boxing day

In England, the day after Christmas is Boxing day. This year it fell on Saturday, which meant that the gov generously gave everyone Monday off work as a bank holiday. The purpose of this day originated as a day to give a box of gifts to those who help you throughout the year such as the postman and binman (mailman and garbageman in American).

To celebrate this year I went with Tom and his family to his Aunt Lizzie's. She is Tom's dad's sister. I had met her briefly, but had never met her husband Geoff who I found to be a very entertaining man. They live about an hour away in the historic town of Canterbury.

We arrived in time for a delicious lunch. Lizzie served a delicious beef stew Jamie Oliver recipe accompanied by sprouts, carrots and potatoes. I never had brussel sprouts growing up, but they are becoming one of my favourite vegetables, along with leeks. I was still full from Christmas day, but easily managed this meal and the pudding that followed (in England pudding served after a meal and is any dessert). After lunch the entire party of eight took a walk.


(Tom's Dad is the man in the background)

It is beautiful there! Very quaint and peaceful, a lovely place to live for someone a bit older. Absolutely gorgeous countryside which is perfect for an afternoon walk. Toward the center of town near the cathedral we passed amazing houses! It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon, especially after all of the eating.

After the walk Tom, his sisters and I played a competitive round of Apples to Apples. Such a good game! We gave it to his older sister Sally a while ago and the game is a hit in England with everyone we play. I just got it myself from my parents for Christmas and the housemates love it. Definitely recommend!

More cake followed games, then the car ride back to Brook Farm.

I really enjoyed my first celebration of Boxing Day.

Love

christmas time mistletoe and wine

I Love Christmas. It was a bit different this year as I am spending the entirety of the holidays in England. Meaning it is the first year I will not see my wonderful family. I miss them horribly, but I am still enjoying this festive time.

How did I spend my Christmas day?

6:50 Wake up... It's Christmas!!! Find my stocking under the bed and start enjoying. In Tom's family all presents in the stocking are wrapped so it takes a bit longer to find the treasures within. At the end I had many snacks to fill my drawer at work and good smelly things.

The next hour was spent laughing and talking in excitement with everyone crowded on Tom's parents bed. This included his two sisters and cousin Anna who flew down from Scotland on Christmas Eve.

8:30 Breakfast time. Tom made yummy bacon and mushroom omelets.

10:00 Start opening pressies. As always I was spoiled. Pj's, a book, scarf, warm clothes, socks, beach bag, china teacup and more. Topped off with.... a weekend away to a European city of my choice!!!!!! from Tom. THANK YOU!!! We will probably go away in April or May which leaves me a couple of months to decide where I want to go. Any suggestions?

Also my package from my Grami and Papa had arrived bringing a sweater (I am wearing at this moment) a scarf, necklace, gloves and excellent Starbucks card from Uncle and Cousins. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Tom's uncle Ian, younger sister Flo and Mum:

Tom's Mum showing off the Christmas apron she wore to do Christmas cooking that my Mom made for me:

1:00 Lunch begins. Rather than Christmas dinner, in England people have a large delicious lunch. We started with prawns and smoked salmon. Followed by a turkey roast with sausage stuffing, roast potatoes, parsnips, sprouts and the list goes on and on. Then of course some Christmas pudding. I was stuffed. I think it took a good two hours to get through the meal.



3:00 Visiting and relaxing. Tom received a table size table football (aka fooseball table) so we set that up and had a match. Only we didn't finish so I didn't get to properly win.

4:30 Tea time, skipped the Christmas cake as I had no room in my growing belly by that time.

5:30 Tom's relatives head for home, back south to Southampton.

7:00 Light bite of cheese and crackers as that is all we could manage, then curled up on the sofa to watch the Saddest movie Disney and Pixar have made EVER. If you've seen it you know I am obviously talking about UP. Seriously sad. The first time I saw it I cried twice!! I think I was more prepared this time and only had a couple of tears.

11:00 or so. Off to bed tired and very full.

And that was Christmas Day. Merry Christmas.

