Five years!

This year, on August 26, Mark and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary. The date fell on a Wednesday and we both had stuff to do, so we didn't really celebrate on the day, but instead went to London on Sunday.

The fifth anniversary "theme" is wood, so we'll probably get a new set of wooden rings, since we never wear the ones we have because they're what we got married with and we're so worried about losing them or having them dry out. We are thinking of getting a set that we actually can wear, which I guess is silly, but that's OK.

Since we got married on a boat (of sorts) we also tend to have that as an ongoing theme for our anniversary celebrations (not that you need a theme, it's just what we have going on). We went on a boat ride in Paris for our first anniversary, so this time we went for a boat ride on the Thames.

We didn't do much else while we were in London, just walked around a lot, made our obligatory visit to Muji, went to the Camden markets and ate. It was exciting though because we were able to walk to our local train station to take the train in, so we didn't have to get in a car all day, which was nice!

On the train:


Camden market:


We had burritos for lunch at the market - they were quite good!


This was our boat - not very fancy, but it did float, which is pretty much all that matters.


You can just see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the background:


And here are some shots of Mark looking left and right with various landmarks in the background:






HMS Belfast:




Paddington Station is one of the only places we can easily get Krispy Kreme doughnuts, so of course that was the best way to end the day!

Booker 2009 update - part one.

I'm fully in the throes of Booker-mania. As you can see (if one cared to see, I should probably say) from the "last five books I've read" page element on the right hand side, I've now read five out of the thirteen books on the Booker longlist.

I'm moving at a pretty good clip, in no small part due to my (if I do say so myself) incredibly clever technique that I thought up this year of listening to one book on CD while driving and reading another one at night at home. I do a decent bit of driving for work so I've already "read" two books that way. And it does give an interesting perspective on the books, especially since the two that I ended up "reading" that way (due purely to their availability from the library rather than anything else) had at their core an interest in an individual's perspective and how memories/stories/events are filtered by one's own experience/physical and mental states/etc.

Anyway, last night Mark asked for an update about which ones (if any) that I like so far, and if I had to pick a winner (my own choice of winner rather than which I think would win considering the way Booker prizes have gone recently) which it would be. So I thought I would share. I won't go into the (long, boring) detail that I did last night with Mark, and just say that to my surprise, The Wilderness, by Samantha Harvey, is currently the front runner in the What-Jessica-Thinks-About-Booker-Books stakes. It's a story of a man suffering from Alzheimer's (I know, really upbeat) and there are some things that I don't like about it, but so far it's the one that I think has a good combination of interesting content from an interesting angle pretty well told.

I don't know enough (or anything, really) about Alzheimer's to tell if she's accurately representing what it is most likely to be like to experience the disease, either as the sufferer or the loved one having to live with the sufferer, but it seems real to me, and it's the first time I've thought about what it must be like. It may not be the first time someone's tried to do it, and her structure may not be unique, but although I didn't enjoy it and there were some bits that I disagreed with, I thought it was pretty good.

I'm already on to the next one - about a journalist in Africa - and I've been saving all the ones that I'm really interested in (Coetzee, The Children's Book, the one from the point of view of a chimp, the popular one about Henry VIII) in case I start to slow down...

Another reason for Dad to come visit.

We went for a walk on the seafront tonight after dinner and came face to face with Weston Bike Night.

Apparently, it's organized by the Royal British Legion Riders division as a regular fundraiser. There were A LOT of bikes and all kinds, not just cruisers or just sports bikes and lots of people. Lots of different models and ages - same goes for the motorbikes, too.

I just looked at the web site and tonight was the "Japanese Power" theme night - but I guess all bikes can still come, it's just some get special attention.

Moving in.

It's been two weeks since we've moved all of our stuff into the new place in Weston-Super-Mare and we're now pretty settled. Last weekend we cleaned the old flat and handed over the keys, so we are officially fully and only in our new flat.

We still have stuff to do (like hang pictures) and some rooms have empty gaps where we will place new furniture that we have yet to buy, but everything we do have is pretty much unpacked.

We ended up not taking a lot of photos of the moving process. I've already posted the pictures of the flat right when we got the keys, but we mostly shot videos, which Mark has edited down.

This first half of the video contains some highlights from the packing process (starting with a demonstration of my "whittling down" method and the first time we saw the flat after getting the keys (so the second time we had seen the place). The second half was taken on the main moving in day and tries to give you that "you are there" feeling. (By the way, for those who haven't seen him before, that's Mark's Dad helping us out on the main moving day).



We ended up doing a total of 3 trips with the big van we rented and 3 trips with Noddy (our Honda CR-V). Mark and I had a bet about how many trips we would have to make with the van - we were both way off (Mark said 7, I said 5), but not surprisingly, if you add up the total number of trips we had to make with both van and car, it's bang in the middle of our two guesses.

So far after two weeks, some things we have learned:
-yes, as Jenny predicted, the kitchen sink is a bit splashy, but manageable
-we love the dishwasher (it's been so long I had forgotten how great they are)
-the neighbors are more noticeable and bit louder than the ones we had before (and we have more of them now), but the loud music we heard the first night we moved in hasn't been repeated, so we think that was a party and not a regular occurrence...and we've already started to tune out the other normal noises
-Poppadoms is an Indian food place that does delivery and it is very good
-having separate bathrooms is fantastic, especially in the mornings when we're both leaving for work at about the same time
-we seem to own a lot of books
-we can walk to the train station in 10 minutes
-we can walk to the sea front in about five minutes

So far, so good!

