Spring, and England Here We Come !
As Memorial Day on the 26th May draws closer spring is truely in full flow. Tree blossoms are bursting everywhere painting a rainbow of colour on most streets in Bethel. Luscious Pink Japanese Magnolia bloom and the grass begins to turn from a dormant winter shade to a healthy lush saturated green.
The last couple of weeks have seen the temperature rise to an average of 14C with some days peaking at 27C ! Long trousers are replaced by shorts and flip-flops and despite gas prices climbing and woeful reading in the Wall Street Journal it’s hard not to feel refreshed.
The past couple of weekends for us have been relaxed, visiting Jen’s grandparents and mostly preparing for our whirl-wind tour of England, Scotland and Denmark. With all flights, accommodation and transportation now sorted I can sit back and finally look forward to a trip back to Blighty !
Most nights we’ve had the fire-pit cranking and last weekend was no exception after inviting Jen’s parents, Emily and Dixie the dog over for some grillin’ and chillin’. My grilling skills are slowly improving as I can now cook burgers without turning them to a cinder !
Earlier that day Jen and I had been to the local Quest Diagnostics laboratory to have some blood-work done after visiting a local chiropractor and kinisiologist. For the past couple of weeks Jen has been visiting a chiropractor for work on her back, but he’s also a qualified kinisiologist. After hearing what a kinisiologist does I was as curious as I was scepticle (it sounded very ‘new-age’) so decided to make an appointment myself.
Now I’m not afraid to admit that I have very dry skin. Something that irritated me with eczema during my early 20’s and manifiested at one point into a very mild sclerosis on my scalp. After being prescribed the standard topical-steroids in the UK I wondered if there wasn’t something alternative that I could try.
With the winters being so dry over here my scalp has suffered. Everyone gets embarassed by dandruff, myself included, so I’m pretty keen to stop using Nizrol, prescription strength anti-dandruff shampoo, and try and find out if the reason is a vitamin deficiency somewhere, because God know’s we never eat enough fruit!
Kinisiology is a line of study very similar to acupuncture and a theory that your central nervous system and dietary trends influence your personal well-being. Turns out a kinisiologist offers an interesting and alternative insite into ailments that may have been plagueing you for some time. Mainly nutrition based it was very interesting to hear how certain dietary habits can compound various ailments, weather there is any truth in it all remains to be seen but I’m fairly open minded and was interested to find out a little bit more so we both went to Quest to get some blood samples taken for analysis.
The usual cholosteral check, vitamin deficiancy check, and a DNA check which is great because it let’s you know if you are carrying certain gene’s. Only trouble is that in order to do all of these tests they need alot of blood, something I hadn’t really figured on ! In this case 1 vile for each test (2 for the DNA), a total of 4.
Since arriving in this country with all my immigration medicals, and cholosteral checks standard as part of your yearly medical I have had more blood taken in 1 year than in my entire 32 years of being in the UK ! Needless to say it’s a bit of a shock to the system and after 2 viles the blood rushes from my head to my toes and I verge on the light and dark line of fainting. As you can imagine 4 in one sitting was definately a shock and resulted in me turning a shade of pale I have never felt before.
To make matters worse. This week I had to go for a re-collection ! I was not a happy-chappy. To compound matters you need to fast the evening before !
Anyway, blood work done. If anything I’ll find out if our low-carb dieting has lowered my bad cholosteral levels.
Blood work done, we went to Jen’s grandparents again. The week before they’d asked me to take a look at their computer and install Adobe Reader so that they could read their monthly newsletters. Frustrated at it’s speed (it was an old computer), I decided to give it a bit of an upgrade and this week we returned to add a bunch more RAM and a new Graphics Card. Much better !
We’re off to Jacqueline’s now for Sunday brunch as we both feel a little worse for wear’s after spending last night at the Redding Road House. Greasy food is definately the order of the day ! So much for that low-carb diet !
Some random photos taken over the last two weeks !
God bless Thomas Lee for the Adirondack Chair these things are the most comfortable outdoor chairs I’ve come across and great for chillin’ with a glass of wine by the fire.
Dixie the dog looks pretty after she went for a pet trim last weekend and Jen fell in love all over again. This time with a brindle coloured chihuahua.
Walking around Agway in New Milford I spotted this cheeky little chipmunk in the bird seed bucket. Before I scared him with the camera he was sat in the middle of it all just chomping away. Chipmunk heaven I’d imagine !
This cheeky little fellow is a cat that seems to have recently adopted us, he decided that rather than wait for his food he’d just stick his head in the bag !
This weekend’s tidy up !
