A new life; same as the old life?

now who was thinking about brass monkeys (Charlie!). I was going to say rivers and lakes. Already we have noticed more and more waterways being frozen, and not just small lakes either. Today we passed this huge lake and already the top was frozen, although I am sure not very deeply. There are a few other pictures here . We went up to Woodstock to get the chains for our crosses, and passing over one of our favourite places, where people have houses on the river and they play in their boats all summer long, noticed that too was frozen!

Sometimes I think that the high quality of today's televisual entertainment is spoiled by those annoying little interruptions called programs. Check out one of the best commercials on TV at the moment. Click on the link to the left and then click on " The Ads". It should launch automatically, but if not, it's the one that starts with three owls, singing " All Night Long "

Most of you know this has been coming, but now it's official; but let's start at the beginning. Lorraine has always wanted a Cross Of Lorraine, sometimes also known as the De Gaulle Cross. You will have seen them on jockey's jerseys quite a lot, which I think is where Lorraine first heard about them; working for Olivier Peslier a renowned French jockey in the mid/late nineties. I had sorta thought off and on of getting one as a birthday or Christmas gift, but never quite got around to it, and so I suggested that we have them as engagement gifts, instead of rings. We found a great jeweler (thanks Stevie G) up north near our friends Chris and Danni in Woodstock, and went up to discuss a design with them. Much to-ing and fro-ing eventually saw us settle on a design with a Celtic inlay, set in white and yellow gold with two diamonds for Lorraine, and a slightly larger version with the same inlay, and Celtic finials, in white gold and black for me. We ordered them up and waited

all around us. Last week, I was told not to get too excited about the snow, as it was really only white rain and there would be much worse to come. Well today it is snowing again after two of the coldest days for a very long time, apparently the coldest Thanksgiving for 50 years. Today is known as Black Friday in the US, as the shops are sooo busy. I am told it is the biggest sale day of the retail year. Stores open from as early as 5am, to try to entice people in for the 15 items they have at bargain basement price, then sell them substitute items for twice the price. One of our neighbours went to Walmart at 3am, when the queue was already over 500 yards long, only to be told that she would not be able to get the $400 HP laptop she came for, as they literally only had 15 to sell at that price. Goodness knows what else she was doing, as she was still in there at 9am when we arrived. The prices were OK, and there were some decent bargains to be had if you really needed the items on sale

but the fire is so delightful, and since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. . one of my favourite winter songs, and with Thanksgiving this weekend, we have indeed got no place to go! They have been forecasting all this week, a cold and snowy weekend, starting on Wednesday night; and they were right. We woke up this morning to approximately 2" of snow overnight. It didn't look as much as that on the ground, where it sinks down, but it was definitely about that on the truck. I took a few shots very early this morning, and was intending to take a few more when I got to work, but after a 2.5 hour meeting, it was already starting to go..so I will have to wait for a bit more..maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures..especially for you Brooke!

Very short post, I couldn't resist posting this . Someone sent me it today..it had to be done!

Some of you already know, but for those that don't, we are now a family of three. We got ourselves a dog last week. Someone in the office was unable to keep her any longer, due to some artistic differences between the dog and his 6 year old hooligan son. He apparently couldn't figure out that if he kept pulling her ears, she might bite him! Needless to say, after several aborted attempts, she managed to get him. Her name is Reggie, and she is a 6 year old Boxer/Labrador cross. Does that make her a Boxador or perhaps a Labraxer? (sounds like a laxative!). She is very relaxed and a little overweight, which we have already started to work on with extra long walks and slightly less food, including not feeding her scraps all day between meals, so hopefully we can get her back in shape. The great thing is of course, she requires no training to speak. She is already housebroken, had all her shots and is "fixed" as they call it here. She came with a cage and a consistent diet

Most of you will know that this forthcoming week of November is Thanksgiving week in the US. It is also kind of the official start of the holiday season, with only another 4 weeks to go until Christmas. With a number of Christmas trees and lights already erected, and the major stores in the city already decorated and showing holiday windows, this weekend the Holiday Lights Festival on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, will see the lighting of more than a million white lights on the Michigan Avenue trees. We were planning to attend, but instead have elected to go to visit a friend of ours who is having a housewarming party; the lights festival will still be there next year! We will be celebrating our first Thanksgiving by lazing around in bed, and probably decorating our Christmas tree. I know it is very early by UK standards, but our friends Tim and Darryl will be in town soon after and the Christmas party is the week after that, so we will be running out of time as usual. As far as I

Wednesday and Thursday this week saw both Lorraine and I get very excited, with our first few flakes of snow. Of course it didn't last and they were just dusty little flakes, but it was snow nonetheless! It caught a number of people off guard, but was gone again pretty quickly, leaving behind it some verrry cold winds. The high today was in the mid 30s (approx 0-3c) and the low in the early 20s (approx -6c). The wind was the coldest thing though, with wind chill factors in the low single digits (approx -15c!!!!) Roll on real winter and real snow.

