Here is Matt trying to drop the apple on Julian's head during filming. Julian is explaining about gravity.

Newton went to school in the nearby town of Grantham. There is a statue of him near his school.

And across the street there is another monument to his greatness.

Yesterday we visited Cambridge. Newton attended Trinity College. Here is a shot of his window and the apple tree outside. It was recently planted there and is an offshoot of the apple tree at his house.

Here is the court of Trinity College.

test your Easter knowledge

Happy Easter! Welcome to the holiday that has nothing to do with chocolate or a new bonnet. Try the Easter quiz on the Guardian website to see what you know. I scored 4 out of 10 and received the comment: "Hopeless. Don't expect anything from the Easter goose this year."

wedding pictures

While Ant was getting ready to go to Switzerland, he was searching high and low for his snowboarding goggles. A fantastic by-product of this search was finding the CD with our wedding pictures on it. Enjoy!

These beautiful photos were taken by my brother Paul, a wedding photographer.

Ant's cravat, made by my mum.

My hair, done by my aunt.

Arriving at the church--note the winter jacket and snow on the ground behind us.

Coming up the aisle with my parents.

Making our vows.

Listening to the sermon.

Ant, Kit, and Micah.

Sonya, my matron of honour.

With both our families.

My excellent brothers flying me through the air.

Having dinner in the church hall.

Relatives partaking of the tasty buffet.

The beautiful cake.

Cutting the cake.

I am tired after a long day.

Ant is tired.

new trousers

I went on a little shopping trip today--to Clapham Junction! It's just down the road and has a busier high street than Wandsworth. Also it has a fair few charity shops. The charity shops have quite good quality items and I bought a skirt from Oasis (£4.50) and a blazer from H&M (£7.25). What bargain! Then at a new shop down the road I picked up a steel gray trouser suit for £20 (wow!) and a pair of black trousers for £17. I spent the rest of the afternoon ripping out the hems in three pairs of trousers and rehemming them. (Actually I got tired before the final pair was finished. But I'll get back to them tomorrow, maybe.) While growing up I watched mum ripping hems and that acquired knowledge has come in handy. Almost any trousers I buy require adjustment.

first day of holidays

My first day not having to go to work... and what do I do? Go to work. Knowing that I had about one day's work that needed to be done over the break, I decided that my holiday would be much better if I got it out of the way near the beginning. So I set off to school this morning--granted it was about three hours later than usual!

The heating was off in my corridor, so I had a chilly day. But it was well worth it to get my one big task out of the way. As a bonus I went out for lunch with a colleague at a very nice cafe down the road--the kind of treat reserved for holidays. After lunch I shivered my way through lots of scanning and cleaning. When I left at 6:30 it was still light outside, which always lessens the burden of being at work late.

So it was a good first day of my holidays. Not the most exciting, but definitely productive.

Englishness

I have started reading a book called Watching the English by Kate Fox. Ant gave it to me as a wedding gift and April said that she thought it was fantastic. Ms Fox seeks to observe and report on the customs and eccentricities of the English. I am in an enviable position as an immigrant she says, since as Ms Fox puts it, minority individuals "quite consciously, deliberately, cleverly, and even mockingly pick and choose among the behaviours and customs of their host culture." It's a really interesting book that exposes conversation codes and behaviour codes of the English.

In the book, Ms Fox argues that outsiders coming to live in England are involved in English culture in three ways: influence, adaption, and adoption. Since moving here my adoption of Englishness has been confined to vocabulary. I talk of taking out the rubbish, putting things in the boot of the car, using aluminium foil to wrap food, eating tea (the main evening meal) and finishing with pudding. But this week I made a conscious effort to change my pronunciation of the word "half." I was reading a mental maths practice test for a year seven class on Thursday and when I got to the question, "Write down half of 28," they all asked what I meant. I repeated the question, but this time with the English pronunciation, and they had no trouble answering the question.

When I first moved here, Jayme told me that she had found it essential to change her accent somewhat. I can understand that now since I receive a lot of mocking and imitation from students because of my accent. (And their teasing always sounds so American! Grrr.) So I think that maybe she was right. I will have to change my pronunciation a bit more over time. She said she didn't find this particularly hard to do. So far the only words I have changed are half and snooker (the latter used to receive unbearable taunting from Ant whenever I said it). I thought that having an English husband would help, but unfortunately this seems to be not the case. It will have to be a conscious effort.

Current reading.

tonsils, sleep, and behaviour

A random fact I read today in the paper: Scientists in Michigan have found that children behave better after their tonsils are removed. "What kind of strange connection is this?" I thought. A quick search led me to the New York Times article which said that ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) can in some children be linked to a sleep disorder. And sleep disorders are treated in part by removing the child's tonsils. In a study about children having their tonsils removed, half of the ADHD patients were no longer classed as ADHD after the surgery. Wow! What an idea. I guess the connection between tonsils and behaviour is not as random as I thought. If only I was dual-trained in teaching and tonsil removal!

dinner party

Last night I cooked for eight in our first dinner party in ages. It was awesome to have Matt and April (our perpetual guests), Matt and Bree, and Andrew and Naomi visiting for a meal. And I have found a foolproof company dish that is easy and tasty every time. Yay!

