The Importance of Being Idle: For the Price of a Cup of Tea

Welcome! My 2014 resolution is not to lose weight (because that should just be a forever ongoing goal), but to return to blogging on a consistent basis. I'm just kind of over Twitter, and like the idea of having my blog as a kind of diary once again, so, here we go 2014 (let's see how long I can do this for before I return to tweeting.)

Disclaimer: Some things in this post may have already been Facebooked and/or Tweeted because, you know, there was no blogging for a while.

Here's a cool post box I saw on Fifth Avenue:

Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I was in England last week for Xmas, my 8th one at Dave's (WOW!) United Airlines are seriously the worst. I know that my butt is big, but the fact that I could only fit half of it on the seat is kind of ridiculous. The entertainment was awful (5 movies that are ongoing and you never know when they are restarting.) On the way back I made up for it with a movie marathon on Air Canada (Deliverance, Don Jon, Crash, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.) Anyhoo, Dave's mom picked us up at Heathrow and I passed out in the car, then took a nap, then went to bed at 10 pm. Ahh jet lag.

On Sunday we went into London and I met up with Shiraz, Jackie, Ryan, Ellie, and Doug in Bethnal Green (the only area in London without a cash machine, fact?) We went for a pint (actually, half a pint, I couldn't get through my Stella for some reason), then to The Boundary for cream tea. This was maybe the most filling meal I've ever had, I was stuff-oed.

We all planned to go home after that and said goodbye until the fresh air awoke Shiraz so we went to The Water Poet. Nice pub, great back area!! Then we planned to go home and Shiraz got a hankering for McDonald's so we went there (AND they played "Helena Beat" AND I almost had a heart attack.) Then we planned to go home but the fresh air woke Shiraz up again so we went to another pub. AND we saw a mop dog!!

After that I met up with Dave and Krish and I got a doner kebab. What a mistake - I had a stomach ache the whole night. Guess I can't eat that shit anymore.

The next morning we completed our Xmas shopping and met up with Krish for lunch. Before that we saw the giant blue rooster (??) in Trafalgar Square.

Here are this year's Xmas decorations on Carnaby Street -

The weather turned into a horror movie with out of control rain and winds so I had to cancel my dinner plans with Laura and Joy because the trains stop in the UK if there's so much as a breeze (I'm still furious about this.) The trains had actually stopped going to Clacton as early as 1 pm so we ended up at Colchester and did a bit more shopping. I found this gem of a game in a department store -

I went to the Red Lion only four times during the week! This was Xmas Eve:

This was the Xmas ham:

Dave trimmed it nice and thin; when I took over I sliced off giant chunks and basically ruined the ham (which was delivered from Spain.) Sorry.

On Christmas night we did karaoke. "Party in the USA" is really difficult to sing! (Don't tell anyone that I selected it, okay??)

Here are some Morris Dancers on Boxing Day, LOLOLOL:

And this wrinkly doggy in the pub:

We spent a lot of time with Cameron and Olivia. Livvie got two hamsters; here's one eating Cam's Legos:

We also went bowling in Clacton. I got a "Shmoo" with Baileys. I guess I asked for that with a thick New York accent because the bartender certainly thought it was funny.

The Pavilion was super cute! Here's the smallest ice skating rink I've ever seen. It's not even made of ice?!

Also, it has the smallest bumper car grounds -

On Saturday night we did a quiz at the pub. How many rows of stars are there on the US flag? Don't ask the Americans because we for sure had no idea. Also, look who played on the 14th lol.