This might seem like an ironic post title given what happened in the month of July (i.e. nothing – no new posts or updates, sorry again about that). However, I find that however long I go without posting on WordPress, I always get that itch to come back and continue sharing with all of you: and, more to the point, as soon as I do, I often can’t stem the flow of words and ideas that I suddenly just have to spout forth.
Knee-high by the 4th of July…
Filed under America
Hello again, faithful and long-suffering readers.
Goodness gracious, I’ve been busy since leaving Strasbourg behind! As I mentioned, I’ve been training for this new job at Sandemans New Europe tours. They offer free tours (as well as paid ones) in lots of cities all over the continent, and when I got in touch and said I wanted to be a tips-only tour guide, they responded by offering me a stable job with a good hourly wage instead :) Continue reading
Filed under America
I don’t know how big a news item this is outside of the U.S., but for those of you who haven’t heard, things aren’t exactly super-awesome in Ohio right now. Nor in Indiana, Virginia or West Virginia, for that matter. On Friday evening, a huge storm rampaged across the four states, felling trees and dragging down power lines in its wake and leaving four million people without electricity. Then again two nights ago, a fresh derecho tore through the midwest once more – and while Zanesville narrowly escaped the new winds and in fact enjoyed a much-needed drop in temperature since many people’s air conditioning was out of service, the storm reached out as far as Washington, D.C., leaving more people without power and us further down the priority list.
Our back garden, where the root of our power problems seems quite clear.
Filed under America
It’s been a while since I’ve been in America, and even longer since I’ve been to Grant’s family home. Because of my world travels, he’s been visiting me in my various homes around the globe for the past year or so; first in Costa Rica last summer, then in Scotland at Christmas, and finally again in France in the spring. I spent about a week with him in Akron last October but never made it to his home town in that short time, so all told it’s been about fifteen months since I’ve been here.
This is what I’m looking at right now.
And things have changed since then! The family room has received a beautiful makeover and the gazebo’s been updated too; the first thing I noticed, though, was that Grant’s younger brother has moved into the other room in the basement where his sister used to live. Her absence was sorely missed that first evening when I went to take my shower and found that, in place of her usual array of products carrying such names as ‘Rose Garden’ and ‘Moonlight Whisper,’ I was offered only a single choice of shower gel: ‘Power Stick‘. Continue reading
Filed under America
The other part of my spring trip I want to tell you about is our egg-dyeing session. Of course. As I’ve mentioned, Grant has an account of our D.C. trip in the pipeline, and while I’d love to tell you the whole story from my perspective too, I don’t really think anyone cares so much about those three days to require two separate accounts. Plus, I might have a shot at finally getting this blog up to date if I let him take this one. Continue reading
So tomorrow is my last exam, and it’s in Portuguese, and I’m ridiculously blasé about it.
As though I need an excuse to post on my blog.
I did need an excuse to get out of the flat, though. My days have been long and unstructured lately, and mostly spent within the white walls of my room; so I went out to buy a new notebook. Because I want to blog but I have also noticed that I have an unhealthy attachment to my computer: so I thought I’d start writing my blog posts by hand before uploading them. And for that, I needed a stylish notebook from Paper Tiger. So I went out and checked out the wee one on Lothian Road, but my friend Clare from Spanish, who works at Studio One, told me that the Paper Tiger on Stafford Street is even more magical, so I went there. I popped into Studio One while I was there and oh dear lord how fabulous it was. Continue reading
Filed under America
Hi guys,
Ok, so I didn’t realise the situation was quite this bad. For some reason I was convinced I’d recounted slightly more of my Christmas tales, but on re-reading Episode Seventeen I see that this is pure fantasy. I apologise. And now I will attempt to rectify the situation by way of a quick recap.
So on Saturday the 18th of December, I arrived in Ohio early evening, and we stopped for Bob Evans on the way back to Akron, as is our tradition. We stuck around in Akron until Tuesday, just messing around in the flat and its immediate surroundings. On Sunday we decorated the Christmas tree which Grant had set up in preparation for my arrival (this is the Christmas tree which is still standing in that corner today, the 2nd of April), and picked up some groceries we’d be needing for meals and for the butterbeer we’d decided to make in the true spirit of a Hogsmeade Christmas. Continue reading
Filed under America
Roamward Bound 