Maple Hoisin Chicken
Make a marinade with:
1/3 cup hoisin sauce
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 T soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
2 T ketchup
1 T minced garlic
1 T minced ginger root
Mix with eight chicken breasts and marinate for 2-8 hours.
Bake for 30-40 minutes at 200/400 degrees.

This is a wonderful dish that takes no time during the evening you are serving it. I made a couscous side dish and a fresh salad with rocket and that's it. Delicious and easy.

so close!

There is only one more day until my two weeks holidays. I am eagerly awaiting them. I stayed late tonight to clear some stuff off my desk in advance of tomorrow. I had a busy day with no non-contact periods, a parent meeting before school, a parent meeting on my lunch hour, and an after school maths department meeting. That's busier than usual!

It seems like a shame to enter the holidays so tired. I feel like slacking off now so that I can really enjoy them. During the time off I need to do some work, like preparing our homework booklets for the new half-term. I need to find us a dentist. Ant and I will be doing a hotel review in central London for two nights. And I will be doing some sightseeing, as usual. There are still lots of things to do in and around London.

a fantastic weekend

I spent the weekend away visiting my friend Jayme and her fiance, Donald, just outside of Southampton. Jayme is my oldest friend--we met when I was four and she was five and I had moved to Miramichi. We were fast friends. I remember that when I was in grade one she took great delight in teaching me grade two math, an early boon to my maths career! We played together nonstop until I moved away just before I turned ten.

Jayme and I.

Jayme's fiance, Donald, and I.

It was a friendship built to last. We have been in contact for all the intervening years and still really enjoy our time together. She is now an English teacher with an English fiance, and they are planning to move back to Canada in the summer and get married in October. It was really lovely to spend the weekend with them and catch up.

It was a relaxing weekend with enough sleep (yay!). On Saturday Jayme cooked us a fab breakfast (her favourite meal of the day), and then we tuned up Jayme's new (eBay) bike, Donald's bike, and his mum's bike for me. It was a bit of a scary proposition for me to be cycling, since I have done so only a handful of times in the last ten years. But it is true what they say about remembering how to do it.

Sidebar: I hope Ant won't take it as a personal slight that I went cycling this weekend. He has been urging me to do it since we got to London. He is an avid cycler, but I am seriously scared of sharing the road with the drivers in London. They drive fast on tiny roads. There is no space for the cyclist most of the time and the drivers don't care. Ant, of course, has nerves of steel and cycles blithely through any traffic jam. He keeps telling me how short and enjoyable cycling would make my commute to school, but I disagree. I refuse to try.

New Forest.

Fortunately for my fear level, we decided to cycle to the nearby village of Lyndhurst through the New Forest. It was used as a hunting ground by King Henry VIII. We went along a gravel track for the first section of our journey. The forest was beautiful, with ivy growing up the tall deciduous trees. Then we hit an area that had no tree cover and, due to the rain the night before, was a huge mud puddle. We walked our bikes through that squelchy mud for quite a time and Jayme vowed we would be returning home later on the road (to my dismay).

The village of Lyndhurst.

Lyndhurst is a lovely little village with quaint shops and narrow streets. We had lunch at a cafe, and browsed in the little shops for most of the afternoon. We finished with a stop for tea and cakes (yum--apple toffee fudge cake). Our cycle home on the road was scary but after a few stress breaks I made it back. We were all tired and a nice night in with food and wine was very enjoyable.

On Sunday we had another great breakfast and then headed out to a village called Beaulieu. Jayme bought some beautiful fake roses for her bridesmaids, and I got a present for my mother. (Heehee, my mum may read this and she will wonder what it is! Cackle, cackle.) We had a roast dinner at a nearby pub--I had roast beef, roast potatoes and parsnips, Yorkshire pudding, green beans, mangetouts, and cauliflower, with masses of gravy.

The view from Lepe. The Isle of Wight is in the background.

A sailboat off the Lepe coast.

We drove on to Lepe, on the coast. It was windy and the water was very choppy. We saw a windsurfer who was clearly having a grand time. And my weekend was also grand. It was relaxing and also interesting, a good mixture of staying in and going out. Jayme encouraged me regarding my job and showed suitable shock when I told her some stories of how the school is run. I feel energised enough to make it through the last week until Easter holidays--a glorious two weeks off.

images of the teacher

Here are two very different pictures of me, drawn by my students. This one is by a year seven girl.

This one is by a year eight girl. I found it inside a paper airplane she threw. Note my prominent teeth and mole! Heehee.

Teaching is an odd profession. Teachers are highly trained and have a lot of pride in their work, yet they are not always treated with respect, neither by their employers nor their students at times.

time change!

British Summer Time started last night without my knowledge. Oops. I was in the dark until I arrived at church ready to practice half an hour before the service and found instead that it was almost time for the sermon! I felt quite silly. It turns out the pastor himself made a mistake--he arrived exactly at the time when the service was about to start. So things were a bit off this morning.

As a result we are an extra hour away from Atlantic Standard Time until their time changes as well (next weekend or the weekend after?).