Love

peter pan

Is there a better way to get in the Christmas spirit than with a visit to the theatre? Perhaps, but a good holiday show does get one in the mood. Which is why I was very excited to be invited to see Peter Pan with my friend Frey. She is into theatre herself and has a few friends in this production in Brighton.

Pantomimes are tradition in England. Christmas performances, usually renditions of popular children’s stories set at Christmas time, with a lot of audience participation. I have always wanted to go to one just for the experience. We were told Peter Pan was more of a Christmas show than a panto, but it did meet criteria for a lot of what I hear panto’s include and was quite a kiddies show. There was the shouting of “its behind you” when the character cant find something that is behind them, booing and hissing the evil character and clapping along to songs. The most cheesy bit of the show was when the lost boys were about to walk the plank and Wendy told them to die “like true English gentlemen” followed by the cast breaking out into Rule Britannia complete with flags.

I loved it. I had a wonderful evening, so funny and entertaining. The little girl behind us had the loudest most contagious laugh making everything more funny. I enjoyed having a new experience and have now ticked off a Panto from my list of must do in England.

Love

happy birthday Flo

This past weekend Tom’s younger sister, Flo, turned 21… one of the most important birthdays in ones life. She decided to celebrate with a party on the farm. It was brilliant! They spent about a month cleaning the loft which used to be used for storing feed above the stables. It was a great venue, especially as spilled drink wasn’t a problem and mess the next morning wasn’t urgent to clean. The turnout was excellent as well. Despite all of the snow it was a party, people coming and going all night, with around fifty people at its height.

I was pleased Tom’s school friends Mark and Freddie joined in as it meant I knew some people. Of course I also knew Tom’s older sister Sally and her boyfriend Bruce as well as parents and a few other of Flo’s friends.

At one point in the night of course I needed to venture out to the loo. This was in a separate building and required going outside about 100 yards across the snow. When I got there a couple of others were waiting. Pretty normal situation. Only thing that wasn’t normal was an American girl. The two girls waiting loved it and were questioning me about the States for near ten minuets. Very sweet girls, I was enjoying the chat, but I was freezing, and still needed the loo! Trying not to be rude I had to end the conversation sending the girls back into the cold then up to the party.

An interesting thing I learned is that the Hokey Pokey is completely different here. It has the same tune but is called the Okey Kokey, and they don’t put their legs in and out and shake them all about, I forget now exactly how they sang it, but I was slightly lost.

A night full of fun and dancing, I had a great time!

Love

it snows in england

Thursday night Brighton turned into a winter wonderland. At ten it was freezing cold, but no snow in sight. At eleven there was at least four inches on the ground and it was a blizzard. There is only one thing to do in a situation like this… bundle up and go PLAY!! First thing to do, snow angle in the street of course. Then, massive midnight snowball fight. It was shocking how many people were out that late at night, especially considering I live a bit out of town. Random strangers fought back and running into a couple other groups of young people resulted in a street fight, weapons of course being snowballs. Snow was coming down in the wind making hard to even see. After a good hour hands were freezing, toes cold and cheeks rosy making it was time to retreat back indoors. I didn’t care it was one in the morning and I would most likely have work. I had no idea it could snow this much in England, it was like snow in Selah. I loved it. Now a few days later the roads are clear and ice melting, but it definitely is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

SNOW at Brook Farm





Love

work christmas party

A couple of weeks ago now was our work Christmas party. A difference I noticed last year is that Christmas parties in the UK usually do not include partners like they do in the states.

This year mine started at Jamie Oliver's Restaurant for a lovely meal...
http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/brighton
Jamie Oliver is a well known top chef and I had been wanting to check out his restaurant for a while. Our office of about fifty filled the entire upstairs area.I had a vegetable starter, monk fish tail and a winter berry tiramisu topped off with a mojito. Delicious!

Then the party moved next door for some karaoke at a venue called Lucky Voice. With cash behind the bar downstairs no one was too shy about singing in the room upstairs. Two mics were provided for plenty of group singing rather than embarrassment on stage. My team belted our a great rendition of Spice Girl's "if you wanna be my lover" and numerous Christmas tunes. A highlight was definitely our CEO performing 500 miles.

