This past weekend was our first annual 4th of July party. Attending it were 2 Zimbabweans, a couple of Americans, a family of Indians an Italian and, oh yeah, a few Brits! I don’t know about you but to me that was about as American of a party as we could have had. It was a lot of fun. We grilled burgers and burnt “hot dogs” (they were really sausages but they were the closest that I could find) and had the hubby’s homemade cole slaw and mixed berry crumble with Cornish cream ice cream on the side. There was lots of drinking of wine and beer and tequila and great conversation out in the courtyard and not a single damn picture of it all. You know that Bridget Jones’s Diary entry where she writes about how a party seems like a great idea until you actually do all of the cooking and cleaning and whatnot for it and by the time you are done you just want to tell all of your guests to fuck off!!??! I had a minor case of that right before everyone started showing up. Once everyone was there I was fine but right before people actually showed up I was thinking something along the lines of, “What the FUCK were we thinking???”! Anyway, totally not something that we did but our village puts up an American Flag on the flagpole across the street from us. How cool is that? (I personally think that they may just be a little envious of us Yanks, but hey, you know how it is…) Anyway, I do have some pictures of that…
- Looking out the front door
- The view from the studio
- The Chapel as seen from the field
The very next morning we were invited to go to Henley to view the regatta. From a boat. With food and alcohol. All that was asked of us was to bring a berry crumble. Ok!!! We are so there! There were 3 boats in our little flotilla, 2 electric motorized crafts with tops on them and one large rowboat (ok, so I am not sure that it is technically called a rowboat as it had 4 oars). To say that it was a lot of fun would be a serious understatement!!!
- The boat houses
- The boats that we weren’t on
- Yummy boys in boats
- There were even gondolas there!
- The boats go really fast!
- There were judges all over the place in these booths
- There were tons of all sorts of boats on the Thames
- This is so damn British
- These are the folks who actually came to watch the races, not just party.
- Our intrepid rowers!
- There was even a flower garden afloat!
- The cups that everyone was rowing for
I was quite pleased with myself as I managed to not get sunburned (thank you boat with a top!) nor fall into the Thames. The second was all the more amazing given that it was my first introduction to Pimm’s, which is rather stronger than it tastes!
This week has been sort of boring in comparison. I went to the Click and Clack knitting group at the Borders in Milton Keynes that is held by The Knitting Hut. It was during the day so I got to meet lots of new folks. I’ve also been doing a lot of spinning. I’ve been spinning up the Romney/Rambouillet fleece that I got at Rhinebeck last year and washed right before we moved. I finally am, uh, “catching up” on my fleece spinning now that I have an Ashford drum carder. I will have pictures in the next post.
Sarah Jane Humke 