Looney's in London

Mom & Dad came in September to visit for a couple of weeks. Mother Nature co-operated this time and it didn't rain everyday, all day. They arrived on the 15th Sept and I went to North Yorkshire for a meeting on a contract. And I took advantage of having somebody home and a guy showed up to drop off new dish washer. Once I got home, we went around the corner to the pub for dinner. There's a great place called the Hand-in-Hand that is an authentic English village pub ... that Wimbledon has just grown up around. They have fantastic pies [these are dinner pies, not dessert pies].

The next day, Mom and Dad slept in and visited the Village; I went to Barnsley to facilitate a partner meeting. And I am still settling into my house, a guy showed up to install the new dish washer. Wimbledon Village is a great place to get lost in, stop and have a tea or a glass of wine, so I guess Mom & Dad okay for the day on their own.

On Thursday, I worked from home in the morning and waited for the guy to show up and install the satellite. I figured Mom & Dad meeting work men three days in a row might be too much to ask. Good news! I got ESPN-America and the the St. Louis Cardinals were going to be on TV Sunday night / Monday morning at Midnight. We could record it and watch it at our leisure during normal hours.

After the Satellite was in, we headed into London. I had a meeting to be at in the office, and we had tickets to see Wicked later on. None of us had seen it, and it was really good. I had no idea what to expect, really. Fun story.

On Friday, we went to Buckingham Palace to participate in the summer open house and take some tours. We first went to the Queen's Gallery. It's a "timed" entry, so we started there and then could go at our leisure to the rest. It's basically a museum, filled primarily with paintings & tapestries and some sculptures. After that we went into the Palace and we visited the State Rooms, which was my favourite. We walked in the same entries and down the same stairs that the Queen would receive visitors for official functions. All very cool.

After that, we visited the mews where they keep the official state cars and carriages ... and horses. Most of the horses were somewhere else, but we did get to see four before we left. The glass carriage is the one that Princess Diana rode in on her wedding day.

After touring for four hours, we headed over to my office for a happy hour. No reason, it was just time for us to gather and have a glass of wine. We had a few nibbles and drinks and then headed back to Wimbledon for a rest.

On Saturday, we laid low. I was going to walk into the Village to get some groceries. Mom & Dad decided to come along and we stopped at Wagamama for lunch. We down to the Broadway [bottom of the hill] to go to the grocery at Morrison's, rode the bus back up the hill and then everyone had to carry a bag back across the Commons.

I ran Sunday morning in preparation for my upcoming run in Dublin and I was trying to spend time at home with the Misty-girl. We drove over to Kew Gardens, a huge botanical gardens park. I think we only saw about 1/3 of the park and that took us most of the afternoon.

I left Mom & Dad on their own on Monday and headed into the office. Monday was the day that I was to find out if we won the big account we had been pursuing for the last six months. Unfortunately, we did not. I was devastated. Worked my butt off for that one and really thought we had it ...

On Tuesday, I had a meeting, but then had to take Misty in to have the 25 staples she had removed. I decided to do a work from home day on Wednesday [23rd].

I went into work on Thursday and got a call from Mom in the early afternoon that Misty was down, and I rushed home. You know the rest.

Friday, we headed to Dublin with my friend Ramu, in order to participate in the Dublin Half Marathon on Saturday. We had time on Friday to do tour the Guinness Storehouse. Guinness just happened to turn 300 years old on the 24th [day before], so there was a lot going on in and around the factory. It was by far my favourite distillery / winery / brewery tour I have every been on. The place was amazing! It's seven stories and it's set up as a sensory tour ... things to watch, things to try, you walk, you ride, you touch, and so on. Afterwards we went to O'Neill's for a drink.

On Saturday morning, Ramu and I headed into Phoenix Park to participate in the Dublin half-marathon. The park is HUGE. The Ireland president lives there. The American Ambassador. We saw at least 400 deer. There is a massive cross where Pope John Paul II held mass 30 years before. I think we walked at least 2.5 miles to get to the starting point for the race. There were 8,000 runners in all. We finished in 1:58:38 ... 21 seconds longer than the Nashville Half-Marathon I ran 4 years previous ... and I was 77th in my age group. It was a good run. I had lots of energy to burn after my week. The only bad part was after running 10 miles ... they were bailing hay! Do you have any idea what that does to my already tired lungs?

We finished the run and headed back to the hotel to take ice bags and look for some lunch. We went to Stag's Head ... as we continued to tour the top pubs in Dublin. There was an upstairs / outside garden. After lunch, we headed to the garden where Ramu, Dad and I smoked a Cuban cigar in celebration of the run being completed!

On Sunday, we headed into Dublin for some more touring. We tried to stop at The Covered Market, but was closed for Sunday, so we walked through Temple Bar which runs along the Leffey River and has a bunch of shops. There wasn't much going on for a Sunday.

We did stop at the Ha' Penny Bridge for a photo, named that because it used to cost a half penny to cross over. We took a walk down O'Connell Street. It's a wide street with shops, statues, restaurants, and The Monument of Light, a stainless steal spire that's 394 feet tall.

On Monday, I worked from the kitchen for the morning and then Pam, joined us for lunch. I was back in full bid-writing mode, so Mom and Dad kept busy getting ready for their journey back to the States. We took a car early on Tuesday morning to Heathrow and then I headed into London.

Bank Holiday, August

This year for the bank holiday in August [30th], Mary Therese came in for a visit from Louisville. You may, or may not, recall that last year for this same holiday weekend I took the dogs to Scotland. My plan was to walk for the weekend. We did do that, but it rained from the second I parked the car at the B&B. August is supposed to be a beautiful month in Scotland, so this year when MT said she was coming in, I naturally figured we should go to Scotland!

