trip envy

despite all the trips to Europe, I still seriously envy others. A friend from Canada in the fall decided to take on England, Scotland, Isle of Man, Ireland, Greece, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. Her stories made me wonder why I didn't decide to travel for a few months first. Despite the rain, she had a wonderful time and now is in Las Vegas before a trip to the West Coast and then who knows.... sigh...

I also have envy for Tina who just took almost three months off work to travel Australia. From a significant surfing course, to the Barrier reef to admiring Sydney she has come back looking healthy tanned and unbelievable stories... again...sigh....

Images from their facebook from their trips.... thanks girls! (Rome, Dubrovnik, Outback, Point Break)

a punch of yellow

Not that we're ever deprived of fresh flowers in a city that doesn't snow, but affordable fresh flowers are now back in London. I can pick up an entire bouquet of daffodils for £1 at M&S.

It's a lovely way to add brightness and colour to a house when the rain and the early darkness does not seem to end.

exit strategies

once and a while l2 and i dream up the ways we're going to leave this country. We're still never sure when (and I doubt we ever will be certain until the week before!) but we have planned how we're going to leave if we can afford it! We call it the exit strategy. We both want to take three months off before coming home just to travel. Two ideas we're banging around are:

Out of Africa - Start at Egyptian pyramids, head down the Nile and go south from there - Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar and maybe Mauritius

or

No planes, no gain. - Ferry hop from the UK to St. Petersburg and take the Trans-Siberian from St. Petersburg to Shanghai. Then it breaks and we either explore the rest of China by train/bus or take a boat over to Japan and take the bullet trains.

Which one would you prefer?

Images via and via

the weekend instead

well I'll admit I was a bit disappointed not to surf this weekend, but my weekend did not disappoint. Determined to make the most of it, I met for drinks and snacks with fellow cdn Lily in London Bridge at local hotspot Roxy. Greek tapas were an interesting choice and probably best if not repeated.

Saturday I did all the annoying errands, picked up a few trinkets, and L2 and I walked all through the West End just because we had the time. I wanted to head back to the Saatchi Gallery but was getting exhausted so we skipped it and watched In Bruges at home instead. L2, his sister Kaili, her husband LB made it down to the gallery in November but I want to see some of the new additions to this amazing venue. If you ever drop into London, please go. It's moved from Waterloo to Sloane square and it has just the right amount of art to space ratio. Let alone the art is amazing!

Sunday started as relaxing and moved to frantic. It was the start of Chinese New Year so we made it up north for some dim sum with a friend and then booked it to Waterloo to catch a train to Farnham (where L2 works) for dinner with colleagues. Farnham is very quaint (castles, brick and apparently loads of horses) but I was not keen on the hour train ride home at 10.30 on a Sunday night.