Stage one, complete.

We handed over lots of cash and got a set of keys today at 2pm. Fortunately we got ones that fit in the flat we were planning on, so all that was fine. Mark headed off to pick up the van while I waited at the flat, did some last minute work (man I love mobile broadband) and waited for Alex, our friendly management company concierge to arrive to show me how everything works around the flat. Unfortunately I've forgotten already.

We met back at the Clevedon flat and loaded up - Mark valiantly did lots of carrying down the stairs, while I moved things from the flat to the landing, a much easier job that I created for myself under the guise of "efficiency" (so neither of us had to go all the way up and all the way down all the time, running into each other on the stairs. See?)

By the time we had the first van load (we ended up with a bigger van than expected so filling it up took FOREVER) it was way into dinnertime, so we drove down to Weston and got Papa's Fish and Chips (which Dad and Jenny will possibly remember) and ate them on the sea front. Then we drove to the flat and unloaded the van, which took less than forever, and this time I helped more (which no doubt is why it took less than forever).

We saw two neighbors - one who scooted by quite quickly before I had a chance to introduce myself (a nice looking blond person, younger than me, carrying a badminton racket, possibly lives in flat 7) - and Christina from flat 8, who was really friendly.

We finished just as dark was really settling in. We didn't stick around and drove back to Clevedon to regroup, sleep and start on our full day of moving tomorrow. I think Mark's dad is going to help out, so I'm already plotting how I can score the "cleaning and unpacking" role, leaving Mark and his dad with the "heavy lifting up and down stairs" role.

We'll see how that goes...

Here is Mark in our new living room right after we got the keys:



And our new kitchen (this is the most exciting photo I could come up with - the rest are just rooms and bathrooms):



And this is the view off to the side of our bay window - it's cheating though because this is really zoomed in - the sea is much much further away than this photo makes it look - I just wanted to see if I was just imagining that we could see the sea from it...):


We have some photos of rooms with boxes in, but I don't think they're uploaded yet, and they're not really that exciting...but I'll try and post more tomorrow, maybe, depending on how tired we are after a whole day of moving and unpacking!

It's that time again!

The Booker longlist was announced yesterday. And yes, the book list is already in spreadsheet form, with notations about which are available via the library, and which will have to be bought. I already have one book reserved, waiting for pick up at our new local library in Weston-Super-Mare (The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey), which I'll get before we pick up the keys to the new flat tomorrow (priorities!).

The last couple of years have been a bit rocky and after last year I really was hesitant about trying to read the longlist again (I didn't even blog about 2008), but this year's crop looks quite interesting (despite all the usual Booker cliches that are met, but I just overlook all that stuff that bloggers love to harp on about), so I think I'm going to give it the old college try yet again.

Movin' right along.

I don't know if everyone knows already, but as Dad mentioned in his comment on the previous post, we are moving. We really, really like our current flat and landlord and neighborhood, and we really love Clevedon, but we've been here over two years so we're up for a change, and we think it would be nice to have a bit more space.

We looked around Clevedon, Portishead and Weston-Super-Mare, since they are still good for our jobs and nice locations. We did think about moving a bit closer for work, but it's hard to find an area that we like that is closer for both of us, plus we've been so spoiled living near the sea, and we're not quite ready to give that up yet.

So after about a week or two of tracking places online we lined up a couple of viewings, and a few days later we made the decision to move into one of the first places we saw, in Weston-Super-Mare. The commute is a bit longer, but it's a sandy beach (though the water is only there half of the time) and Mark has fond memories of Weston. We do both like Weston - it has a real "British seaside" feel - and it's a bigger town so there are some things that we will be within walking distance of that we just don't have in Clevedon (like a train station) or that aren't so near (like a grocery store). We will be losing our proximity to a lovely Italian provisioner and bakery. But there will be a bigger selection of restaurants (including our all time favorite Thai restaurant, which Mom and Dad have visited). And more that do delivery. Woo hoo!

The flat itself is three bedrooms with two and a half bathrooms. We're on the first floor (which may be the second floor to you guys - I can't remember any more how we Americans talk about multistory buildings...) and the inside has been renovated not too long ago, so it's all in pretty good condition and the kitchen is bigger, which is nice. Still no huge "American style" fridge (as they call them here), but we will finally have a dishwasher. Oh, the luxury!

We pick up the keys on Thursday afternoon and then Mark and I are both taking Friday off so we'll do most of the moving then. We'll take pictures and I'll post them all up when we have internet again, which may take a week or two because we need to activate a new phone line in the new flat. But in the meantime, here is a picture of the outside (our flat is the one on the right hand side of of the picture):


We're pleased and looking forward to it. We've been packing for the last couple of weekends to get ready. A while ago Mark was driving and happened to hear a bit of a program that was talking about how moving is one of the most stressful things you can do. So of course we tried to think of ways to attempt to minimize conflict. We devised an idea to divvy up the rooms between us for "management" - we can both help pack up whichever room, but whoever "manages" the room gets all the final say about how the items in that room should be packed - no quibbling. I'll leave you to work out who this plan was most meant to "contain," but I will say that actually it's working out pretty well so far. So far!