The month of August is basically one big festival in Edinburgh. It's called the Fringe Festival. For the entire month, there are about 2100 different venues running, including street performers, singers, bands, opera, plays, comedians ... lost of comedians ... and they come from all over the world, hoping to be discovered, I think. You can buy tickets to participate in some of the more popular acts, or you can just sort of wing it, like we did.

The performers spill out into the street and hand out post cards, or do short performances, or shout, to get your attention and to try to get you to come to their shows. Some of the acts sponsor smaller, lesser known individuals and group them together. A known comedian, for example, might the third in a line-up of three and the first two just getting started.

Every venue possible is used. The churches were booked. Sidewalks. Alleys. Small rooms inside of bars. And larger bar had rooms set up for the performances.

We went to a couple of "free" comedian shows. They're free to get in, but they pass the bucket as you exit. But that only works if you can keep your crowd in the room. We saw two shows, three comedians each. #1 was bad. #2 was okay. #3 was actually funny. This show started about 730pm. The next one we saw [different bar] started at about 1130pm. The first guy was bad. #2 was worse. And #3 lost 1/2 of the group before he finished. I think they were hoping we would have had more to drink by Midnight and perhaps the comedians would appeal more. Not so much.

The funniest line from the comedian that we actually thought was funny was a routine he did about meeting your friend's babies. He said isn't it amazing that when you friend has a beautiful baby you find yourself saying, "you're going to be a heart breaker, aren't you? You're going to break a lot of hearts!" And then when you have friend that have an ugly baby, what is it that you say ... ? "You're going to have your heart broken, aren't you?"

We also went to Edinburgh Castle. It was pretty cool. There is the sounding of the gun every day at 1:00, which we saw. The one o'clock gun at Edinburgh Castle is in exact synchronisation with the time ball in Calton Hill's Nelson Monument, which is across the valley, and Greenwich Mean Time.

We took the train to Edinburgh and back [The Flying Scotsman] for that weekend. It seemed like the 5.5 hours on the train was a better way to get there than the 10 hours it took me to drive last year! And besides that, you can nap, have a glass of wine ... or help a woman traveling with a sick baby. A young woman traveling by herself with a 9-month old joined us in York on our way back to London. We were about 1.5 hours into our trip home. She needed to go and deal with the buggy [stroller] that was blocking the isle, so she asked if someone would hold the [very large headed] baby. I volunteered MT. After the woman was out of site, the baby started to fret, so MT was cooing and talking sweet to him telling him his mommy was coming back, and then she said [you saw this coming right-?], "You're going to have your heart broken some day, aren't you?"

I was hysterically laughing in the corner.

Back in London, we spent the day doing touristy things. MT had never seen the changing of the guard, so we went to Buckingham Palace. I had never tried to watch the guards at the gate before, so we pressed ourselves up against the fence right behind a French family and got a great view of the changing. Unfortunately, the big stately doors of the Palace are under repair, so I have great pictures of the guards, with a tacky back drop of plywood. Oh well.

We also had to pay a quick visit to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club, which surprisingly, is under construction and repairs. MT is a huge tennis fan and player. Unfortunately, with all of the work that is being done, you can't walk the grounds, so it's tough to get a view of how big the place really is. I think there are 19 courts. We could have done the museum and maybe that would offer some additional insights, but MT didn't want to do that. Next time maybe.

All-in-all, it was a great visit, and sadly, it was nearly two months ago!

Misty Gone

Okay, it's been nearly six weeks since I have been able to post a blog. Finally got Broadband turned on at my house, and now am having computer issues. I have had a run of visitors through, and need to blog and post pictures of their visits. I will get to that this week.

First, I need to sadly post that I had to put Misty down on 24 September. Think I wrote in August that she had a malignant melanoma. After we settled into our new place, she started eating things. She ate two pair of trousers [can't say "pants" here; that means that something has gone all wrong, or you talking about your undies], five pair of nickers [that's your undies], and bath mat. No surprise that she developed a blockage. I had to take her to vets and they kept her over night and pushed through barium, trying to track the blockage. After 30 hours, they decided that surgery was the only option. Ironically, when they got in there, the blockage had moved.

Unfortunately [or fortunately, depending on how you look at it], they found a tumour on her pancreas and her liver was riddled with tumours. They had a hard time getting the liver to hold a stitch. I knew it was bad. The tumours came back malignant, so it was a matter of days as she was advanced.

We had a very difficult night the day after I got her home from this surgery where she went "down" ... lethargic and breathing heavily. We laid out in the yard until about Midnight and then she suddenly got up and went into the house and ate dinner. The vet said a tumour had likely burst and she was bleeding. The little ones would continue on that way, but eventually, there would be a big bleed and she wouldn't recover. The silver lining in this is that this cancer is not painful [unlike the melanoma which would have eventually taken over her lungs].

So, not unlike after hearing the bad news about the melanoma, we lived every day doing what she wanted and was able [probably against vets' orders]. She ate chicken, table scraps and chew treats. We walked the Commons every morning. And I was happy with each day that she felt good. We definitely lived the "play hard" part together of my work hard/play hard ethic.

On Thursday the 24th of September, we walked the Commons and she chased the Ravens. I took her home and left her with my parents who were visiting, and went to work. I got a call about 1:30 from my Mom saying that Misty was down. These last couple of months might have been the most difficult I've had with a dog, but am really happy to have had Misty for 10 years. What an adventure!