Those of you who know me well enough will know that my favourite chocolate is Galaxy. You may also know that US chocolate is decidely untastey (sorry guys!). So every time anyone comes to visit, or just happens to be travelling the pond, we put our order in. An old friend & colleague, Sam Francis came to visit this week, well she came to work really, but we partied hard in the three days she was here. She brought 2 huge bars of Galaxy, the angel! So we are all set now until our other friends come out in December for a few days..rest assured Galaxy is on the list. We took Sam down into the city to see the view from the Hancock Observatory, to the Cheesecake Factory, Wildfire, and also had her round to dinner on the third night. I believe she had a lot of fun, we certainly did. Thanks Sam, come back soon, and don't forget the Galaxy!

One of my our neighbours is off to a cracking start! She hasn't even officially moved in yet, and already she has made herself known in less than normal circumstances. The pictures you can see below, are basically the damage to my truck and her car, following her inability to see the 7 foot high, 15 foot long scarlet truck! It pays to drive a truck clearly. She is going to need a new boot (trunk) lid, some work on the rear quarter panel, a new light cluster, some work on the trunk itself and the bumper and definitely a crap load of paint. I might need a Stanley knife to tidy up the plastic she scraped. The pieces of light cluster you can see, also belong to her car.

One of the UK traditions we missed out on this year is the 5th November, known as Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes. Celebrating the day when Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators tried to blow up the House of Lords with barrels of gunpowder. Elizabeth I had been particularly harsh on Catholics and when she died in 1603 they hoped her successor James I would be a little better (he did have a Catholic mother), but he wasn't and so the plot of violent protest was born in 1605. However some people got second thoughts, some people betrayed the plot, etc and they got caught. The details are all here , and the encylopedia Britannia details it's version here . Keeping the traditions alive, every year when the reigning monarch attends the State Opening Of Parliament, the Yeoman Of The Guard, walks the cellars looking for barrels of gunpowder. On the anniversary of the plot's demise, Brits across the nation gather together in their yards and local parks around huge bonfires, to set of fire

Living in the US for my first holiday season is going to be a unique experience. Political correctness will play a huge part, and as a manager in a US organisation, I will have to be especially sensitive of some of the individual sensitivities. There has already been some religious oriented people raising concerns with respect to the devilish Jack-o-Lanterns, and right around the corner there will be concerns about Christmas trees, the word Christmas being offensive to non Christians, etc. I know at this point, my UK readers will be hitting the floor in disbelief, but it's true. America, for the most part has gone so far from it's old culture towards respecting diversity, that the average middle aged white American feels very much the underdog. All sorts of festivals, eg Ramadan, Hanukkah, etc are celebrated openly, but don't dare mention Christmas, for fear it may offend, and as for secret Santa! Last year we had secret snowflake and purchased gifts for each other from a r

Lest we forget the some of the bloodiest wars of our time, every year the UK, amongst others celebrates remembrance Day, Veterans Day in the US. You will see poppies worn in lapels, on cars, stuck to windows and even digitally on cell phones this year. The Royal British Legion lead this effort every year to raise funds for victims of the war and their families. At 11am this morning, UK time, factories, offices, radio stations and individuals would have held a 2 minute silence. A time of quiet contemplation dedicated to the memory of those who died to keep Europe a free land. Some people, particularly my American readers, may be interested to know " Why poppies ?" If you feel inclined, please pop over her e and give them a few pounds, dollars, pesos, or whatever you can.

Until now, I have been doing "jobs". Putting up siding, laying sidewalks, and all that jazz. Important components all, but not actually building a house as such. Today I actually built part of a house; laying the flooring on the top story of the house in the picture, then putting up those second floor walls. I am hoping when I go back on Saturday that the rest of the walls will be up and we should be on roof trusses. I put in my fourth day today and I am getting to know the regular staff quite well. Lorraine came along for the first time, and after starting out tentatively, she settled right in. She got a glowing report from one of the Americorps girls she worked quite closely with. She said that she had a learned quickly, had a great eye for detail and they will gladly have her back as often as she can spare.