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It’s In Yorkshire

05.17.10 – 21:05

Since we’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to find someplace to live up Northish, we took the opportunity over the May Day Bank Holiday to visit the even farther up-Northish city of York.

I approve.

It’s a lovely city on some water, which is always nice, and old walls you can walk on top of, and a cathedral, and lots of nice shopping. We did have our worst British meal ever there, but we also found a really good vegetarian restaurant which I’m sure we’ll return to when we make everyone who comes to visit us in future take a quick trip up to the city.

You may have noticed, Internets, that my photographic offerings can be a bit hit and/or miss. I tend to get bored/distracted/lazy when it comes to taking touristy pictures, and if it’s cold out, you can just forget it. [Point and then shoot?! You must be joking.]

So here’s what I got you from York:

A pretty bridge over the River Ouse, as viewed from:

Then there was this big religious building that we were too cheap to tour:

And finally, signage for York’s shortest street:

And, uh, that’s all I got. See what I mean with the hitting or perhaps missing? I even forgot to backtrack to get a picture of the old timey painted advertisement promising that “Nightly Bile Beans Keep You Healthy, Bright-Eyed & Slim.” Clearly, I cannot be trusted.

Tune in next time for a photo-less account of our straight-up weirdest museum experience ever.

Why show when you can tell?

By eptivity | Posted in England | Comments (2)

Aspirations

05.11.10 – 14:05

Greetings, Internets, and SURPRISE: we’re thinking about moving! To another part of England!

Sometimes we get into these conversations with people regarding whether it’s better to buy or rent (general consensus of people who are not us: buy! buy! buy!), but here’s what we’ve just realized about ourselves: we can’t buy because moving is our hobby. Some people buy art or trek though the Himalayas; we move house.

We’ve lived in our current house for 1 year and 8 months, which is longer than either of us have lived in one place since moving out of our respective parents’ homes 10+ years ago. For me, that’s 13 moves, two different states, and two English counties.

And now we’re moving to Chesterfield, the largest town in the neighboring county of Derbyshire.

You may want to pronounce it like this:
Der-bee-shy-er

But it is in fact pronounced like this:
Dar-bee-shur

The incredulity we encounter when we insist that the Kentucky Derby is pronounced how it’s actually spelled, if you can believe that, is roughly equivalent to the incredulity we level at British people who insist on calling that one band “Zed Zed Top.”

Anyway, so Chesterfield has this going for it:

This here spire atop Chesterfield Parish Church of St Mary and All Saints was built in 1362, and the story is that though the twist was intentional, the lean (9 feet, 6 inches) was not, probably a result of a lack of skilled craftsmen following the recent Black Death.

Though many Chesterfield businesses have a representation of the spire in their logos, the borough coat of arms managed to restrain itself thus:

Wait—what’s this motto written across the bottom here? “ASPIRE“?

Oh, Chesterfield! Two of the most delightful heraldic supporters ever and a pun? You’re all right in my book.

By eptivity | Posted in England | Comments (2)

In Which Stephan Gets A Point

05.05.10 – 12:05

For noticing this bit of the probably quite expensive advertising campaign for The Pacific miniseries:

First baby duck rescue, then this. Is there anything he can’t do?*

* Rhetorical

By eptivity | Posted in Stephan | Comments (2)

Niiiice

04.21.10 – 08:04

Oh, England. You never cease to delight and amuse:

Talk about subliminal marketing!

These are an Actual Thing, and aren’t even trademarked—several different companies market more or less identical biscuits, right down to the sans-serif NICE.

Allegedly, they’re pronounced “neese,” after the French city, but that’s so much less fun.

By eptivity | Posted in England | Leave a Comment

Make Way for Ducklings

04.14.10 – 12:04

Just when you thought Stephan couldn’t get any more awesome, he goes and saves a tiny little baby bitesize duckling!

We had a bit of bread to feed the ducks on our canal walk yesterday, but we couldn’t find very many, so we had to walk farther than we usually do, down to the lock that looks like this:

At the top of lock , there is a drain off to one side so the canal water has someplace to go when the the lock is full—the water is tunneled under that grassy bit off to the right there, and empties back into the canal at the bottom of the lock.

So there we were, minding our own business, when we noticed there was a stupid swan doing his stupid mustachioed-villain thing. I normally don’t get too worried (anymore) because he’s usually just being a jerk to other birds who could fly off if they really wanted to.

But as we got closer, it became apparent that he was traumatizing a mother duck and her tiny little baby bitesize duckling, who had somehow ended up in the slopey bit between the canal and the lock drain.

I don’t know if you know this, but traditionally all of the “unmarked mute swans in open water” in the country belong to Her Majesty the Queen, and it is a major offense to injure, kill, or disturb the breeding habits of one. Plus, they’re a little bit scary just because they’re so big (and have been rumored to “break the arm[s] of full-grown men”), so there was nothing we could do to physically dissuade the swan.

