SNOW!

So last week Andrew looked at the weather and noticed that we were supposed to have heavy snow on Tuesday of this week. Over the weekend, they moved it up to today, but it began snowing last night. It didn't stop. When we went to bed, there were already two inches of snow on our balcony and a thin coating over everything in our back garden.

So this morning I got up at 7:45am to get ready for work. It was still snowing! We measured again. See for yourself.

Wow!! Most of the Tube lines were suspended, and all the buses were suspended, as well. Now it's after 6pm, and it is STILL snowing, believe it or not.

Heaviest snow in 20 years brings large parts of Britain to a halt
Article from the TimesOnline

The heaviest snowfall in 20 years has closed thousands of schools and caused transport chaos up the eastern side of Britain, with London and the surrounding areas the hardest hit.

Six million bus passengers were left in the lurch as all London's bus services were halted because of dangerous driving conditions, and every Tube line except the Victoria line was at least partially suspended.

Many mainline commuter rail services were also cancelled or seriously delayed, and flights at London's airports were decimated, with both of Heathrow's runways shut, Luton and London City closed, and Gatwick and Stansted flights subject to delays and short-notice cancellations.

Millions of commuters stayed at home rather than brave the conditions, as an estimated one in five people either worked from home or took the day off, costing industry hundreds of millions of pounds.

Meanwhile Westminster council in central London issued a statement that many of its schools would remain closed because too many teachers could not get to work, a message echoed by schools in Kent, East and West Sussex, Hampshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Birmingham, and West and North Yorkshire. In Surrey, every school was shut.

Many courts were closed as lawyers, witnesses and jurors were unable to turn up, and London Ambulance Service said it would only respond to “life-threatening calls” as the heavy snow and wintry weather meant it was under “severe pressure” and had received more than 650 calls between midnight and 7am today.

The South East of England and the Pennines bore the brunt of the snowfall which began yesterday afternoon, with some of the hardest-hit areas reporting up to 1ft of snow. By the morning the heavy showers had extended as far north as southern Scotland.

Forecasters are predicting that during the rest of the day and tomorrow the snow will continue to extend northwards and westwards across the UK, with a wave of even heavier falls due to reach Britain on easterly winds this afternoon.

"The South West has escaped the worst of the snow, but we could see another 10cm in Greater London over the next 24 hours, and even more than that in Yorkshire and the Pennines," said a spokeswoman for the Meteo forecasting group.

A spokesman for Transport for London said: "Heavy snowfall across the London area last night has severely disrupted transport services and further snow is forecast throughout Monday. The advice is to check before you travel, expect disruption and if your journey is necessary then allow more time for your journey.

"The biggest difficulty today is the road conditions which are extremely dangerous and drivers should take extreme care."

He added that bus services had been suspended because of fears for passenger safety.

A number of train services linking London and the south coast were also delayed or cancelled as snow drifted on to the tracks. Southern, which operates rail commuter routes from the south coast, including the Brighton line, into Victoria was forced to reduce its service on all routes to just one or two trains an hour.

Southeastern, the UK’s busiest commuter operator, was forced to cancel all services into London with no trains running into Cannon Street, Charing Cross and parts of London Bridge and Victoria stations.

South West Trains, which operates local and long distance routes into London Waterloo, suffered a much reduced service. A spokeswoman said: "We advise passengers not to travel unless their journey is absolutely necessary."

Firms in London started contacting staff this morning telling them not to even attempt to travel into the capital.

In central London cars crawled along the icy streets to avoid accidents, and in areas outside the centre there was an eerie quiet as many drivers avoided the dangerous conditions altogether, warned by roads agencies to cancel all but essential journeys.

The Highways Agency said around 500 gritters had worked through the night to clear major roads in time for the morning rush hour, but even so there had been too many minor accidents on the roads to put a number on.

"We have 600 patrols out on the motorways to help drivers caught in the snow, plus another 500 gritters working through the night. It’s certainly been a busy night," said the spokesman.

Some lanes on the M25 around London were blocked by snow and a section of the southbound A1M near Stevenage, Hertfordshire was closed between junctions 7 and 6 due to a jack-knifed truck. A junction of the London-bound M20 in Kent that was temporarily shut due to the treacherous conditions has now reopened. The London-bound M3 in Hampshire was down to one lane this morning.

Part of the M5 northbound near Tewkesbury was briefly closed after a car went into a spin and crashed into the central reservation, causing a multi-vehicle pile up.