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent (on display at the Tate Britain)

The Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse (on display at the Tate Britain)

Norham Castle, Sunrise by JMW Turner (on display at the Tate Britain)

Tate Britain

I went to the Tate Britain today for a visit. They have British art there from the 1500s onwards and a large modern collection as well. In the first room I visited I saw several beautiful items. One was a painting I have seen (a print of) before: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. The light in the painting is so incredible. Sargent painted out of doors during dusk repeatedly to get the effect he wanted.

In the same room is a painting by John William Waterhouse called The Lady of Shallot. When we lived in Scotland my dad took a research trip to London and sent me a postcard of this picture. I had read the whole Anne of Green Gables series, and Anne quotes from a poem called "The Lady of Shallot" by Tennyson. Because of Anne, I was memorising the poem and I loved the postcard my dad sent me. The painting is huge: 153 x 200 cm.

The museum has a large collection of works by JMW Turner. I especially liked his watercolours, such as the painting of Norham Castle at sunrise.

arranging classroom furniture

My colleague next door and I rearranged my desks tonight. I'm gong to try out a horseshoe arrangement for a while. The room is a little bit tight to have everyone in a U-shape, but I've made a few concessions and now the entire middle of the room empty. My assistant principal reckons this will help with classroom management as well. Everyone can focus on the centre of the U, and there's space that I can stand there and move around. We'll see if it works. Before the students get in on Monday (tomorrow is an in-service day) I need to make all new seating plans for the new arrangement.

NewScientist reported recently on a different classroom arrangement that helps kids burn more calories: no chairs at all. I don't think this would work for me since it sounds like a behavior management nightmare. I have enough problems keeping students focused without having to think about them moving around the whole lesson. Of course this would use more energy and perhaps keep them more fit; it would drive me insane trying to contain the energy and talk. I guess maths is not the place for a chairless classroom. At least not for me and not right now.

date night

I left work early today and explained to a colleague that it was date night. He looked a little shocked and said, "But you're married." We try to keep one night a week free to spend together, no working late allowed. Recently we have been going to a few movies on date night: Syriana and The Matador were both excellent. Tonight we had a quiet night in: a nice meal (chicken korma), a special drink (fizzy cranberry and blackberry), and a nice dessert (raspberry panacota--a la Sainsbury's). We've been relaxing and watching a bit of football (Ant) and reading a novel (me). It's lovely just to be together. And, as I told my colleague, it's good to keep things focused and it keeps us from getting bored with each other.

Another bonus of date night is the rest from work it brings. It forces me to leave my desk before it's clean or half the work is done. I have to spend more time at home one night a week and I get to relax more. I'll be in bed on time tonight.

the maths and faith roadshow

Some scratch paper thinking for Matt about our summer roadshow (heehee):
Hany's illustration about the numbers 10, 100, 1000: Jesus is our number 1.
Statistical inquiries into the efficacy of prayer by Francis Galton.
The equation e^{pi.i} = 1.
Something about the Klein bottle--I don't remember what.

the good life

With my new iPod, my walks to school have become really enjoyable. (Actually, I like walking anyway. So itÂ’s now enjoyable with an extra bonus of music.) In the mornings IÂ’ve been listening to Audio Adrenaline because it gets my mind ready for the day ahead and thinking with a good perspective.

A catchy song I've been listening to has some unexpected lyrics.

The Good Life

I've watched my dreams all fade away
And blister in the sun
Everything I've ever had is unravelled and undone
I've set upon a worthless stack
Of my ambitious plans
And the people that I've loved the most
Have turned their backs and ran

chorus:
This is the good life
I've lost everything
I could ever want
And ever dream of
This is the good life
I found everything
I could ever need
Here in Your arms

Loneliness has left me searching
For someone to love
Poverty has changed my view
Of what true riches are
Sorrow's opened up my eyes
To see what real joy is
Pain has been the catalyst
To my heart's happiness

chorus

What good would it be
If you had everything
But you wouldn't have
The only thing you need

chorus


Comments coming soon...

summer plans

My summer flights are now booked. I'm coming to Halifax for Micah and Anna's wedding. I arrive on August 3 and return to England on August 23. Hopefully, with a 20 day window, I will also get to see Sonya's baby, which is due in mid-August.

home improvement

We're having a DIY day! Here's the filing cabinet we put together. We bought it from Argos and it came with every part separate. The instructions start off by saying that it takes 50-60 minutes to assemble! The pain of it all made IKEA's assembly items seem like licking an envelope.

Leftover from Valentine's day: a Ferrero Rocher box now void of chocolates. I used it to sort out my necklaces. Ha!

Isn't life so mundane sometimes? I remember a line from an Alice Munro short story I read once, that "people's lives... were dull, simple, amazing and unfathomable--deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum." The extraordinary and the unremarkable are mixed up together.

no html genius

I have been playing with the template for this page, as you can see. However, since my HTML skills are limited, it doesn't look quite right at the moment. In Mozilla it's decent and in IE it's not that bad. The boxes are not aligned perfectly. But for now I'll leave it as is and enjoy. I really like the new background, and it's more red now than pink, which is a bonus.

