coffee and travel pics; tea in janet's garden

greg and i drove out to queens to see korrina this morning for a photo fest of her trip to london.

i love the canopy of trees . . 

coffee . .

and bagels (my fave, made by josh) and strawberries . . (and mohair and buttons.)

a full tour of the london trip which was very fun to hear . . 

the new lizzie line was much discussed as it was a highlight, as were the buses which all ran so timely and well. the museums were amazing ("you can just walk right in" . . ) and the food was delicious (morgan took her to all the favorite places). camden market was a favorite too, as was the globe (much ado about nothing), the yarn stores, the mithraeum, docklands . . dinner with morgan's friends, morgan's little studio . . everything was a favorite, really. even the weather obliged with blue skies and no humidity.

 

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here's a picture from the globe theatre along with several canal photos . .

(camden market)

korrina has a video of the canal boat owner pulling his boat through the locke after it fills ever so slowly with water.

the narrow boats are so picturesque . . 

as are the canals . . 

 

parliament buildings?

st. paul's?

st. paul's . . 

 

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and back to saturday afternoon at korrina's:

 

her loop yarn store purchase: daughter of a shepherd ram jam! i was very excited to see this as i have rachel atkinson's pattern book one, beginnings. i figure one of these days when i finally complete several of these current knitting projects, i'll pick up a few skeins of chocolate ram jam and knit the lovely skipwith cardigan . . or maybe first the lovely hollicarrs scarf . . !

the pretty blue and grey balls next to the ram jam are from onion yarns (denmark) and are 70% superwash wool and 30% nettle fiber (sock yarn).

 

stones, shells and seaglass from the thames.

heading home over the kosciusko bridge . .
 

calvary cemetery with manhattan in the background . . 

greg's father's day gift from morgan and korrina . . skateboarding bulldog socks . . !

 

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at five pm i walked to janet's for a visit with carol:

the three musketeers . . we used to plan our homeschooling group's craft fair every december. carol would get us talking about sewing owls, printing tags, decorating candles with beeswax from the small cookie cutters . . one year janet was ambitious enough to set up a beeswax candle dipping station! such amazing crafts . . (they are all listed under the "craft fair" tag). today we caught up with our own doings, and our children's . . lately i get this strange feeling whenever i look back at the past days of our children's growing up into adulthood years. it's a slight out of body type of feeling . . along with a particular color or aura surrounding specific decades (brown for my own high school years . . blue for my children's younger years . . ) and then each section has it's own music . . there's classic rock . . reggae . . raffi . . sheryl crow . . debussy . . bach . . saint saens . . duke ellington . . etc.

the tea was hibiscus and tulsi basil.

friday things . .

friday morning reality . . an empty room . . seemingly looted . . definitely a bit messy.

i've been feeling a bit sad and lonely. i'm not sure who i miss more, chanda or pluto? i think right now it's pluto. i'm so used to feeding him and talking to him, and making sure i don't run him over with the door when coming into the apartment. 

 

i did get to see chanda today, however, as she needed a few things for the apartment and so was only too happy to go shopping with me. i walked to bed, bath and beyond and browsed through the housewares until she arrived. she needed curtains and curtain rods . . a tea kettle and a pot and frying pan . .  a shower curtain, bath mat and . . spoons! and a few things from the container store . . (hangers, laundry basket).

in the evening i had an event to attend. in fact . . i almost missed it as i hadn't marked it on my wall calendar, but it was in the back of my mind, "june 3rd, beer tasting at west village knit and needle." kiana's husband curates beers for restaurants and corporate events. this evening he put together a little party for kiana's friends and customers.

we began with a german lager which ended up being my second favorite after the grapefruit radler from jack's abbey. i'm really a bit shocked at myself for liking a fruit beer . . but i do really like grapefruit, so i suppose that's why. his theme was "summer brews" and in that regard, the grapefruit hit the spot.

 

as you can imagine, as the evening progressed everyone became more talkative and friendly . . but even besides that, it was a nice bunch of folks and we all had a good time.

the highlight of my evening was making friends with little louie the bulldog.

the furry little reesie was such a dear too (peeking out between the chairs). (and do you see tricia's knitting?! isn't that to swoon over?!)

oh . . and her embroidery work . . 

tricia's dog kai, who was very well behaved (and has his own instagram account, kai the toy pomsky). (he's so cute.)

this was a cheesecake beer which was like drinking a smoothie. the final beer we tasted was so sour that i couldn't even drink it, and i usually like dry and sour flavors.

kiana's special ninety-six year old neighbor/customer embroidered this lovely pillow . . she sees her every sunday and brings her a new kit to work on. 96 years . . and she has so much energy and motivation. 

i love this little fellow. he's only a year old . .

 

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i came home to a plate of mints on the dish i had used for andy's cake . . that ron had returned via greg.

london update and nyc take out meal

morgana sent me this photo of a korrina all tuckered out from last minute sightseeing before heading home. they revisited the national gallery, went to the london mithraeum and ended with evensong at st. paul's. here are some of the photos from that last day of being a tourist:

 

one last visit to the national gallery . . 

 

i'm not sure about this! (morgan texted it.)
 

manet . . (woman with a cat)

vincent van gogh . . 

this must be dinner . . 

from a favorite noodle bar . . 

making the noodles . . 

and ice cream from a favorite gelato spot . . 

 

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this morning's good-bye photo . . i woke to a text from korrina that had been sent at 3:07 am saying that she was on the plane and heading home. 

holding goodies from the plane while heading down the escalator at JFk . . (she landed at 10:30 am)

back on the subway again . .

subway selfie . . 

home again . . wash looks a little surprised!

 

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meanwhile . .  greg and i had sushi for dinner . .

moving day

we were all up early getting ready to move chanda to brooklyn. i had made muffins last night, and this morning i made sandwiches for greg, chanda and her friend who helped with moving boxes, furniture and bags into the new space. i'll be holding the fort down here with pluto until he goes with her in the second or third trip.

pluto was very interested and sniffed every bag and box until i gave him his second breakfast.

a new month . . they seem to go by so fast.

greg went to get the car and then i sat with it while everything was carried downstairs and loaded in. i really have not gotten far on this project (napkins for chanda from the cascade pima cotton). i think i'm going to change to a size three needle from the size four.

when i came back upstairs pluto was being his usual doorstop self so that i could hardly get in . . and had to squeeze through a very narrow opening.

 

as you can see, family and friends are forewarned when entering.

at least the weather is much cooler today. in fact i needed to wear a sweater.

together in the news space . . 

the rain poured down in buckets on the way home and the thunder is rolling through as i write this.