Stephan hopped down into the slopey bit between the ducks and the drain, but the duck was sure that Stephan was more of a threat than the swan that was snapping at her and her baby, so after a minute or two, she panicked and hopped out of the canal altogether, leaving her tiny little bitesize baby alone between two equally terrifying menaces.

I distracted the swan, mostly with taunts regarding how my down coat was packed full of swan feathers (how would he know?), long enough that the duckling scooted over to the other side of the slopey bit.

Where he promptly lost his footing in the deeper water and was swept toward the drain!

Whereupon, Stephan caught him just before he went through the grate!

And popped him up on the bank with his mum.

I continued taunting the swan, and the ducks waddled off toward the end of the lock, where apparently three more ducklings and the father duck had been waiting the whole time. And it was only when the entire family was reunited that the mother duck stopped her incessant alarm quacking.

A happy ending was had by all!

Especially when, after all of this, the mother duck tried to get her babies down to the canal below the lock by taking them BASE jumping off a 3- to 15-foot wall (she tried the 15-foot part herself first, but they weren’t having it, so she convinced them to try it off the other, shorter end—it was still pretty entertaining to watch four little fluffballs launch themselves into the air, only to collapse in heaps at the bottom).

So anyway, that was a really long story that could probably be better summarized in this artist’s representation of the events:

[I do apologize for the egregious inaccuracy in the representation of the mother duck, who was, in fact, a mallard.]

By eptivity | Posted in England, Stephan | Comments (5)

On April

04.11.10 – 11:04

Whoever said “O, to be in England, now that April’s there” was not kidding.*

I’ve never really had a favorite season. This is probably because Portland only has two of them:

1. Mild and rainy [Labor Day until the day after the Rose Parade]
2. Sunny and humid [whatever is left]

Neither did I develop a seasonal preference after five years of living in Walla Walla, which ostensibly has four of them.

According to the Walla Walla Valley Academy school song, Walla Walla looks like this:

Where the Blue Mountains rise to meet the skies
Hills and valleys of green make a paradise
Whispering trees in the breeze waving to and fro
‘Neath their cooling shade mountain streamlets flow
It is here nature gives of her bounty rare
Waving fields, golden grains, flowers everywhere
In this land of apple blossom sweet
Stands a school none other can ever beat…

…but if you have ever actually been to Walla Walla, you know that the bounteous paradise described herein lasts for an approximately 12-hour period between winter (mostly frozen) and summer (mostly molten), usually during the middle of the night. Then it’s back to dust storms and softened tarmac.

So I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that April in England is glorious. Other places, take note: it only takes three things:

1. Daylight [longer days, start of British Summer Time helps]

2. Flowers [wildflowers, flowering trees and hedgerows, and gardens maintained by a people with an unparalleled  zealotry for gardening]

3. Birds [early morning birdsong, male birds trying out their cute little bird seduction tricks, everyone collecting nest supplies, and tiny little bitesize baby ducks on the canal]

O, to be in England
Now that April ‘s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That ‘s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

* Robert Browning, “Home Thoughts, from Abroad”

By eptivity | Posted in America, England | Comments (1)

It’s in Wales

03.29.10 – 21:03

We’ve talked about the utter and inalienable coolness that pervades everything that Stephan and I do, right, Internets?

Then it will come as no surprise to you when I tell you about how we went to Cardiff for Stephan’s birthday.

That’s right, CARDIFF.

It’s the capital of Wales, people.

We had a fabulous time, but we didn’t do much, really, aside from lots of walking and eating. Like the walk down this section of the Taff Trail (that’s the River Taff on the left there) to where the eating was (this picture and the weather forecasts for heavy rain notwithstanding, we didn’t get rained on once and it was instead warmish and blue-skied all weekend):

The bit of the river path directly in front of the Millennium Stadium features little mosaics representing assorted countries:

I love how Scotland’s features what appears to be haggis, how the US’s greatest cultural contributions include the limousine and not one but two fast foods, and how they just phoned it in for Ireland—the fewest number of items, three of which are heraldic shields.

Moving swiftly on, this is my new favorite building ever, the Wales Millennium Centre:

The dome-y part is stainless steel treated with copper oxide and the rest of the facade is covered in layers of Welsh slate:

Across Roald Dahl Plass:

And from the boat tour we took around Cardiff Bay the next day (carousel and original Bute Docks building in foreground):

Pop Quiz: Can you spot the differences between these two photos?:

The correct answer is, of course, that the man in Photo A is 29 years old, and the man in Photo B is 30.

THIRTY.

You may have also noticed the giant cheeseburger that he is about to eat in Photo B, his first ever, of all time. Yes, my 93-percent vegan, 5-percent vegetarian, 2-percent pescetarian husband decided that what he wanted to eat most on his birthday was a nice juicy cheeseburger.

And he loved it. He is currently making plans for similar celebrations of future milestone birthdays: bacon when he’s 40, black pudding when he’s 50, and eventually working up to his 90th birthday and “food” that is served exclusively on the set of Fear Factor.