Since meeting Ant many people have said that I have embraced pink and all things feminine in a new way. That is probably true! I am much more girly than ever before (except perhaps for my princess stage as a young child). However, I had to draw the line at the bright pink blog. My iPod is pink, my trainers are pink, my bag is pink, and my scarf is pink. But now my blog is maroon!

hook and loop fastener

Velcro was invented 50 years ago by a Swiss man named Georges de Mestral. He was out walking his dog when he noticed burrs on its fur that were so securely attached that they were exceedingly difficult to remove. Their design was a highly effective way of dispersing seeds. Mestral invented Velcro based on this masterpiece and named it after the velours (or fuzzy) part and the crochet (or hooked) part.

This week NewScientist reports that Velcro has been noted as a key element in widespread seed dispersal. Australian officials are disconcerted to learn that scientific expeditions to remote areas such as the sub-Antartic islands are bringing back hundreds of seeds from non-native species, "some of them invasive and a serious risk to the local flora." The vast majority came attached to Velcro strips that are part of the team's clothing or gear.

How ironic. It seems that Velcro does exactly the same job of the natural thing it was modelled after. The Australian scientists are hugely concerned since the "spread of alien species to foreign lands is second only to habitat loss as a cause of disappearing biodiversity."

money

With two accountants now in our circle of friends, and Matt and April talking about buying a house, I have been thinking about our finances. Ant and I are blessed to be saving a bit each month, mostly because we have flatmates. Reading online today makes me wonder if we would be wise to take out an ISA, a tax-exempt savings plan that the government protects and promotes. I have yet to really understand the British tax system, and since Ant has been a student for so long he has never had to pay taxes.

I have been filing Canadian taxes for seven or eight years now, and really enjoyed it! So I know that the financial duties will fall to me in our marriage as well. We have both been keeping close tabs on our money, though, and we feel a partnership about our financial planning. Right now the purpose of our savings account is to put money aside for things like flights and a new computer. Matt and April are in the enviable dual-income position of possibly being able to buy a house soon, which is by far the best financial step in the UK at the moment. Perhaps next year we'll be their housemates instead of they being ours. I guess that we are probably a year away from being able to start looking for a house. Since Ant will have been recently graduated, we can get up to a whopping 100% mortgage as first time buyers. But at least we would be on the property ladder! My mum used to say that renting is like throwing money in a hole. How true.

comforts of the sick person:

sleep
a cuddly duvet
hot lemon medicated drink
a chick flick (Pride and Prejudice)
a laptop with wireless internet
tissues with lotion
a bit of sun through my window
someone else coming home later to cook
low productivity expectations
time to think
cereal as much as I like

sick again

It seems that I come down with every bug going around at school. I am not yet immune to any UK cold and so I have got sick again. I was off school today and slept for most of the day. I ate some toast, drank some orange juice, and did laundry. Sigh.

Tomorrow is day 11--our enrichment day. We are off the normal timetable and the students are with us all day for five of these days elevens. One of my colleagues and I have a group of 35 students for our Maths, Games, and Magic days this term. We have booked a magician to come in tomorrow to perform and teach the students some tricks. Hopefully this will provide hours of fun! And hopefully we will both be well enough to attend, since my colleague is also off sick today.

shelving

Ant and I headed to the two DIY shops near us today to pick up some supplies. We bought six boards and twelve brackets--we want to put up lots of shelves. We are seriously lacking in storage space since we live in one room. So I am taking a page out of my mother's book: when in doubt, build shelves. We borrowed Matt's laser level and got to work. But becuase we live in such an old building, made of brick, putting things on the wall here can be an ordeal. The drill bit overheated trying to push through some old masonry. We finally got one of our six shelves up, but the others may have to wait. It's my intention to take some pictures of our flat soon and post them, so you should get to see our shelves in due course.

shiny floors and steaming food

Our dinner at Wagamama was fantastic! The restaurant is sleek with long, substantial, dark wooden tables and shiny floors. The service was the fastest at any restaurant I've been to. About 5 minutes after our orders were taken, steaming plates of food arrived in front of us. The portions were very large and the price was not. In the bathroom, everything was gleaming. There's also a Wagamama in Putney, which is much nearer to us than the restaurant we were at on Thursday. We will surely be going to eat there again.

food, glorious food

Just a quick note. We're off to eat at Wagamama tonight, a noodle bar that we've hear lots about. It's April's birthday today and so we'll head into the city to meet her and Matt.

I've realised I post a lot about food. I like to cook food, to eat food, and to discuss food. I like to read about food and to watch TV about food. Is this a healthy (heehee) obsession?

babies

My best friend is pregnant. She recently asked on her blog for advice about how to discover the gender of her baby since her doctor told her they wouldn't tell her this (yet?).

I was reading in The Guardian yesterday that male babies are born more often to mothers with higher levels of testosterone in their systems. Eggs with higher levels of testosterone, when fertilised, are more likely to become male babies. Scientists are speculating about why this happens, but for the moment the article writes that "tough/confident/domineering (insert value-laden adjective of your choice) women tend to have greater levels of the hormone than their normal/feminine/doormat (ditto) counterparts--ergo they give birth to more boys." This idea explains why more boys are born after a war, for example, since stress also increases testosterone levels.

