Green Thumb Potential

It has become a strange, self-imposed tradition that I buy amaryllis plants every Christmas in England — something festive, alive and full of color to watch for when everything is drab and cold outside. I usually get them from M&S (formerly Marks & Spencer), or Sainsburys when we do our Christmas food shopping (grocery). When they are “On Offer” (Britspeak for sale or discount) you can get 3 for £10 instead of £5 each. We usually give 1, sometimes 2, to Hubby’s parents. Last December, being Covid December, we couldn’t and didn’t manage to buy any. The one we had from the previous winter (a “double dragon” variety if I remember right) was dried and dead — like a burnt onion bulb. Hubby didn’t even store it correctly for a re-plant. But with all that happened in 2020, I really couldn’t be too disappointed. Still, I could be experimental — because what do I have to lose? So I took what looked like the deadest amaryllis and gave it a serious “hair cut” — meaning, I trimmed off everything I could, and peeled off the dry parts of the bulb. In the end, I was down to what looked like a possibility, but not much. I put the plant by the window and for the next week or so…. nothing happened, despite daily watering. The water seemed only to collect, the compost wouldn’t even drink. To force-dry the damn thing, I decided to bring the plant into the bathroom, and put it by the radiator. The bottom of the radiator is at the right height to dry the compost quickly, and in the next couple of days I saw promise — a thin line of green at the top of the cut bulb. Finally some sign of life. Needless to say the Bathroom was the perfect hothouse/greenhouse for the amaryllis. I never even had to water it because it was humid enough with our daily baths and nonstop hand washing. Today, I am happy to say the first two bright red buds are out of the shell. And I’ve put it by the window when the sun is shining. Whaddyaknow….I have somehow managed to have my amaryllis this winter, with almost nothing to start with, a little luck and no pressure to succeed. :)

Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.

– George Washington Carver, botanist.

Your Royal Sweetness

I love British cakes.  I specially love the creamy ones which, though laden with stuff, are never overwhelmingly sweet.  At least not to the level of their sugar-packed American descendants.  The Christmas cakes are such interesting visual treats as well, to add to my delight.  A sampling from the local Sainbury’s for instance:

A “madeira cake” —

How cute is that? A sleeping polar bear, and note the little Christmas pudding beside it!

    A fruit cake:

Reindeer and sleigh....

A…. chocolate cake (I think)….

Rudolph, someone squished your red nose onto the packaging!

and an “iced cake” (fondant) with a small poinsettia decor —

Prettily decked with a little poinsettia....

Speaking of poinsettias (and other Christmas icons), we have no tree or Christmas decor in the house, on this my first Christmas in England.   According to the Hubster, his Christmas tree is probably the one we saw at his parents last weekend.  Since he had spent his last 5 Christmasses with me in the US or Canada, he left the tree to them instead.  So, 2 nights ago, when we stopped by the Co-Op, and I picked the reddest poinsettia on the last minute to brighten up our living room.   Well, hopefully it’s doing the trick best as it can:

Yes, that's an antique safe that we use as a side table in the living room.

I cannot believe that Christmas is but 6 days away– the calendar pages are just flying.  I have yet to catch the Holiday spirit.  We did our Christmas shopping for (his) family three days ago, …. in addition to the gifts I brought over from the States, at a huge mall called the Trafford Centre.  The hubby reminds me that I haven’t chosen yet what I want for a Christmas gift.  But truth is, I don’t know that I want anything.  At this point, I am just overwhelmed with the stuff I have yet to move across an ocean.  And, I honestly am alright without a fancy gift for Christmas.  It’s really not the material things, and I mean it.  Besides, I’m also thinking to myself… “man, don’t you get it that for a change I want to be surprised?”  I just don’t want to be bothered wracking my brains for something that he has to buy. 

Anyhoo, the hubby is (fingers crossed) done with his site consults next week, and we can spend more time together going around, enjoying Christmas without being hampered by work.  Maybe we can watch a good movie, or drive around, or watch a play or concert.  On my agenda of “to-do’s” in this life is a live experience of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College …. but realistically that will probably come a couple of years from now still.   I keep reminding myself I should stop feeling like England is a place I just visit.  It is in fact supposed to be “home” for the next couple of years, until we move to the US “in due course” (his words).  So I really want my first English Christmas to be Christmassy, and really memorable.  I want to be able to recall it in a flash and vividly.  Hopefully, we’re getting there, on our way to the holiday spirit, …. and counting. :)

The Hot Water Bottle As Heating System

I first came across it in the Next store in Manchester more than a month ago.  It looked interesting enough — a colorfully knitted, flat-ish, matryoshka-design doll, lying among the “specials” arranged by the entrance to the women’s section.  But when I lifted it, it was heavier than I expected and had a wobbly feel to it.  What on earth is this?  I looked at the tag, and, surprise, surprise …. found out that this knitted “matryoshkha doll” was but a casing that housed a hot water bottle underneath.  Curious, I asked the sales attendant what exactly it was for.  “It’s something you can bring with you to bed to keep your bed warm.”  Oh.  Ok.  How ingenius I thought. 

