Summing up November and December

It's February 10th, 2015, when I am writing this post, even though I'm going to post it to December 31st 2014.  I haven't blogged in 3 months and I have some catching up to do.  For those of you who are still with me and checking the blog, I'm sorry for my disappearance and thanks for sticking with me...all 4 of you.  Here's a quick review of November and December.  In a few days I'll catch you up on January and then maybe I'll be back up to date.

In November, the Real McCoys came again--their 5th visit to France!  I love being auntie to these little guys, as well as hanging out with their parents.  Here's little Joe saying his night time prayers, which might be the most precious photo in my entire library:

Having kiddo coffee (also known as warm apple cider) in the morning while I made the grown up coffee:

Kiddo kisses did this auntie's heart so much good:

While they were here, I was not thinking straight and got distracted by all the kids and walked out of the apartment without my keys.  The locksmith used an old x-ray to pop open my door and then charged me all my Christmas money for it.  Well...I was thankful that he didn't have to break the door or the lock to get it open, and that it didn't cost more than my Christmas money.

This is Bruiser.  I think this photo fully captures his personality.

But so does this one.

Julebug lost her first tooth in France!!!  I learned that the Tooth Fairy does come in France.  Look at that proud big girl smile!

Good golly I love that family!

Seriously, they're the best.  Baby #4 is almost here.

In other news, I noticed these potato chips in the grocery store and the junior high girl in me couldn't stop giggling at the name of the flavor.

I went to the Christmas Carol concert with Mrs. X, as is tradition and it was a jolly ole time.

Marseille is moving up in the world, and we now have a Hard Rock Cafe!!!  Unbelievable how much this city has changed since I first came in 2007.

I spent a fair amount of time in November and December at doctor's offices.  Why?  Well, first because I fell down the stairs while in England and according to my chiropractor, I threw out every single one of the vertebrae in my back.  So I spent some time getting that sorted out.  Second, because I've had pain in my foot since the summer, and it was growing worse with each passing week throughout the autumn, so I finally went to the doctor about it.  The podiatrist's office is full of fun weird foot machines and gadgets!  I was fascinated.  In the end, I had insoles made specifically for my feet and have been wearing them ever since.

Marseille, ever on their quest to be weird and creative, put up HUGE blow up Christmas dolls around the city.  This Santa was one of the biggest things I've ever seen, and you could see it from way across the port.  I sure do love this weird little city.

Speaking of being an auntie and loving little things...this news was sent to me for Thanksgiving:

My sister-in-love is pregnant!!!

Master Yoda and Princess Leah are having a baby!  I'm going to be an aunt for real!  I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.  I went home for Christmas and took almost no photos except for family ones and since my mom doesn't like her picture on the internet and my American food belly was bigger than my pregnant sister-in-love's belly, this is the only picture from America I'm going to post:

That's November and December in a nutshell.  Stay tuned for January...

England Table of Contents

Hey all.  As blogger will only leave a few posts on the front page here, as I add more England posts, the earlier ones will be moved back to the next page.  I fear y'all might miss some.  So, I will leave this post at the top of the page, and you can click the title to go directly to the new post.  Or...you can just keep scrolling down, and then click "Older Posts" at the end of the page.  If you want to read them in chronological order, click through the titles below.

Day 1: Chasing Peter Rabbit
Day 2: Wordsworth and more Lake District
Day 3-4: Hiking Near the Fire Swamp
Day 5:  High Tea & Wanderings in Oxford
Day 6:  Christ Church & Punting in Oxford
Day 7-8:  The Bodleian Library & The Eagle & Child Pub in Oxford
Day 9: Happy Harryween! (new!)
Day 10: London 15 Years Later (new!)
Day 11: Coal Miner's Cave in Castleton (new!)
Day 12: Review and Doors (new!)

England: Review and Doors

As is normal, people have asked me, "How was your vacation?"  It was a hard one to answer.  On one hand, I got to hang with awesome friends (Princess William, thecamelridingcowgirl, Creedance, and Soul Twin).  I got to go to beautiful places (the Lake District, the Peak District, Oxford, and London).  I got to do some really fun things (see literary sites, eat at pubs, get lost in a sheep pasture, go punting, wander around Hogwarts, see the Tower Poppies, and float through a cave).  

On the other hand, I broke a toe, got really sick, fell down the stairs (and really messed up my already messed up back), and received some really difficult news from France.  Those things, especially the final one, sucked all the rest and relaxation I'd started feeling right back out of the vacation.  I'm thankful for the vacation, but it's hard to describe how it was.  Weeks later, and I am still recovering from 3 of the 4 bad things that happened.  (Thankfully, the sickness was 2 days and done.)

Anyway, I do love England.  With that many good friends living there, I think it's safe to say I'll be back again and again.  This was my 7th trip!!!

And what vacation would it be if I didn't take a few door photos?  I've been saving them to put together in one post.  Here you go:

In Hawkshead:

In Grasmere:

In Keswick:

In Oxford: 

The Alice in Wonderland door:

In London:

I already had a short connection in Brussels, originally slated to be 45 minutes.  Then my flight from England was delayed... The airline was already rerouting people who's connection was 30 minutes so that they wouldn't get stranded in Brussels overnight.  I went up to the counter and asked about my flight.  They said that the connection only takes 35 minutes, and so I should be fine.

Then we sat on the tarmac for 20 minutes.

The minute our plane landed, I jumped up and pushed my way through the crowd in the aisle--something I've never done before.  With my broken toe and my thrown out back, I RAN FOR MY LIFE to make my connection to Marseille.  I figured, I don't care about my suitcase: it'll make it eventually.  But I wanted to sleep in my own bed.  I wanted to get home to my team.  I wanted to be in Marseille.