So one way to get pregnant with a boy, I could conclude, is to have high levels of stress. Ant and I certainly don't intend on having kids anytime soon, and possibly not at all, but we do have elevated levels of stress at the moment. As for Sonya, she will have to wait and see; we should probably wait until she has several babies before saying anything about her testosterone levels.

grand prix is imminent

Ant and I are eagerly awaiting the first Grand Prix this coming weekend. The first race of the eighteen is in Bahrain this Sunday. It's been a long time since last season. Since meeting Ant I have become quite addicted to Formula One. I used to confuse it with Indy car racing, the silly "sport" where cars drive around in circles for hours at a time. By contrast, Formula One is a great combination of pit tactics, driver skill, engineering expertise, and track conditions. All winter the teams have been testing and building cars that can drive fast, carry light fuel, and stay on the road. There are stringent rules about the size of the engines and the weights of the cars. There are two drivers on each team with almost identical cars, so their skills determines their separate outcomes.

Detail of the brakes of a Ferrari.

encouragement

I have been a bit discouraged at work lately. One of my colleagues tried to cheer me up. He said that any time I feel like complaining, I should sit up straight, tummy in, head high, and smile. Then I should try to say, "I'm depressed." If I whine about work I should do so with a smile on my face, because it's very hard to stay frustrated when you are forcing yourself to smile. He's right!

On the other hand, it can be hard to force yourself to smile without a reason.... Ant was humming a song today and he said I should use it as a reminder of a good reason to smile: God with me. He said he didn't even know why he was humming it. He concluded it must have been God giving it to him so he could encourage me.

I lift my eyes up
to the mountains;
where does my help come from?
it comes from you, Lord,
maker of heaven,
creator of the earth.

Oh, how I need you, Lord,
you are my only hope,
you are my only prayer.
So I will wait for you
to come and rescue me,
to come and give me life.

This week I'll be trying to sing this song and complain with a smile on my face! I have a reason to keep on working at a hard job: God is with me and I show him my faithfulness by serving my students.

Today I went out and bought my iPod nano. Ant had promised to pay for half as part of my Valentine's present. It's white with a pink skin. Isn't it beautiful? :)

Here I am with my tiny friend...

...and again!

After installing all the software on my computer, I charged it up and put some songs on to try it out. Matt and Bree were coming over to play Settlers of Catan, so we connected the iPod to the stereo and listened to my selections while playing.

tanning

On the coach to Liverpool, I was reading from the Guardian, my favourite British newspaper (Matt says that it caters for the knit-your-own tofu demographic!). There was an article about the profusion of tanning salons in Glasgow. In fact, all of Britain has fallen in love with tanning, the report says. Places with horrible weather have lots of tanning salons, like Glasgow. Secondary school students do a lot of tanning, they say, because short sessions are quite cheap--"a viable alternative use for lunch money." Aparently things have got to the stage that at one high school they started offering lessons on how to apply a fake tan!

Tans are cheap--but skin cancer at what cost? I have become a bit more vocal about safe sun recently. My mum had a cancerous mole removed a couple of years ago, so that makes me more at risk for skin cancer myself. I did some tanning in high school (to prepare for the prom, you know!). But it was so expensive that I didn't get much colour. It was a cosy way to spend a free period, though. Now I wear sunscreen every day and I am becoming a fake tan fan. I also just don't see the point in spending (a lot of) money to change my skin colour. With my pasty English husband I don't need much!

The article asks if there should be a minimum age for tanning, as there is for other dangerous habits like smoking and drinking. If they ever chose eighteen as the age, I would have been too young when I bought my sessions in high school. The reporter wonders if students know what they are doing when they go tanning and if they wiegh the consequences. I centainly didn't. In Britain there is no monitoring of the tanning industry, and that allows "tanorexia" among young people.

butty explained

We took the bus to Liverpool instead of the train. It's much cheaper, but not nearly as much fun. There were so many people going to Liverpool that they put two buses on the route. Then one went straight to Liverpool and the other did all the stops for people who wanted to go to places on the way. This got us there almost an hour early.

We’re staying with Ant’s Nan and Granddad. We were hungry when we arrived so Etta made us beef butties. I have finally figured out the difference between butties and sandwiches: a butty has only the named item with the bread and maybe some butter. A sandwich contains the filling as well as lettuce (or “salad”), tomatoes, and maybe some cheese. So my beef butty was two pieces of white bread, generously buttered, and a slice of roast beef. Now I know what to expect when offered a Northern butty! Later in the evening I also enjoyed a ham butty, and a ham and tomato butty, prepared by Ant's sister Rachele.

Ant, being a good Northern boy, eats every kind of butty. Some of his favourites are the chip butty, the rice and curry butty, and the sausage butty.

visit to the V&A

Yesterday I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum with my good friend Naomi. It's a huge place and we didn't see nearly everything. We did see lots of interesting furniture, wrought iron, musical instruments, and fashion.

In the main entrance of the V&A is a huge chandelier by Dale Chihuly. It is made up of blown glass segments suspended together.

In October I saw an exhibition by Chihuly at Kew Gardens, which was fantastic. He had created organic forms that nestled with the plants and trees in the gardens.

Visit to St Paul's Cathedral

I visited the beautiful St Paul's Cathedral yesterday.

