Visiting Teri, Guest Blogger, Heidi

Teri is making lunch and put me in charge of her blog for the day - Heidi Danielson, a Looney friend from Minnesota. I arrived on Monday and have spent the week exploring London. Teri had to travel for work on Monday, so a car met me at the airport when I arrived and drove me to her place in Wimbledon. I reacquainted myself to the dogs and then walked up the hill to the village. As the British say, it was lovely. Teri arrived home later that night.

The rest of the week I traveled in to London with Teri each morning and explored whilest (I've adopted several new phrases here) she worked. Shopping, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Parliament & Big Ben (not to be confused with my son) and a day spent at the Victoria & Albert Museum on a day of rain and grey skies. Teri was able to take some time off work and we explored the Spittlefield Market one morning. Fun antiques and one of a kind wares.

Friday we headed to Brighton, a beach town on the southern coast of the UK. It was a day of typical British weather - cold and grey when we arrived. We found a place to stop for fish and chips for lunch while it sprinkled, but when the sun came out we saw our chance to walk down the pier and along the beach. After we turned around and began walking back we stopped to take pictures of the dark black cloud approaching. We were not able to outrun the cloud and the wind and rain hit us full force - sideways rain. We decided all we needed was a canoe and it would have been like a fall trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area from many years ago that lives on in infamy. We attempted to dry off in a pub and explored a little more of Brighton before heading back on the train.

Today we are planning to take Teri's car out and see some sights as several Tube lines are closed for the weekend. Then tomorrow I head home and Teri can get back to "normal" here.

Puntastic [thought these were funny!]

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out
to be an optical Aleutian .
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it
was a weapon of math disruption.
5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum
Blownapart.
8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
9. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
10. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are
looking into it.
11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to
the other, You stay here; I'll go on a head.'
13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'
15. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When
his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'
16. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
17. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium
at large.
18. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a
seasoned veteran.
19. A backward poet writes inverse.
20. In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your
count that votes.

Is there a 4th of July in the UK?

Ah, that would be, yes. There is the 4th day in the month of July, however as an American, I was looking for a barbecue, some beer and fireworks. I found the first two of the three.

As yesterday was a national holiday in the US, it seemed natural to look for some fellow Americans in the UK to share some food and brew. Some of my fellow expats and I headed to Parson's Green [Southern suburb of London] to participate in the American Beer Festival.

I must say, it was nice. First off, we are having an unprecedented stretch of beautiful weather. I just keep expecting to have to pull out the wool sweaters any day now, but no. It's sunny. It's dry. It's warm [nearly 90 degrees]. It's unbelievable. Certainly nothing like I have experienced since moving here.

So I lathered on the sun cream [sun screen], put on a cargo skirt [don't pass out; it was actually a skirt], and took the tube 5 stops North of where I live to meet some friends.

We met at the White Horse pub. I'm pretty certain there are probably 100 White Horse pubs in London alone. They had a couple of huge umbrellas and a barbecue set up outside. This wasn't just any barbecue either. It was made of bricks, a permanent structure. They had burgers, ribs, and chicken. It smelled wonderful.

And inside they had a band. I might go so far to say that it was a country-influenced band, so I felt like I was home.

And most importantly, they had American Beer. They were pulling Honker's Goose Island from Chicago, at least five brews of Sierra Nevada, and all of the Flying Dog micro brews. I was in heaven. The smell of barbecue and real beer.

All I was missing was a parade and some fireworks. So to satisfy the fact that I was missing those, I put in a call to my friends the Corbett's where I have been known to spend a couple of 4th of July celebrations. My favourite continues to be the sort of family mantra:

• No gifts
• No dressing up
• No church
  
• Makes it the best holiday in the world. From the UK perspective, I tried to keep it low key. Probably not the wisest thing to celebrate our Independence from my current host country.