A spokeswoman for navigation firm TomTom said that a total of 1,086 miles of traffic jams had formed around the country. The longest queue was 32 miles on the M25, between junction 19 at Watford and junction 8 at Reigate, at 7.30am, she said.

By 8am there were delays of one hour and 27 minutes between junction 11 on the M27 at Fareham, Hampshire, and the M3 interchange.

Brighton and Hove Bus Company said the heavy snow meant it was unable to operate any bus route in East Sussex, explaining: "We are doing all we can to commence services, but at present the roads are still too treacherous."

Police requested the closure of the A66 between Brough and Stainmore Summit on the Cumbria/Durham border from 1.35am today because of the weather conditions. A Highways Agency spokesperson said it was likely to remain closed throughout the day.

Slow traffic was reported on the M6 around and north of Carlisle. In Greater Manchester, two lanes of the M62 westbound between junctions 22 and 21 at Milnrow were shut overnight but reopened in time for the rush hour.

The AA have warned motorists to ensure they keep warm clothes in the car. Andy Taylor, AA Patrol of the Year, said: "If you break down on a motorway, the safety advice is to get out of the car and wait behind the barrier. Unless you have extra clothes you really are flirting with hypothermia."

Flight passengers were advised to check with their airline before leaving for the airport, after BAA reported that both Heathrow's runways were a shut, causing more than 250 flight cancellations.

A spokesman added that while Gatwick Airport had reopened, there were significant delays and cancellations. Ryanair was handing out leaflets at Stansted warning that more than 70 flights had been cancelled. Southampton airport was shut this morning, but BAA said it hoped to reopen it later.

Gatwick Airport and London City Airport were both temporarily shut last night as their runways were de-iced. BAA said the runway at Gatwick Airport reopened after several hours, while it was cleared in time for the first departures of the day.

Blue Monday (article from the Daily Mail)

"If you are feeling a little down then you can take solace in the thought that things are unlikely to get any worse.

Today, say experts, is the unhappiest day in the entire year.

Unpaid Christmas bills, nasty weather, and failed New Year's resolutions combine to make January 22 the gloomiest in the calendar.

But if anyone can cope with 'blue Monday' it is the British, who researchers have found to be mainly optimists.

More than 85 per cent of us expect the future to be happier than it is now, according to researchers.

Dr Cliff Arnall, a Cardiff University psychologist, devised the formula that shows today is the most depressing.

His equation takes into account six factors: weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our new year's resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action.

Taken together they pinpoint today as 'Blue Monday'.

Dr Arnall said that by understanding the main factors for depression we can prevent becoming unhappy next year.

He said: 'Use the day as a springboard for a higher quality life. For example, keeping Christmas spending to a strict budget next year will make you less depressed in the last week of January.

'Also, decide on changing behaviour, such as giving up smoking, eating better, exercising more and getting that new job.'

It might also be a good idea to take extra care on the roads.

Research by Privilege Insurance reveals that nearly half of the UK's drivers suffer from seasonal symptoms such as depression and lethargy in January, which impact on their driving ability.

All is not doom and gloom, however, as a survey of 85 per cent of people in Britain expect to be happier in the future than they are now, a psychological study for Standard Life Bank found.

Scots were the most optimistic, followed by people in the South West, while people from London and the West Midlands had the least positive outlook on life, researchers discovered.

Taking up a new hobby is the most favoured tactic by Britons to become happier in 2007, amid a general trend for people wanting to make work less of a focus in 2007.

People responding to the survey said they hoped to make themselves happier by clearing their debts, paying off their mortgage and achieving financial security.

Those who listed things they were looking forward to were plans to reduce their working hours or retire to improve their quality of life.

The research - entitled the Freestyle Happiness Index - also found that the nation's optimism is being boosted by a falling interest in material possessions.

For the 15 per cent of pessimists and those who feel very depressed, the Samaritans urged people not to bottle it up but to get in touch.

Press spokesperson Kate Redway said: 'Sadly, one in five people in the UK experience depression and this time of year can be particularly difficult, with people in debt after Christmas and finding it hard to settle back into a work routine during dark days.'"

Copied from the Daily Mail

Ice-skating at Somerset House

Every winter Andrew and I have carried on our dear friends the Beard's tradition of ice-skating at a different venue in London. Our first year we went with the Beards and the Triefenbachs to ice-skate at the Tower of London. Last year we went with the Noris to ice-skate at Hyde Park Corner's Winter Wonderland. This year, no one came with us, but we went and had a great time anyway at Somerset House, which is rumoured to be the most picturesque ice-skating venue in London...