Here's a shot of the inside of the front of the church. You can see the pulpit on the middle right and the choir sits behind this.

Looking up into the dome there are beautiful mosaics on the walls and ceiling. I climbed up 259 stairs to get to the Whispering Gallery around the rim of the dome (just below the windows).

Continuing up the stairs takes you to the galleries on the outside of the dome. The Stone Gallery is 378 steps up and is just above the tall pillars. The Golden Gallery is at the beginning of the straight part of the dome, just above the curve of the building. It was cold and windy up there (530 steps up) but the view of London in every direction was spectacular.

After visiting the main church and the galleries, I headed down into the crypt. Lots of important people are buried here, most notably the Duke of Wellington (who secured the victory over Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo in 1815) and Admiral Nelson (who died in the battle at Trafalger in 1805). There are many plaques on the walls to commemorate others (much like St Paul's Church in Halifax).

Also in the crypt there is a bust of Sir John A Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada. Underneath his unmistakable nose, the enscription has a quotation reads, "A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die." There is also a memorial to William Blake, the poet. After the vital statistics, there is a beautiful stanza from one of his poems.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

This is the first stanza from Auguries of Innocence, a long poem which defends the beauty of nature and rebukes those who defile it. The poet mentions that those who abuse nature, poor people, or the very young will be judged. We need to show respect for the world and God's people in it. Later in the poem, Blake reminds us that God's purposes undergird all that happens to us.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

I was really touched by reading Blake's memorial plaque. I would like to see God's purpose in nature around me and to understand and accept the joy and woe in my life. Being in St Paul's was a reminder of the spiritual dimension that many people miss.

I stayed for a choral evensong service. I got to sit in the quire near the high altar. The service was lovely--the men and boys choir led the worship and there were two priests there who read the lessons. The service, although formal, was also inviting and friendly. Most of the congregation were tourists and there was a significant proportion of business people as well.

photo swapping

Sonya and I saw this funny sign in a village in Maine on our shopping trip there a couple of years ago.

Sonya and I managed to share pictures today with Hello. Anyone else want to try this? It was easy and similar to MSN. We chatted in one pane and swapped photos in the other--and it was very quick.

molecular gastronomy

Matt and April like to read NewScientist, so a copy of it pops up now and again in our flat. I was reading an interview today with a man named Harold McGee who is a food scientist and writer. He has answered such questions as does washing mushrooms make them soggy (it doesn't) and does searing steak seal in the juices (it doesn't). He and a famous chef (Heston Blumenthal) started molecular gastronomy, a process where you can add molecules of something else to your food to add a different smell or taste. Sounds bizarre--like the oyster served on a jelly. The jelly was clear but had some molecules from dirt added so that "when you put it in your mouth it had the aroma of earth." The aim is to make "the dining experience less predictable." Mr McGee says that "if you don't know what's going on, your brain works a lot harder. You're engaged in a way you wouldn't normally be.... I think that makes you a better eater, an eater capable of getting more pleasure."

This idea is true in other areas, too, I think. When you are faced with something different you work harder to understand it. Science is based on that curiosity. Also, students are bored by lessons they find easy; investigative approaches work better because the student is interested and becomes a better learner, a learner capable of getting more out of the experience.

Mr McGee advocates the Slow Food movement, which protects and promotes local and traditional food. The interviewer asked him what he would consider the healthiest diet. He responds by saying that we are continually refining our ideas, but the maxim still holds true that the more varied your diet the better off you are. The interviewer sums up by asking whether he means moderation in all things. Mr McGee makes an interesting come-back: he quotes another food writer (M.F.K. Fisher) who said, "Everything in moderation, including moderation." So he advocates some feasting and overindulgence because it is an experience that satisfies us in a different way. He says we need to consider both physical satisfaction and quality of life.

An extension of this, not made by Mr McGee, would be that fasting is an important aspect of our gastronomical life as well. I have not fasted in a very long time. Thinking along McGee's lines, you would conclude that fasting improves our enjoyment and appreciation of food. Thinking along spiritual lines, it reminds us that we have another dimension to our lives besides the physical. We need Jesus, our spiritual food, as we need physical food. And he is to be enjoyed as much as feasting is enjoyable.

marking, Liverpool, and London

I went into work today. I have put off my marking for so long that it is now an insurmountable task. I marked for about four hours today and didn't even get through one class of the five. It's going to be a long week, since I really should do them all. I also have some unit planning to do that my colleagues need to start teaching from when we get back next week. Sigh.

I really want to do some fun things this week as well. We're going to Liverpool on the weekend. We'll stay with Ant's grandparents and see the rest of his family and friends. I also want to do some sight-seeing in London. I haven't really been to see all that much of the city, so I think this is a chance for me to do that.

On that line of thought, I went with Bree to Portabello Road market on Saturday. It's a long street lined with stalls and shops that goes on for more than a kilometer. There's a lot of vintage and fashion jewellery, antiques, clothes by young designers, fruit and vegetables, and flea market stalls. I bought two pairs of pearl earrings and Bree got a brooch. We were hungry by the time we got to the food stands, and so we picked up some lunch to eat as we walked. It was such a fun time to mingle with the hundreds of people there and look at everything on sale.

great Valentine's day

Ant and I celebrated Valentine's day on Wednesday (15 February). Ant gets home from uni earlier on Wednesday so we had more time to have dinner together. I booked us a table at a restaurant just up the road from us called Ditto. We have gone there for delicious drinks a couple of times and always wanted to try the restaurant. The meals we had were really good, the atmosphere quite nice, and the price not too bad as well. We had a great time.

