon brought their two little ones because it added that element of children noise that I am so used to which was wonderful. Overall a great evening of fun and many new friends to be very thankful for! In this picture from left to right: George (Georgina), Amy, Sally, Bianca (hidden) behind John, Julia.