Snowing

Just a quick post to say it's snowing in London!! Yep, it's October 28 and it's snowing. Won't last long, I know, but let me revel in it anyway! There's gotta be some upside to the sun going down at 4 PM.

[Update] Just got back from heading down to 55. It was snowing pretty hard, and we now have a layer of slush on the streets and sidewalk, with parked cars covered in white. It was Tom's birthday down at the bar. He was working, so a few of his family and friends came in to celebrate with him. I brought him the first snowball of the winter w/ a birthday candle on top. It didn't last too long...snowballs and candles don't really mix.

Frieze Art Fair

We've had another glorious fall weekend in London. Yesterday the family took a walk through Regents Park and checked out the sculptures from the Frieze Art Fair. This one is my favorite (or maybe it's just the only one I managed to pull my camera out for). Anyway, it was fun seeing the park we love transformed into an open art gallery. We walked through the free section - we weren't about to pay £25 each to get into the main exhibit.

Art Show Update

The Shelter Art Show has been open since Wednesday evening. We had about 40 at our opening night, and it felt quite full in the side chapel at St. Michaels, which we had filled with artwork during the previous two days. The Mayor of Camden even showed up to help us officially open the show.
Tomorrow the exhibition will be open in the evening, and I'll be doing a few private viewings in the afternoon. Not to potential big-spenders, though. A couple of the classes from St. Michael's school will be coming down for a look around the gallery. I have to come up with something interesting for the kids to do - I may have them draw based on the theme of the show.
I'll try to get a few good pictures up tomorrow. Not too good, though, since many of the artists rely on selling their originals and prints. Having high-quality jpegs on the web would kind of defeat that purpose.

Balcony TV

Just got back from watching fliming for Balcony TV London. Balcony TV is musicians playing on a balcony. Started in Dublin, now happening also in London. As it happens, the London balcony is just across the canal from us. Our friends at Yumchaa tea shop invited us to come over and check it out - the balcony in question happens to be theirs. We've had a leak in our flat, so I had to wait until the plumber sorted it all out (turned out to be the toilet above us...supply, not waste, thankfully for the cleanliness minded among us). So of course I was a bit late, but did manage to catch the end, hear some really good music, and chug a quick Red Chai. Now it's off to bed to rest up for the opening of our art show tomorrow.

Canal Concert

We've been having some great weather over the past few weekends. Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. During the afternoon we heard some live music drifting over from the canal/market area, and we went to investigate. A band had set up shop on top of a canal boat that was moored in the lock. The girls danced around in any open space they could find, which was hard to come by given the number of people who packed the bars, bridges, and walkways around the lock.

Football

Prior to a tragic loss to Hull over the weekend, Arsenal dismantled Sheffield Utd. 6-0 in Carling Cup action last week. As it was Carling Cup, tickets were only £10, so I went with a couple of buddies. Tom (center) got the tickets, and we managed to sit 11 rows from the pitch! We saw Arsenal's first three goals up close, but then were far from most of the second half action, as they switched halves and Arsenal continued to dominate.
You may notice that I'm getting more pictures up these days - thank Virgin Mobile for that. They just sent me an upgraded phone with a better camera. Sorry about cutting you out, John, my self-portrait skills aren't that great.

Religion is Stupid

We went for a walk along the canal this weekend and stumbled into an area of Camden we'd never been to before. It's hard to get to and feels quite isolated. We realized we had looked at a place to rent in the area when we first moved here, and are glad we didn't like the flat. I saw this stuck up on one of the signs by the canal.