I wore the top from my wedding dress. When I had the dress made for the wedding, I planned it in two pieces so that I could wear them again separately for special occasions. This was my first chance to do so.

I got a great present from Ant. He bought me the book How to Walk in High Heels by Camilla Morton. I had laughed once when we saw it in the book shop once and he remembered. It lives up to its claim of being "the girl's guide to everything." It's hilarious and quite comprehensive. The section about high heels includes advice on how to select a heel, how to know when to wear a heel, how to put a heel on, and how to aisle glide. "Fact: supermarket aisles are the perfect place to practice your glide. Not only do you get to stock up on all your groceries and wow the locals but you can get up to twenty-four aisles' worth of runway-smooth surface to practice on, while being supported by a trolley, the ultimate stabiliser for a novice stiletto wearer."

Ms Morton discusses how to walk in heels on all surfaces, such as carpet, pavements, marble, and cobblestones ("the HORROR of all HORRORS"). There's a mini article by Manolo Blahnik, "the patron saint of the stiletto", about how to choose a shoe. Other chapters have information about getting everything into your handbag, how to play poker, how to love art, how to house hunt, how to get a mortgage, and how to make curtains. This book is hours of fun and informative too!

you are what you eat

There's a TV show I like to watch called You Are What You Eat. Dr Gillian McKeith is a tough love nutritionist who exposes bad eating habits that make people sick and unhealthy. She shocks the participant by lining up all their week's food to see; then she puts them on a strict diet to get their bodies functioning again.

Her recipes are mostly vegetarian. On the Channel Four website you can find the recipe for tofu and bean burgers. Sweet potato shepherd's pie sounds lovely. Often she makes her participants go vegetarian at first. Ant would never go for this. He always jokes that he is a meatetarian. He says he doesn't feel full without meat. I hope that I will find some good vegetarian meals that he likes. At the moment I am trying to incorporate more fish into our weekly menus. We've discovered that we really like eating tuna steaks, and they are delicious marinated for about 20 minutes in soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and a bit of hot sauce. I'm going to try Dr McKeith's marinated salmon on spinach and leeks, I think.

God's mystery

The Trinity is always a hard thing to understand, and especially understanding that Jesus was both God and man. Yesterday at church, Pastor Hany preached about Christ being God's mystery. We were looking at Colossians 1:15-2:10. Hany said that the foremost miracle of Christ was not the resurrection, but the incarnation. It's a miracle and a mystery that Jesus, the Son, became human. In chapter 1, verse 19, Paul says that "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell," and in 2:9 it says that "in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." God came to dwell bodily among us, and the goal of this was to reveal himself--this is possible since Christ is the exact image of the invisible God (1:15).

What does this mean for me? I can hear my dad's voice ringing in my ears: "If you want to know God, look at Jesus!" My dad makes it sound so easy; sometimes I find Jesus cryptic. He lives in a strange time and he does strange things. It does seem like a mystery to me sometimes. But I have the confidence that Jesus has paved my way to God and I have been reconciled. I can study Jesus and get to know him because I am not estranged from God. I can discover the riches of the glory of the mystery, which is Christ in me, the hope of glory (1:27). Praise to God for his grace!

new and old

Ant and I are going to have supper with our new friends, Matt and Bree. The first day we met them (about a month ago) we invited them over for lunch. They stayed most of the day--a good sign for a new friendship!

I'm making a batch of cookies to take with us. I used a recipe from the Voth family cookbook. It was published at the Voth family reunion in 2000. My mum's mum was Katie (Katharina) Voth. Katharina is also my mum's name and my middle name. The cookbook has a portrait of my great-grandparents, Hermann and Maria Voth, who were married in 1906. They moved to Manitoba in 1924 with their seven children, one of whom was Katie. The cookies I'm baking right now are from a recipe contributed by another of the Voth children, my mum's aunt Margaret. They are cited as being Uncle Corny's favourites. How could I turn down cookies with a heritage like that?

And I'm listening to Ashley MacIsaac in the background. He's a fantastic rocky celtic fiddler. A taste of Nova Scotia to go with my Mennonite cookies and new American friends.


Uncle Corney's Favourite Cookies

1 cup margerine or butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (next time try 1 cup)
1 1/2 cups white sugar (try 1 cup)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups of oatmeal
1 cup of coconut
1/2 cup of raisins (today I'm using pecan pieces instead)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teapsoon baking soda

Mix together first five ingredients in a large bowl. Mix together other ingredients and then add to large bowl. Mix well. Drop by teaspoon and press down with a fork dipped in milk or flour. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

entropy

At home sick again. :( I have been sick most of this week, now, and I've noticed how the house has degenerated. April and Matt were both sick as well at the start of the week and Ant was busy as usual so everything just got worse and worse. The stacks of dirty dishes were so discouraging. I forced and Ant and me to get through them all last night. Ant washed until his skin was hurting and we swapped jobs. We used three tea towels til they were sopping. But at least we left the kitchen clean.