St Albans!

Last week I had a little down time while I was waiting for a proof to come in, so I decided to look into some quick day trips from London. I quickly found St Albans, which is a small village just 20 minutes outside of London, and sent out an email asking whether anyone wanted to join us. There isn't much to do in St Albans, especially on a day when it's below freezing outside (literally). However, there are a lot of dog-friendly pubs around the city, so we took the dogs and two other couples—the Frasers and the McGuigans—and took the train up there around mid-day this past Saturday.

When we arrived, the first thing we wanted to do was grab some lunch and a pint. The first dog-friendly pub I had on my list was Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, which claims to be the oldest pub in England and holds the Guinness World Record for it. We had hot chocolate with Bailey's in it and good food. The pub was a bit disappointing in that it was playing a mix of new hits and club music, which seemed weird for one that claims to be the oldest in England, and it was so cold! There were some areas that had fires, but we were apparently near an open door and were quite chilly as we ate. The food was really good, though. I think everyone was pleased.

When we walked out we discovered, to our dismay, that it was snowing. Yes, snowing. Then we walked through a gate into a field to find the remains of a Roman Wall, and walked right onto a huge frozen pond. Frozen solid!! There were people ice-skating on it!! I still can't get over that. In all my years in Alabama, I don't think I've ever seen a pond frozen completely solid enough that you could walk and ice-skate on it. We walked on the pond for a bit (I let Hadley pull me along by her lead), looked for a dead bird that was frozen into the ice somewhere in the pond about which everyone around was talking, realised that we were freezing and didn't have time to find said dead bird, and made our way across to the Roman Wall. The Roman Wall is just one small section of the two-mile long wall built between AD 265 and 270 to defend the Roman city of Verulamium. Most of the old Roman stone was "robbed out" for subsequnet building projects, principally the Cathedral. The main section of the Roman wall in Verulamium Park is enclosed by a fence.

After that we realised that it was getting dark, so the only other thing we (well, I) really wanted to see was the remains of Sopwell Nunnery. The nunnery ruins are set far enough away from the road to feel secluded and, yet, weren't hard to find. We arrived at the perfect time; the last people wandering around were just leaving, so we were free to roam around freely and take pictures unhindered by strangers. The remains have a rather mystical and eerie quality; there was a light fog that added to atmosphere. The fact that the local authorities keep the land around it naturally overgrown gives the effect of stumbling across some previously undiscovered ruins.

The original nunnery dates back to 1140 and was built by Geoffrey de Gorham, the abbot of St Albans. In the 1500s it became part of Sir Richard Lee’s Tudor mansion, but the nunnery seems to be the only surviving building. There is enough of it left to provide an idea of the size and layout.

The nunnery was by far my favourite part of our trip to St Albans.

By the time we finished at the nunnery, we were near frozen. We really couldn't feel our fingers and toes, and it was starting to grow dark, so we made our way to another pub called The Goat.

I had seen online that they had board games available to play at the bar, so I figured that would be a good place to wind down and finish the day. We ordered our pints and played Scrabble. Sharon beat the poop out of the rest of us, and when we were finished, we made our way back to the train station and headed home to London to thaw out with some hot and spicy Thai food from the Churchill Arms, our favourite Thai pub.

I know, I know. We went on a day trip and only saw two things and two pubs! We didn't arrive there until around 1pm, and it gets dark around 3:30 or 4pm, so we didn't have much time. Plus, you just don't understand how cold it was!! To be honest, I didn't even really pay attention to the weather forecast when I planned this trip; I just wanted to go somewhere that the dogs would enjoy. I should have planned a trip SOUTH of London, rather than North. Oh, well. It was a lovely day anyway.

Happy New Year!!

As stated in the last post, I was sick before we left London, and because of our stressful time before and after we arrived in the US, we never made a booking or concrete plans for New Years Eve. Luckily, our friend Sharon (who was also getting over the flu) was on the ball and made a booking for four at the Duke of Wellington pub in Notting Hill, which is about a block away from their flat. She called us when we landed on the 30th to make sure we wanted to do that, and we were just ecstatic that we had something to do and someone to hang out with!