In related news, this is what Cardiff’s rubbish bins look like (the red dragon is the national emblem of Wales, and Cardiff is on the Severn Estuary):

Here we see yet another glaring example of Cardiff’s foolish decision to combat litter by providing adequate rubbish bins at frequent intervals, in direct contrast to London’s brilliant scheme to do the exact opposite.

It really was one of our best trips ever, aside from our disappointingly overrated (and incredibly difficult to find) hotel, a difficulty that was only aggravated by the fact that essentially every road in the country, including the motorway, was closed for construction.

But entirely made up for by:


(Advertisements for SA Brain & Co. brewery, founded 1882)

By eptivity | Posted in Wales | Comments (5)

Relief and Vindication

02.22.10 – 19:02

Can we just talk about how my newly formed and wholly consuming love for the chiropractic arts?

I’m one of those people—please tell me it’s not just me—who manage to hurt themselves in the most ridiculously mundane ways possible. Not the ones who contract rare subtropical diseases when stranded in remote areas after parachute malfunctions, or even those who go quietly in their sleep after long and moderately happy lives in the suburbs.

I’m referring to the ones who stub a toe one day and die of a raging case of the gangrene.

The ones who have never broken a bone, as far as we know, but have managed to severely sprain an ankle just walking around the house, dislocate a knee (requiring a leg brace, crutches, surgery, and weeks of physical therapy) while putting on their pants, and throw out the upper back (not lower back, mind, like a normal person) for no discernible reason.

After approximately 24 hours of inexplicable back pain right between the shoulder blades that prevented me from reaching, twisting, sneezing, laughing, or turning over in bed without wincing, I had my first chiropractic adjustment ever this afternoon, and I feel 87 percent better.

Of course walking into the village and back twice today, first for consultation and then for treatment, was not the most fun I’ve ever had—did I mention that we got another 3 inches of (now melted) snow over the weekend?—but the painless, relaxing, inexpensive, chemical-free, noninvasive, immediate relief was well worth it.

Oh, and also the part where the chiropractor told me that taller people have a greater tendency to slouch because, contrary to popular belief, slouching is not caused solely by being a bad person, but also by a little something we like to call gravity.

So there you go, my mom and also Cenaida: my admittedly poor posture by which you are a) deeply disappointed and publicly shamed, or b) made to feel better about yourself, is only almost entirely my fault.

By eptivity | Posted in uncategorized | Comments (1)

A Valentine’s Gift

02.14.10 – 22:02

Just in time (barely) for Valentine’s, I thought I would pass along my Official Ballad Singalong Playlist. Okay, so technically, not a large percentage of them are actually ballads, but they are all ridiculously sentimental and great for singing.

“Always On My Mind”—Willie Nelson
“As Long As You Love Me”—Backstreet Boys
“Can’t Help Falling In Love”—Ingrid Michaelson
“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”—Bryan Adams
“Hard To Say I’m Sorry/Get Away”—Chicago*
“I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”—Meat Loaf
“I’ll Stand By You”—Pretenders
“I’m Yours”—Jason Mraz
“(I Just) Died In Your Arms”—Cutting Crew
“I Want It That Way”—Backstreet Boys
“Islands In the Stream”—Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
“It’s a Heartache”—Bonnie Tyler
“Kiss From a Rose”—Seal
“Leather and Lace”—Stevie Nicks and Don Henley
“Needs”—Collective Soul
“Sometimes When We Touch”—Dan Hill
“Take My Breath Away”—Berlin
“This Kiss”—Faith Hill
“Time To Say Goodbye”—Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman
“Total Eclipse of the Heart”—Bonnie Tyler or The Dan Band (warning: lots of swears in this cover, but don’t worry, my parents: I may know the words, but I don’t know what they mean)
“Truly Madly Deeply”—Savage Garden
“Unchained  Melody”—Righteous Brothers
“When You Say Nothing At All”—Alison Krauss and Union Station
“You’re Still the One”—Shania Twain
“You’re the Inspiration”—Chicago*

Don’t thank me; just send See’s Candies cinnamon hearts.

* No, I don’t know why these are allowed and “Look Away” is not

By eptivity | Posted in uncategorized | Leave a Comment

My Eyes, MY EYES

02.14.10 – 20:02

Because we’re the coolest and most romantic people around, we spent Valentine’s Day at Alton Towers, the 11th most-visited theme park in Europe.

Eleventh! In Europe!

It’s the largest theme park in the UK, but it’s built on the grounds of a former country estate that’s a bit off the beaten path, which may explain its popularity position.

It was very cold, but it didn’t rain, and not all of the rides were open, but that was fine by us: it’s only open for a week (February half-term school holidays) before it opens for real next month, and it was cheaper than normal and relatively uncrowded.

This was the only ride we went on twice, the world’s first vertical drop roller coaster:

Here is this guy I was hanging out with checking out this other ride:

The one with several prominent copies of this sign that made me want to claw out my eyeballs:

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, and are happily nearing the end of your suffering, you hit that last bullet.

It hurts me.

By eptivity | Posted in England | Leave a Comment