Another long time coming....

Yep. I think it's high time I reinstated this blog so people can catch up with what I'm doing. Or, if it's just for me, at least then I will be able to remember what I've been up to. I've just had a read through the last few entries and looked at the photos I posted - what a trip down memory lane!

So, perhaps that can be my end of year resolution? It's a bit late for the old New Year's resolutions really. There. I've typed it now. Let's see how long I can keep this up for!

Well, let's see. Last blog entry here was in February, when there was a whole lot of snow here in London. I wasn't working at the time, so I was free to enjoy it as much as possible!

At the end of March, I began working at a small museum. I'm still working here, so I don't really feel the need to put this information on the web for all to see (ask me if you're curious!!). Still a front of house role, but this one is more of a security role than my previous jobs. It's ok. Better money than previous jobs, but still not what I want to do. I'll get there eventually!!

Beginning of April, Scott and I moved house. We had had enough of our small, damp flat on the Isle of Dogs. And we had endured picking up other people's rubbish from our garden for three years. We felt it was time to move on. On our first day of house hunting we found a lovely flat. It ticked all of the boxes, and as a wonderful bonus, it was in the same street as my lovely friend Sarah and her family. So we took it, and moved in a few weeks later, over the Easter long weekend. And, because we now had a separate bedroom (our previous flat was a studio), this enabled my mum to stay when she arrived at the beginning of May.

On 1 May, at sparrow, Mum arrived at Heathrow. I was lucky that I could meet her at Paddington. Getting from South East London to very, very west London to Heathrow is a pain at the best of times, but downright impossible for 6am! It was so great to see her. Mum was on the beginning of a round the world trip to visit relatives various in London, Budapest and Sao Paulo. A busy six weeks for her! Mum spent just shy of three weeks at our place. She did loads of sightseeing while I had to go to work. She was also invaluable in helping Scott and I settle in to our new flat! When mum arrived, it was all still new and a lot of things still weren't unpacked. But we made great progress!

Our flat is lovely. Light, with big windows. A separate bedroom, big lounge, a shower (not a silly handheld thing over the bath!!), kitchen and dining area. All to ourselves. And all the bills are included. Except the phone and internet. Wonderful. Spoke to our landlord yesterday and they have renewed our contract for another year, which pleases us. We love the flat and its location. We finally have room to entertain, or to run away from the other person when we need space! I'll try and find some photos that mum took when she was here to show y'all! :-) And having good friends just up the road is great. We can pop up there for dinner, they can pop over for tea. We have keys to each other's places. Fab.

Between March and September this year was dissertation time. The culmination of my Master of Arts (Museum Studies) degree. I chose to look at Ripley's Believe it or Not! and decide whether they were in fact museums, and how they fitted in with the history of museums. It was a fun topic, and I'm sure it helped a great deal that my former boss went to work for Ripley's London. It was a lot of hard work, furstration, enjoyment and pain! But it was worth it. I handed it in on 7 September and breathed a great big sigh of relief. I read a huge amount for the essay, which was only 15,000 words. Interesting reading about freaks, sideshows, early American museums and so on. I enjoyed it, but I'm very glad it's all over!! In fact, I received my copy of the dissertation in the post the other day. It is hard bound, so it looks like a proper book. I'm quite chuffed. I also don't want to read it, as I don't want to find any typos! My boss wants to read it, so I'll try and remember to lend it to him.

My dad arrived in London in August. It was lovely being able to spend time with my parents individually. My relationship with each of them is different, so being able to hang out with each of them was great. Dad was here for just over three weeks. He too arrived at sparrow! But, like mum, I met him at Paddington Station. We probably didn't spend as much time seeing London as Mum did, but we did hang out a lot together.

Now that my dissertation is finally finished, I can concentrate on other things! One of these is a new crafty adventure. The Bothered Owl is something that my friend Sarah and I started in the hopes that we could perhaps make a little cash to fund our creative streaks. I am making earrings, pendants and cuff links from Lego. Sarah is making hand sewn items such as toys, lavender sachets, baby blankets, pot holders, Xmas decorations as so on. So far we are having a lot of fun being creative! We have a blog for our venture: http://thebotheredowl.wordpress.com

And we are on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/The-Bothered-Owl/129728852357?ref=ts Become a FAN!!!!!
And Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TheBotheredOwl

And, most importantly, we are selling our stuff here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7787848 (A US-based site)
and here: http://www.folksy.com/shops/thebotheredowl (A UK-based site)

We are of course happy to ship anywhere!! :-)

And there you have it. Most of the year updated. Now all I need to do is to email people to let them know that this blog does still exist and then people can read it again. Oh, and add some shiny photos. :-)

Alex :-) xxx

Whee! Snow in London!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is the worst snow in 18 years... Or the best, depending on your point of view ;-)

Photo post - Liverpool

I went to Liverpool at the beginning of October with my friend Nicole for the Museums Association Conference. We both had free places this year after filling in a quiz at last years conference in Glasgow and winning! Conference as mostly interesting, and Liverpool is a great city. I'd like to go back and take Scott with me.

Here are some photos from our trip, with some extras thrown in for good measure. The extras are Orlaith wearing my shoes, and an art installation of a sinking yacht near Canary Wharf, taken from the DLR train. The photos of the church in Liverpool were taken on two separate days. The church was bombed during WWII and has been left as is in memorium to those who died there and in Liverpool during enemy bombing raids. You even have to sign a waiver on your way in - just in case I guess. It had an art installation in it from Yoko Ono which was a whole bunch of ladders, to which you could add if you wanted to!!

The photo of the painting and then the x-ray of the painting were taken at the Conservation centre. Great place. Appealed to the museum nerd in me, most definitely. The X-ray shows that the painter changed his mind about the style of the dress the woman is wearing and painted over it.

Enjoy!

BERLIN!

I don't think anyone actually reads this blog anymore, but just wanted to share some photos of our trip to Berlin from the end of August. We went with Nicole for the Long night of the Museums where all the museums stayed open til 2am. We had a great 6 days away and were totally knackered at the end of it all.

Random photos I love :-)

From a whole bunch of places!!

Barcelona

Ola! Scott and I headed to Barcelona for a long weekend on Saturday 5th April. Barcelona is one of those cities with a great feel. Perhaps because Spain gets more sunshine than London and people are generally happier, who knows. But I felt happy to be there.


OLA SUNSHINE!! :-)

First sight we saw was the Sagrada Familia (temple of the Holy Family). An absolutely amazing sight, inside and out. It is still under construction, and will be finished in 30 years or so. It was great to see the process of it all coming together. Gaudi was planned his church to be representative of nature. The huge columns and ceiling features are meant to represent trees. Absolutely breathtaking.






And, because this is so delayed, here are some more random photos from Barcelona:

Gaudi building

Lovely flower in the centre of the city

metro train

Outside of the opera house

Particularly unappetising fish I found in the market!

This is me outside Barcelona's synagogue, or rather, the building that houses the foundations of it. Very small, but interesting and obviously the street level was lower back then!

Montserrat, a monastery outside of Barcelona where we spent the day wandering on the Monday. Lovely place, but really foggy when we got there!

I am really pleased with this photo. Another one taken at Montserrat on the way to the hermitages.

An oh-so-cute hampster! I had never actually seen one up close, and they had lots of animals on sale at Las Ramblas (a series of streets/avenues that have markets, street entertainers, restaurants etc).

Scott and I took a wander up to the hermitages outside of Montserrat, and it was amazingly foggy!!