On New Year's Eve, I took the dogs and walked to the nearby party shop to buy some funky New Year's hats or headbands and party blowers. I arrived to picked-over disarray. They had five New Year's hats left. Five. So I bought four of them -- two black, two gold -- and four gold party blowers. Andrew and I took a bottle of champagne to the Frasers flat, and we then realised that the party hats I bought were much too small for a normal-sized heads. We wore them anyway, though, and had one of our best New Year's celebrations yet. It was relaxing, laid back, not too crowded or over priced. We couldn't have asked for better company, and it was just what we needed to ring in our last New Year in London.

Merry Christmas

This is a picture of the girls at my friend Rachel Kent's Christmas party this year. She made a wonderful meal full of Creole classics, complete even with shrimp and imported grits!

Andrew and I went home for Christmas again this year, although we had a hell of a time getting there. First of all, I came down with the flu the Tuesday before we were supposed to leave. I was still working that week, Monday through Wednesday, and my boss, Graeme, was out of the office sick already, which meant I was by no means allowed to call in sick, especially since I was hurriedly trying to finish a huge project (which you can now see on our website) in the three days I had left before the New Year. Unfortunately, I was really sick, so I left work at lunchtime on Tuesday and worked from the rest of the day and all day (even overtime) on Wednesday to finish up.

We packed on Wednesday night to leave on Thursday morning. I was feeling awful, and we had three big suitcases and two small ones to get across Tube and train to Gatwick airport. We struggled along and finally made it, only to discover upon arrival that our flight was cancelled. We made it there two hours early, but there was already a line 200 deep of people who were supposed to be on our flight and were waiting to be redirected on the next soonest flight. So Andrew got on the internet and called the airline in hopes that we could make arrangements that way faster, while I sat in the still unmoving line. He was able to arrange a flight for us on another flight out of Heathrow for the next day. While this was good news, it meant that we were both going to miss our doctor's appointments in Birmingham on Friday (Andrew for a physical, and I because I was sick), and I was going to miss my hair appointment! :( So Mom rescheduled my hair appointment, and Andrew made me an appointment with our doctor here in London for later that day (Thursday), which was good because he prescribed an antibiotic that started getting rid of my flu quite quickly.

So we had the option of landing in Atlanta and waiting a 2.5-hour layover for the next connecting flight to Birmingham, or just renting a car from Atlanta and driving. We figured driving would get us there about an hour earlier, so we went for that option. BIG MISTAKE. Atlanta has the most messed up policies EVER. We got off the plane, went through passport control, retrieved our luggage from baggage claim, and made it through customs, but then, they made us RETURN our baggage and go through security to LEAVE the airport. We had to take off shoes, remove laptops from bags, put the liquor we bought at the London airport in the luggage and everything! Just to cross the airport to the exit. It made NO SENSE whatsoever. So then we get to the "main" baggage claim in about 15 minutes, but it takes an hour and a half for our luggage to get there. It took us a total of three hours just to leave the Atlanta airport. THEN we had a three-hour drive to Birmingham!!!

When we finally arrived and got settled, we had a really nice time while we were home, although it was far too short. We felt like we barely got to see our friends and family, although I did get to see my cousin Laura's new twin babies...

and my best friends Jackie, who I hadn't seen since my wedding, and Miriam and her family (including her new baby bump!), especially her adorably daughter Reese, who has grown into a proper young woman of two years old since we've been living over here!

We miss you all terribly and can't believe that that was the last time we'll have to juggle time trying to see all our family and friends over a short nine days...

Love to you all in the happy new year!!

Happy birthday and happy Thanksgiving!

Andrew's official birthday fell on a Saturday this year, and since we'd already had the big party for him a couple of weeks before, we just got together with a few of the guys for dinner before heading back to our place for strawberry cake and to watch the Alabama game. Brian, David and Jeremy joined us for dinner at what Andrew and I lovingly refer to as our "Christmas Pub". Located up by Gloucester Road, this pub has a roaring fire, fantastically festive (aka tacky) Christmas decorations with fake snow in the windows and everything, and Christmas carols humming gently in the background. Being 15 November, we were a bit early for the Christmas festivities, but it was still nice and cosy inside, and the meal was outstanding. After dinner we made a pit stop in a nearby casino where the guys all gambled a bit, and I sat by and watched. Andrew and I dragged Jeremy (the only other fellow Bama fan in the group) and left David and Brian at the casino so that we could watch the game. Kickoff was at 12:45am our time, so we had plenty of time to get back to the flat and have some strawberry cake before the game. I had baked Andrew a Simply Delicious Strawberry Cake from a Paula Deen recipe and decorated it with an Alabama "A" made from slices of fresh strawberries. It was yummy.