With spring definately in the air we spent the majority of today cleaning up the yard and doing odd jobs before Brian and Lee-Ann come round later tonight.
I began by repairing an old window box on the barn in the yard. It was about ready to fall off, but with some modern supporting brackets hidden behind the original supporting woodwork it’s now almost as good as new !
Next I moved onto the deck and secured a new window box to the banisters before filling it with some plants taken from the garden.
This is a view from almost the back of the yard looking onto our aparment on the 2nd floor and out onto the street.
The composter is definately coming in handy after cleaning up the leaves …
… and the fire pit is definately coming in handy ! : )
Spring is in the Air
The seasons are changing and there is a hint of Spring in the air. Daffodil’s, crocuses and forsythia bloom and tree frogs trill their mating calls as dusk settles and night falls. There is a change in temperature as the mercury no longer dips below zero, instead we were bathed with 25°C this weekend.
The sounds of scraping snow shovels have been replaced as people tend their gardens with a sense of purpose. Remaining leaves are raked and nurseries slowly open.
This weekend we were at Hollandia’s picking up some flowers for the garden after we spent Saturday last-weekend tidying up ‘the yard’ a bit. Hollandia’s is a huge nursery and somewhere we both agreed we should bring me mum. Rows and rows of assorted flowers. Greenhouse upon greenhouse, each nurturing it’s own collection of flowers. A taste of the traditional and old still in affect as you walk around acres of nursery. The resident cat and a collection of old machinery and cars randomly placed amongst hundreds of walkways. A gardeners ( and car historians ! ) heaven.
We picked up some hanging baskets for the deck and will definately be back here when we have a place of our own. I can’t wait to landscape our garden. Living in rented accomodation we’re reluctant to spend much money on plants as they’ll simply be left behind.
With the housing market over here having dropped 11% in the first quarter we’re hoping to purchase later this year/early next year. However we began in earnest after seeing a couple of places we liked in Ridgefield and Weston so we met up with April who showed us around last weekend.
(Ridgefield house)
Both houses were amazing in different ways with 3 and 4 acres of land respectively. The house in Weston was owned by a pool contractor and not surprisngly had an amazing outdoor pool, the house in Ridgefield had a traditional European in-ground pool that had been transformed into a pond after years of neglect, both were spectacular houses. We felt excited and can’t wait for that day we cross the threshold of our new place.
Afterwards we drove around Ridgefield for a bit and gazed in amazement with jaws dropped at some of the property in this part of Connecticut. Ridgefield has some amazing scenary and is very equestrian orientated. We drove past acre’s of fenced field and both agreed that my sister needs to come and work out here. She would make a fortune! Typically people in Ridgefield are not short of a bob-or-two and every house is pretty much a mansion in some parts.
We headed home and I continued to build my composter. Ashamed at the amount of organic waste we through out I’ve built a little composting unit and hope to recycle some of our food waste. I need to be careful though because the wildlife out here are crafty little buggers. Especially racoons who I’ve witnessed un-screw the cap of a jar with their paws.
I’ve meshed the entire unit from bottom to top and decided to start with garden waste adding a little organic food waste each time just to see how crafty those racoons are. If it proves successful I’m off to the fishing bait shop to buy some Red Wiggler Worms which I’ve read can speed up the process quite dramatically. For now though we’ve just added some garden waste as we continued to tidy up the garden this weekend.
Today we’ve decided to do a BBQ as the weather all weekend has been amazing and we’ve invited Brian and Lee-Ann around for some hot-dogs and burgers. The garden is tidy and we had our first ceremonial fire-pit burn last night. It was the perfect evening for it. Drinking wine under a starlit sky, comforted by the warmth of the embers in the fire. We purchased a couple of Adirondack chairs to complete our evenings relaxation. I think I need it ! as I’m still feeling sore from last weekends bike-ride.
Fool that I am, Kent and I have signed up for the Five Boro Bike Tour of New York. 42 Miles cycling through The Bronx, Manhatten, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island for Charity. The streets of Manhatten will be cordoned off and it will be great to see New York City from a different perpective.
In preperation Brian and I went on a ride last weekend which left me a little despondent at how out of shape I am after enjoying American life for a year with not much excersise in-between. I have since vowed to take my bike to work and spend 30 mins of my lunch break riding around the coastal paths close to my office. It’s been made a little awkward though since Thule don’t make a bike rack for the Jaguar so I’ve now got to ring Jaguar parts and order one specially !
One last picture before I sign off for the day. We had Dixie the dog around last weekend. When it was time to take her home instead of jumping on the backseat as she normally does she decided to hop into the drivers seat so I snapped this picture !
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