I would soon find that this in fact is a popular Christmas item in most stores — at least among women and ladies.  (Note:  Hubby didn’t know that these hot water bottles came in “designs”, although he DID confirm that warming beds with hot water bottles was fairly common).  That’s one thing I’ve had to adjust to, coming over to the UK.  I used to gripe a lot about how cold it was/is/can be here in the UK, in response to which the Hubby would often remind me that “It’s not even close to the kind of cold you have in Chicago.”  Which is very true, … and for a while there I couldn’t figure why it just felt colder here in the UK.  THEN IT DAWNED ON ME.  The reason was largely due to the fact that in Chicago, once I get INDOORS of anything — a store, a building, even the bus — there would be heat.  The condo where I live in Chicago has centralized heating (with each condo unit having its own regulator to switch on and off) as part of your monthly association dues.  Over here (UK), you have to knock the heat on and it takes a while for the radiator to get busy.  And you can’t just keep the heat on forever because it is expensive.  So we usually keep it on by the hour and dab to extend the timer if the house isn’t warm enough.  Of course, we DO have a small fireplace which mostly heats just the living room, leaving all other rooms cold.  So the best, most efficient, low-cost and maintenance way to warm your bed?  A water bottle, of course.  :)  Who woulda thunk?   

These loveable little heating systems are found in ALL the major stores.  They come in the guise of dolls, reindeers, cows, — and just as they are, hot water bottles but in their winter coats:

From Next:

From John Lewis:

For a while while searching I had thought TopShop was spared this wonder of a merchandise…. until I looked  underneath at the lower rungs — aha, there you are hiding….

And in that girl-paradise of a store, Accessorize (the stand-alone accessories store of the Monsoon chain):

And even the Charlie-and-Lola series have their own.  I found these in an indie store on Cockburn street in Edinburgh:

There is a  small side story to all this, closer to home:  A few days ago, at the end of an 8-hour overnight flight from Chicago to Manchester, I came home to an house underheated due to the hubby being away on an off-site project.  Extremely tired, I barely made it through the usual post-flight cleaning up routine, and finally dragged myself to bed, ready to plop and bracing myself for the cold bed.  Guess what little surprise I found tucked underneath my blanket, all filled up with hot water? —

AH, THE BRITISH.  UNDERSTATED, BUT NEVER UNDER-ROMANTIC.

~Holiday Note~

This is still Miss Chicago, in a different “dress”.  I’ve decided to change my blog’s appearance just for the Christmas holidays — Christmas colors.  Christmas theme.  Even the falling snow.  I promise to revert everything to “normal” after the holidays.  :)  This year is going to be my first Christmas in the UK — far from old home, family and friends but nearer to new ones.   I arrived in Manchester from the Windy City 3 days ago, just before the snow and cold got EVEN worse.  I miss it already.  Good thing is that the harsh cold while I was there has made whatever they have here pretty easy to manage.  Weather-wise that is.

I am documenting everything about this year’s English Christmas (or should I say “British Christmas” to be politically correct?).  At least the highlights, so watch for it.  ;)  For some strange reason, while it is really never even close to as cold here in the UK as it is in Chicago (where I left under -20F weather, yes there is a minus in front of the number and yes, that is Fahrenheit), it somehow always feels colder here.  Warmth I guess operates on all levels, not just externally; and I am optimistic that things are thawing somewhat somehow over here.

Happy Christmas — which is how they say it here, more than “Merry Christmas”.  and I am wishing this Christmas will be toasty and memorable.

Thanksgiving Post-Op

This is largely a stub post, so I don’t forget what happened this year on Thanksgiving with me on this side of the Atlantic, and the hubby on the other.  I returned to Chicago from CowTown the day before Thanksgiving.  Did the usual 9 hours straight, with multi-purpose stops…. gas, use the restroom, and grab a quick drink or cookie.  At the end of the drive, where all I ate was a  cheap hotdog and lots of blueberries (let those antioxidants at work while I drive), I was, well, tired and hungry,– surprise surprise.   The nice coincidence is that my best buddies who are based in Kansas City were in Chicagoland area — for a totally different reason other than to visit me.  They took the time out to drag me out of my apartment for food.  We went to the new Sun Wah.  “New” because it  moved from its former home of 20 odd years on Argyle  a few steps east, on Broadway.  Sun Wah is one of the  hubby’s favorite Chinese restaurants in Chicago.  Well, actually, one of many.  He loves Chinese food (I wonder why?  :)), and agrees that the Chinese food in Britain does not compare to the ones in the US.  Notwithstanding the sizeable mainlander Chinese and Hongky population in the UK.  We ordered a white fish in black bean sauce, a large portion of honey pork belly and char-shiew (see below….)

bittermelon in beef,  ma po tofu, and soup (their “small” fed all 3 of us a bowl each plus spare); we also had 3 portions of rice, 3 rootbeers and a coke.   Burp.  I was a piglet, and we had a ton of leftovers to box up to bring home.  The bill came to a grand figure 51 dollars which included a 10.25% tax.  That means, pre-tax the bill was around 46 dollars or roughly under 28 British pounds.  Best of all, it all tasted delicious.  I don’t know that you could get a deal like that in the UK.  I went home stuffed, exhausted from the long-drive, and too happy to be back in my own bed.  I had the perfect sleep.  

