katspeech

One of the joys of living here has been our amazing neighbours—Ash, Melanie and baby Ruben.  Not only were they the ones who baked Rob his very own stadium cake for his birthday, they also gave him this amazing gift.  This is homemade tomato chutney, made by Ash from his own tomato plants!  Delicious!

Somebody is thirty!  Rob’s other birthday surprise was a pub crawl (okay, we only made it to three) with friends from London.  The big hit was a toy tattoo kit from friends Quincy and Lock.  After finding out how difficult they were to wash off, many of us were thankful that we had not gone for the ‘teardrop under the eye’ tattoos, and stuck to the more coverable body parts.  The night ended, appropriately, with a curry and rounds of Cobra beer on Brick Lane.  East side!

After just three days of work following Christmas, Rob and I hopped on another flight to Barcelona to celebrate the New Year with our friends Paul and Jen from Austin.  We raced from the airport to get to our cute rented apartment in Barcelona’s El Born neighborhood and were changed and out just in time for midnight.  After meeting what must’ve been Barcelona’s toughest barmaid (she ran into the street with some form of wooden club to chase off thugs) we decided to relocate to a bar down the street.  And there I experienced my introduction to the fine art of pickpocketing that is alive and well in Barcelona.  Fortunately, we managed to come home with all of our valuables, but others were not so lucky!  Barcelona is a very pretty city and offers the chance to see some amazing architecture (and eat some great paella).  This cathedral, Sagrada Familia, considered one of Gaudi’s greatest works, has been under construction since 1882 (according to Wikipedia) and it’s not even close to being finished.  Amazing!

Okay, so Christmas was over and Rob and I had a long flight and even longer day at work ahead of us.  At the gate, they pulled us aside and took away our boarding passes…only to be replaced by business class seats!  We were beside ourselves and, I’m afraid, made it all too obvious that we had NEVER been in business class seats.  Conversation:  Flight attendant:  ”Excuse me sir…”  Rob:  ”Oh, we got upgraded!”  Flight attendant:  ”It happens.  Now may I take your coats?”  Before the plane started moving I’d already opened my goodie bag, read the menu through at least three times, debated which glass of wine would go best with my meal, reclined my seat into a bed and back up again, etc.  Now, we just have to make some serious money so we never have to mix with the plebs in economy class again!

Clearly there is some catching up to be done!  This year our Christmas was spent back in the States—hanging out with Rob’s family, my sister and her husband in PA.  We had lots to pack in:  Olive Garden, Sonic, Pizza Perfect, etc.  I must’ve gone to the grocery store every day we were there, just to look around at all the products like ranch dressing and cornbread mix that I miss.  This photo comes from one of the finer moments….the world famous Johnson Family game of Wine, Lose or Draw.  ’Wine’ is not a typo.

Yes, as most of you know, I took the plunge and chopped off the locks for Locks of Love.  It was a great decision.  If you want to do the same, check out their site:  http://www.locksoflove.org/

Rob and I laced up our shoes and donned matching Santa suits for this year’s Santa 6K held in Battersea Park.  The running was made much easier by the fact that we were surrounded by a sea of nearly 2,000 other Santas.  And the best part—seeing the VERY confused faces of the little kids in the park.

Thanksgiving (okay, so I’m a little late posting).  This year I cooked my first turkey and, thanks to the advice of Rob’s Gram and Elaine, it came out perfectly!  We were lucky enough to have our dear friend John in town from NYC to celebrate with us and were also joined by Londoners Penny and Will.

To counter getting too caught up in the daily grind, Rob and I are trying to get out and do things in London each week to take advantage of living in such an amazing city.  This week we went to see an art installation in Trafalgar Square (thanks Ashley!).  The square was full of these huge stumps of trees that had been cut down in the rainforest in Ghana and the project hoped to raise awareness about deforestation.  An amazing sight!