London: Day 1

Bich -- after a 75-minute delay, leading to some dinner and wine near Brooke's office in Union Square -- made it to JFK for a late-night flight Dec. 23 and (of course) wasted time with a little flight-jitter drinks ... where (about five minutes after this pic was taken) Rich realized he'd lost his passport.

Fortunately, it was at security, where he'd left it. Lord.

But after the world's most uncomfortable flight -- seriously, Virgin Atlantic, you make Continental/United economy feel like first class -- we arrived in London for Christmas Eve.

Here's where we stayed, in the Bloomsbury section. Radisson Edwardian Kenilworth, you rock!

Our first stop was to get Rich an old-fashioned shave: hot towel, cream, straight razor, the whole nine. He was a hairy dude when he stopped by an iconic phone booth ...

(On our way to Pall Mall Barbers)

Rich, getting pampered

Brooke likey.

With the hair gone, it was time for the

CHRISTMAS EVE PUB CRAWL!

French House, in SoHo. House rule: no cellphones, no music, no TV ... but the conversation was plenty loud. Quite a few famous writers have made this pub home over the past 100 years or so.

Next stop: The Dog and Duck, most famous for serving a certain George Orwell.

  

Convenience store stop, with a curiosity: Budweiser in the United Kingdom.

And, of course, no city would be complete without a Chinatown.

 

Christmas carols in Chinese.

A quick snack of pork buns (for Brooke) and chicken buns (for Rich).

Next up: the Porcupine. Another Nicholson pub, as we discovered; it was sort of the McDonald's of pubs, but every pub's atmosphere was different and maintained its old, friendly feel.

Rich, finishing Brooke's cider while she takes pics outside

We only briefly stopped near Covent Garden, long enough to catch people around the tree and doing some very-last-minute shopping.

  

After walking, walking, walking -- we felt a lot of pressure every night on our trip to find the "perfect" place to eat or drink -- we stopped at the Angel & Crown.

Rich found this little gem of a beer, while I had a glass of sparkling.

And then we had this amazing meal. With sides of creamed Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, turnips and chervil, and yummy bread, Rich tucked into braised rabbit with grain mustard, faggots (oh, grow up), bacon and peas, while Brooke had pheasant and partridge pie with roast bone marrow.

Holy cow, was this good.

Time for our walk back home, where we discovered Seven Dials, the convergence of, um, six streets. This became a bit of a mental landmark for us as we walked London, and it was beautifully decorated for the holidays.

A few blocks from our hotel, we looked around at the old streets, Victorian architecture mixed with modern restaurants and shops and cafes, and decided to take a picture.

Yeah, we're pretty lucky.

Two Americans in Paris

... and London (with an unexpected stop in Newfoundland and Labrador and extra time around Dulles): We're home, after a breathtaking holiday in Europe, ringing in the new year together.

Instead of working on the house, I'd sort of been preoccupied with planning the trip -- though not without encountering some glitches, and not completely ignoring the house (basement pics to come soon, too). But we're home now with a few goals in mind as spring approaches at the HoB.

Here's a taste of the blog posts to come in the next week or so.

 

The best Christmas present

For a while, I have been coveting telephone tables.

About a year ago, my mom and I were talking about telephone tables (she'd read the blog and knew I really really really wanted one, but a genuine antique). She has one in her house in Ohio that I like a lot; it's the perfect foyer piece, great as a conversation-starter. I believe that one is my grandmother's.

It turns out, she had another one in the basement that she'd planned on restoring someday and displaying in the house somewhere; it wasn't in the best shape, she said, but it was her grandmother's -- my great-grandmother's. She passed away about 10 years ago and left my mom a telephone table that my mom loved as a child. I, of course, was all giddy, thinking I'd get to inherit the piece someday.

I got home the other day to find a ginormous box outside the house. What the ...

Knowing it was my Christmas present but a) too curious to wait and b) figuring such a large box couldn't just sit in the house anywhere, I opened it.

I opened it to find a newly restored antique telephone table, from my mom.

After about half an hour of carefully cutting away the bubble wrap and shipping "stuff," I sat in the middle of my kitchen floor with tears in my eyes, looking at the most gorgeous piece of furniture I'd ever seen.

Rich whistled. "Damn, she did good," he said.

Maybe it's not beautiful to everyone, but my mom knew that Rich likes dark wood, so she had it restored in a dark stain. To match the house, she had it reupholstered in a neutral color that picks up the yellow of the walls. And it's a genuine antique, a family heirloom.

Until I finish the basement and can move the litter boxes out of the upstairs alcove and down two flights, the table is on the porch, where it really does belong but I don't want to put it there until we finish the porch and replace the windows. It'll be the welcoming centerpiece of our home someday, hopefully soon.

Thanks, Mom.

Tiny updates

So it's been a while.

Bich has reasons, though not any worse/better/busier than anyone else's. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Or Penn State football gets in the way, or scandals, or whatever. Let's not talk about that.

Very minor updates, though, before Brooke restarts the basement project. (Last week, the Irene cleanup was completed, and repainting of the once-repainted section can commence this evening, or whenever.)

-- This morning, we had our 41-year-old boiler maintenanced. Yep, we're hangin' on to that puppy for as long as we can.

-- Our lawn has come in quite nicely -- nicely enough, in fact, that Brooke went apoplectic when she discovered that a very unneighborly pet owner let their obviously large dog defecate on the new sidewalk. Four signs were then added to our stretch of grass, with the following messages: "Your dog did his duty. Now do yours: Pick up after your dog"; "Please leave your address so I can let my dog dump on your lawn next"; "Be a good neighbor -- pick up after your pooch"; and another in that line of thinking.

-- We need a new camera. For some reason, the one we have stopped working, which meant no new pictures, which meant no blogging. Guess I'm back in the market for one.