Which means that today I have started dirtying it again. Ant brought me breakfast in bed and I still have not gotten out of bed. This week my body was experiencing entropy as well as the house. But let's hope that I am soon on the way back up.

reading list

I have been doing more reading lately. Not terribly intellectual, mind. But at least my brain is a little engaged. And I joined the library today! It's a tiny little place with two rooms and large windows, located down the road in the bottom of a council house tower.

April's friend with the large book collection has been keeping me going til now and April and I have been swapping books. I just finished Sophie's Bakery for the Broken Hearted by Lolly Winston. In the US, this book is called Good Grief. It's one step above chick lit (which is sometimes all I can handle during the work week) with its apt descriptions and beautiful details.

The last five books before that were:

• The Guy Next Door by Meg Cabot (author of The Princess Diaries)--pure chick lit and very entertaining. It's written solely as a collection of emails.
  
• Mrs Kimble by Jennifer Haigh--about three women who marry Ken Kimble through his life.
  
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden--beautiful. I'm still planning to go see the film.
  
• Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers--based on the Bible story of Hosea. This is a well-written and very engrossing book.
• Unless by Carol Shields--a Canadian author. About a woman whose teenage daughter chooses to live on the streets of Toronto in pursuit of beauty.
  

modern conveniences

My newest cooking ingredient: lemongrass. Last night I made Thai chicken and lemongrass soup--yummy with coconut milk, a bit of hot sauce, lemongrass, lime juice, baby corn, and shards of spinach. The recipe calls for stalks of lemongrass, but my local/online supermarket sells lemongrass in a sqeezy tube. I squirted in about two teaspoons, hoping this was roughly equivalent. It turned out great.

This was my first forray into online grocery shopping. Since I was sick on the weekend and early this week when it was already my turn to cook, I had the mounds of food delivered. They were scheduled to arrive between 6 and 7 pm, so I rushed here to be home by a few minutes before 6. Good thing, too, since I heard loud knocking ("Please knock loudly, doorbell broken") at six o'clock on the dot. My shopping was unpacked from four storage crates into my front hall. Ant and I could never have lugged it all home. Well, maybe. We'd have got a workout.

We've also started having our milk delivered. At 50p a pint, this seems like a fantastic plan. We figure we go through 12 pints in a week! So each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 4 pints will be delivered to our door in the wee hours.

nostalgia

What kind of weird urge makes you want to look up old friends online? And then not contact them. Just try to get a little glimpse of their lives and then hide again. I get the urge about once a year. I usually search for ex-boyfriends and friends of exes, people that seem lost to me forever. I see that one is posting help for sysadmins. Another is the treasurer of a salmon association. I notice that an ex's sister graduated recently in photography. For others, there's not much info available. When I searched for one long-lost friend, I found documents with my name as well.

Perhaps some of these are not lost? I wonder which would welcome an advance on my part? If they were searching for me, probably they would reach a dead end after a while. My name has changed and I have moved. I conclude that most exes and friends of exes don't really want to hear from me and dredge up the past. Do we still have anything in common?

I have always been terrible with communication. One reason I hold back from making contact is that I know my urges to connect are usually short-lived. Does that mean I am inherently self-centred and there is no hope for me?

day eleven and other surprises

It's been a while. Matt and April's blog has inspired me to at least write a bit more reguarly. But I find it hard to understand how they can be consistently so funny. I guess some people are just more funny deep down, like Ant. I like to think that I am a more reflective type.

I have been off sick from school for two days. I actually wanted to go in today. Now that's a change of heart for me. It was day eleven today, the day of completely off-timetable activities. Sounds like fun, but it can be horrible. It's not too well organised. But Owen and I are running a maths fun day each time and it's not too bad. We've been teaching our group card tricks and doing little investigations; lots of colouring, not too much brain power, hopefully. We're looking to hire a magician who can teach the children some card tricks.

Valentine's is approaching and I am on the lookout for a good present for Ant. I was thinking about buying tickets to go see an Everton game in London. But his friend Benoit has eclipsed me and is taking Ant to a game tomorrow. I am too poor to afford the TV Ant really wants. I managed to find a wine-tasting tour that might do the trick, though. If I don't see anything more inspiring in the next few days, I'll go for that.

I have been growing my hair. Even before Ant and I got engaged he demanded that I grow my hair for the wedding. I liked my pixie cut, but I agreed that I would grow it at least until the wedding. Well, now it's been growing for more than a year and a half and it is quite long!

My long hair.

Summer plans

My blog writing is a bit sporadic! Good thing nobody reads it regularly! heehee.

An update on my summer:
I arrive in Halifax on the evening of 29 June.
Shad Valley starts at Dalhousie University a few days later on 2 July and runs until 31 July.
I fly home to Uxbridge at midnight on Sunday, 7 August.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family and friends. How horrible, though, that Sara Archibald is going to be in England, in our flat, while I am away in Canada! Not fair at all. Though I hope she enjoys cooking for Ant in my place. :) He says that's the price of staying there.