I was just informed by one of my friends that I was letting my blog readers down by not blogging. Apparently, according to him, there are a few sad people out there who live vicariously through my blog because they have no lives of their own. I'm sorry I've let you down so abysmally! I'll try to do better.
So, continuing on from the last blog will be hard, since so much has happened, so I'll just ramble on here and see how it goes...
Last weekend I went to Hampton Court Palace with a friend of mine, Steve Holland. What an amazing place! It is absolutely huge!! It was King Henry the VIII's favourite palace and was used a lot from the 1500s on. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the palace, unfortunately, but we saw the Abraham Tapestries, which are quite famous. Here is a quote from the website:
The [Great] hall is hung with the priceless Flemish tapestries of The Story of Abraham commissioned by Henry VIII and probably intended for the Great Hall itself. They were woven in the 1540s by the Brussels weaver Willem de Kempeneer with silver and gold thread. Although this is now tarnished and the colours faded, they still retain much of their former splendour. The Abraham tapestries were one of the most expensive sets of tapestries purchased by Henry VIII and were only hung in the Great Hall on special occasions.
They were amazing - the work involved in any tapestries is mind boggling. The Palace is the home of the Textiles Conservation Studio, which is a premier textiles studio conserving old tapestries and textiles, and encouraging the continuation of the art form by teaching the skills to new generations.
The palace had a suite of rooms for the king and a separate suite for the queen. There were also other people that lived
at the palace - nobles, courtiers, etc. The population of the palace averaged 1200 people when the king and queen were in residence. Up until fairly recently, it was used extensively as "grace and favour" apartments, being assigned to people the government or monarchy wanted to reward. There are still a few people residing in apartments there, but I think it would drive me crazy to live in a place that has a load of tourists wandering around all the time!
The gardens are beautiful, as you can see, and well kept. There must be an army of gardeners! There is also a hedge maze, which I am proud to say I made it all the way through!
Click for more info on Hampton Court Palace.
After we were done at Hampton Court Palace, Steve and I wandered down to the river
and found a boat that was plying between Hampton Court Palace and Kingston Bridge, so we paid the man and jumped on board. It was a lovely little trip downriver to Kingston-Upon-Thames, which is a nice town centered around the river and the bridge. The waterfront on either side up and down the river was full of restaurant, pub and blocks of flats. We stopped and had a pint in a little pub and watched the people. We looked around the shops a bit, and grabbed the boat back upriver to Hampton Court Palace. It was such a lovely day! Swans on the river, lots of canalboats and people our on the banks enjoying the sun.
Work has been going really well. The summer was slow, so it has been easy to take time off. But it's starting to get busy now - we have a lot on the go, and I'm really trying to prove myself to the guys, now that the office is set up. We hired an office junior to look after the menial stuff like answering phones and doing mail and courier. She's been working out great, which frees me up to really get my teeth into some projects. It should be an interesting autumn (they don't know what "fall" is here, they only say "autumn").
Paul is back at work and they're working him hard. He's been out on field exercises almost continuously since he went back and I only manage to speak to him 2 or 3 time s a week. He deploys to Iraq at the end of October for six months, and I will likely only be able to see him for a couple days before he goes. It's a little hard to grow a relationship when you never see each other and rarely get to talk. But, we had a lot of time together before he left, and we'll just keep on keeping on until he get back and we get some more time together. If I put it in perspective, people back in the day would part for months and years even without being able to speak to each other - sailors leaving wives and children, soldiers going off to war for several years with only letters, etc. So, it's not that big a deal. We'll have lots of time together down the road. In the meantime, I can survive without a man around - I managed for the last 9 years! As much as I miss him, Paul is an added benefit to my life, not the center of it!
This weekend there is Open House London going on, where buildings with historic or unique architecture are open to the public for free. Some of them, like Apsley House, are a tourist attraction you would pay for, whereas others, like Marlborough House are not normally open to the public and are offices or headquarters for organizations. It was a very interesting day.
My parents come to visit on Friday for about 10 days. I'm very excited! Paul won't be able to make it down to meet them, so we might go up to where the base is if he's going to be there and not in the field. If that doesn't work (and the army seems to work on the same principle as my last boss, never make any decisions until the last possible second) we will go up to York and spend a couple of days there sightseeing. Either one would be fun, because the army base is up near Thirsk, which is where the James Herriott books were set and written. Mom and I have enjoyed these books for years, so it would be nice to spend some time up in the area we've been reading about. Both places are in Yorkshire, which Thirsk just a bit further north than York.
We also have a trip to Paris booked on the Eurostar, the train that goes from London to Paris through the channel tunnel, or chunnel. We're only going down for a couple of nights. The rest of the time they are here, we're doing some stuff around London, like Camden Town markets and Covent Garden, London Eye, etc. It will be so nice to see them again!
I'm really missing my friends back home in Calgary. To all of you that read my blog, I'll be back at Christmas until January 9, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you all! I'm having a blast here, and it would be perfect if you were all here with me!
Well, it's now after midnight, so I should close this epistle. Love you all!!
