Here were are, only nine days into November, and I missed a day already. I didn’t forget to write anything yesterday, I was just lazy (or busy, or something like that). So, maybe I’m not cut out to be an everyday kind of blogger. Maybe I just don’t always have that much to say. Not every day, that is.

But here’s some news. Kitten #2 finally has a name. A name we think will stick: Hudson, after “Mr. Hudson” on “Upstairs, Downstairs” because he’s, well, always upstairs and downstairs. It suits him. Better than Purmort, Acorn, Amoeba, and the hundreds of other names we tried on him for size first.

So, Oyster and Hudson have taken over the house completely. It’s their place, and would we please just feed them and pet them and play with them and then leave them alone?

Here’s where I voted today. And you?

(I’m not sure who took this last picture, but my money is on Hyla.)

A few months back, my trusty little Pentax camera got sick. Some sort of misalignment in its lens caused the camera to make an awful grinding sound as the camera started and, in self preservation, the camera quickly shut itself down. I didn’t know what to do with it, or even if it was fixable.

Rather than dwell on the problem, I started using Michael’s beautiful, powerful, very complicated camera for updating the blog, but a couple of weeks before the London trip, it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to take that camera with me. Aside from its being relatively large (not easily totable in the city), I would be terrified of harming or losing it while there (family and old friends may remember that we once lost a camera in Europe and I didn’t want to repeat that experience).

A whole two weeks before the trip, I got serious about this issue. A bit too late. I took the Pentax to a local camera store and they said, sure, they could send it to Pentax to have them look at it for a repair, but it would cost at least $140 to have them look at it (no guarantees of repair) and at least four weeks before it would be returned.

I thought again about taking the big camera. Then I thought about buying a new, small camera, but I felt too much pressure to find the right one in a couple of weeks.

Then Michael discovered a box in the basement that said “Hyla’s Cameras” and when we opened it up, we found Hyla’s simple, little digital camera. So simple, I thought, that even I could figure it out. Well, it proved portable enough, but more complicated than I bargained for. So all I could do was take a basic point-and-shoot picture. I couldn’t even figure out how to use the zoom. And I had no idea how many pictures it could hold on its card or how long its batteries would last, so I felt afraid to use it in case I would use it up.

It’s not that I didn’t have warning about the trip (a year-and-a-half) and it’s not that the Pentax died just a week before the trip or something.

If I had thought about it for even a few minutes a couple of months ago, I could have saved myself some worry and had a lot of nifty pictures from the trip. As it is, though I did get a few pictures, which I’m sharing with you now. We have some other pictures (on my sister’s much nicer camera) and when she gets those to me, I’ll share those, too.

And maybe someday soon, I’ll go camera shopping in earnest. I swear I’ll be prepared for my next trip to London.

The Queen Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace:

Me, balancing on a tiny lip on the edge of that same monument:

The moon over Big Ben (taken from Trafalgar Square):

A section of the bacon display at Harrods Department Store:

The sign at Maidenhead station, taken around midnight, after missing the train to London, on the coldest night in London ever recorded in history*:

* slight exaggeration, but only slight

It’s been a long day and I’d rather be going to bed right now, but I remembered I needed to post something today, so this is it -but it’ll be brief.

Today’s excitement was a trip to Burlington, Vermont, to pick up our new car: a Scion xB. Yes, it’s one of the stranger looking cars on the road, but it’s simple, small, reliable, and has excellent gas mileage. And it also happens to be kind of fun to drive.

More tomorrow. And maybe some pictures, too!

As wonderful as the last week has been, it’s always nice to be back home again.

I’m here, getting my bearings, going through the e-mail and the real mail, doing laundry, and getting readjusted to Eastern Standard Time. In the next day or two, I’ll uploading the (few) pictures I took in London and will soon post some pictures of that and some pictures I took of the house before I left.

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in more information about The Fat Duck, here’s a site that has several pictures. The pictures are two years old and some things have changed (including the sign/logo out front of the building), but this will give you some idea of what we saw.

And here is an article in the Guardian from April 2005 about the chef (Heston Blumenthal) and the restaurant.

A homey (and nearly equally delicious) bowl of chili is waiting to be my lunch in my own kitchen right now. It’ s good to be home.

My sister and I are leaving London today. I’m both happy and sad to go. Truth is, I’m exhausted. We’ve had some pretty long days, the longest of which might have been yesterday. We didn’t arrive back at the flat until 1:45 am. And the reason was this:

The Fat Duck

I don’t think I have the energy to write about our experience right now, but I will. I’ll just say it was an amazing, sometimes magical (literally) experience. I’ve never seen or eaten anything like it before.

Not that it will really explain things to you, but this is some of the menu we ate last night (in reality, we had something like 19 mini courses each):

NITRO-GREEN TEA AND LIME MOUSSE OYSTER, PASSION FRUIT JELLY, HORSERADISH CREAM, LAVENDER POMMERY GRAIN MUSTARD ICE CREAM, RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO JELLY OF QUAIL, LANGOUSTINE CREAM, PARFAIT OF FOIE GRAS

SNAIL PORRIDGE Joselito Ham, shaved fennel

ROAST FOIE GRAS Almond fluid gel, cherry and chamomile

SARDINE ON TOAST SORBET Ballotine of mackerel ‘invertebrate’, marinated daikon

SALMON POACHED WITH LIQUORICE Asparagus, pink grapefruit, “Manni” olive oil

POACHED BREAST OF ANJOU PIGEON PANCETTA Pastilla of its leg, pistachio, cocoa and quatre épices

MRS MARSHALL’S MARGARET CORNET PINE SHERBET FOUNTAIN

MANGO AND D0UGLAS FIR PUREE Bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrant sorbet

CARROT AND ORANGE TUILE BEETROOT JELLY

SMOKED BACON AND EGG ICE CREAM Pain perdu, tea jelly

HOT AND COLD TEA VIOLET TARTLET

We’re packing now for the return trip. I’ll be writing more about everything we saw, did, and ate once I get my bearings again.

My sister and I are in London, but I woke up this morning and first thing remembered my pledge to write a blog entry every day for this month. So, welcome to November!

We have been here for six days now. We’re beat. We get up every morning between 7 and 8 am, get dressed, consult the guide books, and set off for the Underground. And we don’t return to the flat again until 11:30 pm at the earliest. We walk all day long. London is large and there’s so much to see, and with a week to see it all, we’re pushing ourselves hard. And having a wonderful time.

Last night was spectacular. We went to see La boheme at the Royal Opera House. OP-U-LENT. The hall itself is gorgeous, and so is the addition which houses the box office and the “Floral Hall” – where opera lovers sip champagne and eat pre- and post-performance dinners. If you’re like us and don’t know about the dining options in advance, you do get to take advantage of the interval snacking, which works like this: when you arrive, you order from the bar what you like (food, drinks, etc.). In our case, two glasses of champagne. You select the interval during which you’d like to consume your purchase (there are two intervals in this opera), pay for your selection and they tell you which station to go to. At interval, you return to the Floral Hall, go to the station you were directed to, and there sit your two glasses of chilled champagne, with a little card with your name on it, so you’re sure it’s yours. Pick up the glasses, sip, and wonder what the poor people are doing tonight….

p.s. The opera itself, was pretty spectacular, too.