The following week we attended yet another birthday party. This time it was for our friend Jeremy Kenyon, and he and his girlfriend Michelle had it at a posh little bar in Knightsbridge.

Andrew and I decided to go and have Mexican food first at a little place up near Victoria, and when we sat down to table we started chatting with a girl sitting alone at the table next to ours. Within about 10 minutes we had moved our tables together and invited her to come along with us to the birthday party after eating and to Thanksgiving dinner the following night. Her name was Megan; she was from Michigan and was living and studying in Aberdeen, Scotland. She had flown down to London by herself to go sightseeing for the weekend, and though she declined on coming to Thanksgiving at the Trief's because she was going on a huge, long bus tour of London starting at the crack of dawn the next morning, she did come along with us to Jeremy's birthday party and joined us for a drink!



The next day was Thanksgiving at the Triefs. Andrew had volunteered for us to make cornbread dressing and pecan pie, so we cooked using Andrew's mom's recipes. Andrew, as usual, made the pie, and I took my first attempt at making cornbread dressing, which turned out quite successful indeed. We arrived at the Trief's to bad news. We found out that night that, because of her new job, Katy and Jeremy have decided to move to Windsor before Christmas, which means that we probably won't get to see them as much. Despite that, they're really excited about the move, and so we put on a brave face and tried to get excited for them. Thanksgiving was, as usual, a success, and the food that everyone brought was amazing. Thanks for hosting it again, Trief's; the turkey and gravy was outstanding, too! We even played the "Matt and Miriam Game", as one of our favourite Thanksgiving traditions.

For the first time since we've been married, on "real" Thanksgiving night, the following Thursday, I actually made Thanksgiving food instead of Mexican. In the past years that we've been here, the Triefs have had Thanksgiving the Saturday AFTER the real Thanksgiving, so I didn't want to spoil our Thanksgiving dinner by having the same type of food two days before. This year, the Triefs opted for it the Saturday BEFORE Thanksgiving, so Thursday night I roasted some "turkey breast steaks" and made macaroni and cheese and pecan pie, and we had stuffing that was leftover from a fresh batch I made Sunday night. We've decided that when we move back to the US next year, we're going to have our own London-style Mexican Thanksgiving fiesta each year in November either the Saturday before or after Thanksgiving. We'll call it "Brocksgiving"!

The next night Andrew and I got into the festive spirit. We had a quick dinner at our local pub and then came back to the flat and downloaded all our Christmas music to our iTunes and watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (the old school cartoon, not the new movie) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

We woke up Saturday morning and cleaned house, preparing for a crowd of Alabama fans to come and join us to watch Alabama beat down Auburn in the Iron Bowl. We had some special guests this time, as my former boss from Axcan in Birmingham was in town for a conference, and she and her friend Denise joined our usual crowd to watch the game.
We were delighted with the results of the game and look forward to next week's battle against Florida.

Wish us luck!

So many parties, so little time…

Apparently October is a popular month for birthdays, and so many of our friends wanted to celebrate as they turned The Big Three-Oh. Andrew, Chris, Kevin and Sharon all turned 30 this October/November, and all had huge, fun parties!

Sharon’s came first… Andrew and I got her a “Giant Hopper” for her birthday so that she could relive her youth. Here are the pictures…

Kevin and Chris decided to have a joint party with another one of their friends, and they had it at a club in Clapham. It was a blast! Enjoy the pictures…

Lastly, Andrew and I finally got to have our wild and wacky Halloween party, and we turned it into a birthday celebration for Andrew as he, too, crossed the big milestone age of 30. We made ours a costume party on Halloween night. Andrew and I took Friday off so that we could clean house and finish decorating before everyone arrived. We hung fake cobwebs everywhere, and turned our backyard into a “Bloody Backyard” with 100 red balloons and red streamers everywhere. Unfortunately, it was way too cold for anyone to really enjoy the backyard! We carved three pumpkins (Andrew’s was by far the best) and even had three or four Trick-or-Treaters. Andrew and dressed up as Colonel Sanders and a chicken. Here are the pictures!

Happy Halloween, everyone! We miss you and can’t wait to celebrate next Halloween with everyone back home!