I ran, and came gasping for breath up to my gate.  They were waiting for me, and said regretfully that my suitcase wouldn't make it.  I said that was fine, as long as I could board.  They let me on, and I walked onto a plane full of passengers staring not-so-happily at me for holding up their own departure.  Thankfully, I was actually not the very final person on board--one more passenger came after me.  I made it home at midnight, and was thrilled to sleep in my own bed.

My suitcase was delivered to my front door the next evening..but didn't get unpacked for almost a week, hahaha.  And thus ended my 12 days in England.

England: Coal Miner's Cave in Castleton

I got up early to get on a bus headed back up to Sheffield, to spend my last day back with Princess William.  The bus ride was good for me, as I hadn't really had much time alone at all during the entire trip.  A few days earlier, I'd received a phone call from France informing about something that had happened that would be more than a game changer, but for some of my coworkers, perhaps all of them, a life-changer.  It'd been a heavy phone call, and while I'd been thinking about it ever since...this bus ride was really a time for me to delve deep into those thoughts and prepare my heart to go back to France and face the situation.  I'm thankful for that bus ride.

Princess William picked me up and we headed back over to Castleton, where we'd been the week before to go hiking.  This time, we stopped by a pretty church to take some photos.  I was amazed at how much the leaves had changed colors in the one week since I'd last been there:

I love old graveyards.  I promise I'm not a creeper.

I really love old graveyards with wonky tombstones.

1837!  Amazing.  America is so young. 

Princess William had been wanting to go to this particular coal miner's cave that you get to ride through in a boat.  They gave us hard hats, which I didn't quite understand at first.

Until I hit my head 10 times on the incredibly low ceiling.  So glad for that hard hat!!!

This was not a place for claustrophes.  For reals.  Also, there was a couple behind us on the boat who were clearly in love and on a date.  Seriously?  A dank old coal miner's cave for a date?  Ok, whatever floats your boat.

We had fun though!  I mean, who doesn't have fun in a boat with a hard hat, listening to dry British humor?!

Terrible photo of the cave.

Even worse photo looking way down at the Bottomless Pit in the cave.

Another terrible photo looking up the shaft.

Back out in open spaces, we wandered around the lovely town of Castleton.

We were having a grand ole time when we popped into this store.  I wish I had blogged this moment right away, so that I wouldn't forget all the stuff this guy said, but oh well.  I've already forgotten.  So, it was an old junk store, the kind I just absolutely love to piddle around in.  Out walks this old man.  I mean OLD man.  At first, we just thought he was funny with that British dry humor.  Then he started saying creeper things.  Then he starting looking at me with dirty old man eyes.  Then he dressed us up in sailor outfits and tried to get us to sing karaoke to My Heart Will Go On from Titanic.  (I'm so not making this up.)

I really began to worry that he was going to kidnap us, hide us in a cave, dress us up from various movies and make us sing creepy songs for the rest of our lives.  We skidaddled out of there and tried to shake off the creepy crawly feeling all over us.  If you ever go to Castleton, stay away from this store:

We went had one final cream tea...and afterwards went by this restaurant.  Oh, how I would love to live somewhere there is a Pie Day.  Wouldn't that be lovely?

That night, as Guy Fawkes day was approaching later in the week, there were fireworks all evening long.  Princess William has a skylight window, and so we spent a good deal of the evening staring out the window at the fireworks.  It was lovely.

I mean, isn't it great when you have a vacation, and the country where you go gives you great weather and fireworks in celebration?!  I love England.

England: London 15 years Later

As I said in yesterday's post, I went home with Soul Twin so that I could spend a day with her.  She and I met over 15 years ago in our training to move overseas.  I moved to Portugal and she moved to London.  I went to visit her in May 2000, which was my second time to the UK, but my first time to London.  Just for fun, here's a photo from that trip:

When I think of London, I think of her.  I've been to see her there three times before this trip.  This time, we only had a day...but what a gorgeous day it ended up being!!!  We walked by Saint Paul's.

I appreciated the helpful tips of which way to look when crossing the road:

I wanted to see the WWI commemoration poppies at the Tower of London.  The moat is filled with ceramic poppies: one for each British military fatality during the first World War.  It's a sobering yet beautiful sight to see.  

They were still putting them in when we went.  The last one was supposed to placed on November 11th.  The crowds were insane that day, and even made the news.  But I'm glad I went and saw it.

We went across the Tower Bridge to get some pretty day photos of it.  I mean, seriously, what an unbelievably gorgeous day!!!

We had fun taking reflection photos in Soul Twin's sunglasses.

The Tower from across the Thames.

Then we headed off to the Black Friar's Pub, which is decorated in Art Nouveau.  Soul Twin knew I would love it, and she was right!  First of all, look how awesomingly skinny the building is!

Afterwards, we went back to her neighborhood so that I could go to a grocery store and buy some things one can't get in France (like yummy porridge, for example).  On the way there, we saw this great spider web:

I trembled to think of going over a "weak bridge."  Glad to see at least that they closed the road leading up to it!

I know this is not the normal English red phone booth that tourists take photos of.  However, I'd spotted one of these several times around the country and thought, "This is the new 'phone' booth."  Interesting, isn't it?  That we barely have need of pay phones anymore, but now, we might need a wi-fi booth?

The sunset was lovely for my last night in London.  We had dinner with Soul Twin's husband, and then watched the first Harry Potter movie, just to take in the movie sets we'd wandered around in the day before.

It was fun to be back in London with her.  The last time we'd been there together was spring of 2002. And while I hadn't originally planned on going into downtown London at all, I'm so glad we ended up going...seeing the Poppies and the Tower Bridge on such a gorgeous day was good for my heart.