Next day, … Thanksgiving, great….  What do we do? I had totally made no plans, having hit the ground running and kept going since I flew into the States 2 weeks earlier.  Carla and Rose (my Spanish teacher) were supposed to come over to my place for dinner.  But Carla has a new apartment, and this time, we agreed to use her kitchen.  As expected, Rose was late (to be fair, she had to work, even on Thanksgiving, …. ay pobrecita!), and Carla could only make the salad (following everything in the recipe book to the letter).  We had no turkey, … so I whipped up what best I could manage.  Anyway, in the end it’s all about having good wine and wonderful conversation and bonding time.   Never mind that I was half-groggy most of the time. :)  

Around 8:30 I had to go home over Carla’s insistence that I just sleep over.  I still wanted my own, familiar bed.  We were planning on our Black Friday activities just as I headed off.  I promised Carla I would look into the coupons I could use the next day and would call so that we can plan which stores hit the next day.  That call didn’t happen.  I intended to wink, but woke up the next morning.  But no one took it against me.  Carla let me sleep in heavenly peace without calling to follow up. 

I still woke up at 7:30 the next day, and yes, we did the post-Thanksgiving American tradition of shopping like it was an Olympic sport, although we played like a Third-World team.  Never mind, we saved more money that way. :p

Yeah, Thanksgiving was alright.  Wish you were here, hub. ;)

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts.  No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.  ~H.U. Westermayer  

Dressing The Part

Down to my last 2 weeks before I head back for the States, I’ve been tagging along with the hubby up to Scotland — where he works on his projects (with power generation plants) and I ….. I also do work, and try to make the most of the time difference with the US by doing touristy stuff while America sleeps, and then rush back in time to catch them during their work hours.  :) 

These weeks in Edinburgh are particularly well-timed because of the ongoing Edinburgh Art Festival.  We’ve booked a hotel in Falkirk, which is a convenient midpoint for the hubby to drive off to work and for me to catch the train to Edinburgh (or even Glasgow).    The train to the city is a bit pricey at 7.80 GBP roundtrip off peak (they call a roundtrip a “return” here) which roughly translates to about $13-14.  That’s about half an hour train ride each way.  Not cheap, compared to commuter fares in Chicago.  Imagine if you had to commute to work everyday.  And the peaktime tickets are even more expensive.

But anyhoo, the Royal Mile in the city was packed with street performers last week. 

The Royal Mile -- where it all happens.

 Almost every other person you bumped in is in a costume (“fancy dress”) of some form, either because he/she is part of a performing act, selling you stuff, or just being their funky fashion self.   So so so much fun.  Here are a few views:

Signs of the Times

I don't understand this either. They were signing and making robotic moves while moving forwards.

Lost Angel?

Wooden puppets Hansel and Gretel

ooooh yeah. :)

Tails

.... and more tails (that's Beauty and Arielle--- uhm, I think)

a little bit of, literally, street art

Cyndi.... is that you?

she's enjoying the attention.... :)

Hansel and Gretel on the little makeshift stage

air bikes

Readying for her mime

You are knighted.

Dressing “normal” feels so abnormal this time in this City.

On The Same Holiday Wavelength

Last Christmas, I had the wonderful experience of being part of a small ornaments exchange club with 3 of my best high school friends, one of whom I had the serendipitous luck of finding through Facebook!  All four of us are now in different parts of the world and the Christmas ornaments exchange allowed us to muster whatever little artistic talents we may have (or claim not to have) and enjoy the joys of silly, loving, girl-power friendships.   This year’s theme being “stars”, I titled my series “stars dripping from a tea cup” and used unique tea cup designs from a paper/poster bought from the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh (Scotland).  I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of my favorite etsy sellers (Munieca from Argentina) has been selling triplets of ornaments of a similar concept.  We must’ve been on the same holiday wavelength! yay!

Here’s mine:

And Munieca’s (you can visit her etsy site here):

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly.” (Deck the Halls)

“Door bells and sleighbells and tinsel with noodles.”  (My Favorite Things)

“Frosted window panes, candles gleaming inside, painted candy canes on the tree…” (Sleigh Ride)

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Winter has come early and hard on Chicago this year.  Since December, there has not seem to be a day when it is not too cold, too windy, too icy, too snowy…. It’s just tough.  Right this very moment, I am freezing in my apartment.  And the prevailing temps?  20F feels like 6.  CP puts it best this way:  20F, feels like shite.  :)

The view from my window, 12/21/2008.

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen,

Snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.  – Christina Rosetti