A great night of fun and celebration starting to set in place our Christmas spirit.

Love

wine tasting england style

My surprise from Tom for finally getting a job was that he signed us up for a night of wine tasting with his colleagues at Amex. I was very happy to hear that the group included our friends Ade and Gemma(Tom works with Ade and Gemma is his girlfriend who works in Hove for the city council doing really cool marketing stuff.) So a couple of weeks ago an evening sampling wine is what we did. It was hard to focus at work all day as I do enjoy a glass of wine and after spending the summer in the heart of Washington's wine country I was curious how this night would compare.

The event was hosted at Butlers Wine Cellar....

http://www.butlers-winecellar.co.uk/

I spotted differences right away. We were fashionably late, as one should always be, and had slight difficulty finding the place. Rather than driving through orchards to a beautiful tasting house we drove through the streets of Brighton a bit confused. Calling to ask for directions we were told to look for the large red door, it is unmarked and knock three times to be let in. Slightly creepy? We thought so. But found it.

We found ourselves in what seemed like the front room of the mans house (turns out it wasn't)which was full of Amex employees standing round. The walls were covered floor to ceiling in wine. We tasted numerous rounds of both whites and reds as we were tested on if they were oaked or unoaked, new or old world and attempted to rank the price. The four of us had a hard time focusing on the competition bit though as we were far too busy chatting.

The man, Henry, did have a Washington state wine! I was excited by this, but a bit disappointed to see it was Walla Walla Valley rather than Yakima. It was a Leonetti.

"Leonetti is one of the most famous small wineries in the Pacific Northwest - and perhaps in the nation. The Walla Walla, Wash., winery's cabernet sauvignons and merlots have received lofty ratings by international wine media and are ranked as some of the best in the world."
http://www.northwest-wine.com/Leonetti-Cellars.html

It was a wonderful night and at the end we bought a red, to not be rude of course, and carried on to a house of one of the girls who lived nearby for one last glass. Then it was off to the station and home for a late bedtime to get some rest before an early morning of work the next day.

A wonderful night! Just the other day Gemma and I were even discussing how we would love to get a group together and do it again.

I learned wine tasting in England is much the same as in Washington as I am sure is most everywhere... A little bit of many different wines no matter what the venue looks like.

Thank you for the surprise Tom!

Love

beautiful

wonderful photos of brighton... http://www.regencybrighton.com/outabout/sussex_heights/

love

christmas came early

this past weekend was the Shaftsbury Christmas Spectacular! A reunion of friends for drinks, laughs and a massive Christmas meal. During the time I studied in England Tom lived in a house of seven rugby boys on Shaftsbury Avenue. This weekend was a gathering of that group and girlfriends. However the girls were greatly outnumbered as a one couple couldn't make it and the other is in Australia, meaning it was Siobhan and I with the boys. It was a very busy weekend:

Friday: Cocktails with Siobhan after work, back to ours to meet the others then off to our local for the night.

Saturday: Morning of Wii and a delicious lunch at a hole in the wall that unfortunately was full of kids and had poor service so despite the wonderful food not sure if I would go back. (not to mention they charged us for two of one item, when we told them they said they actually forgot something else and added five pounds to the bill, then wouldn't split the bill between us and only accepted cash, far too much of a hassle. I skipped out to town to finish my Christmas shopping as rugby was the plan for the afternoon and I had to finish pressie shopping to ship everything in time for Christmas. Then back to get cleaned up for a night out, after watching X Factor semi finals of course. That night we went to a couple of bars but as everyone was tired clubbing just didn't happen.

Sunday: Christmas Meal! Thanks to Siobhan and her Tom for using their skills that morning in the kitchen, and to Siobhan's access to wonderful M&S food, also thanks to my Tom for spending hours prepping the food the day before. And we can't forget to thank Shaun for his cauliflower cheese. The meal was massive and delicious! Gammon, Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, parsnips.... then the Christmas pudding, and even a cheese and biscuit board later on. So much amazing food. A very gluttonous day!

Now friends are gone and it is back to work until real Christmas day, or at least until my work Christmas party this Friday.

Love