Thanksgiving in Sussex

We've never really done anything to properly celebrate Thanksgiving while living outside of the USA. It is my favorite holiday ever, but outside of the US it is just a normal but usually extra busy Thursday! This year, however, we organised a Thanksgiving Potluck for the Friday night (day after Thanksgiving) and invited a bunch of our friends over to our house. I didn't take any photos of that night actually, except for this funny turkey veggie platter that Rhiannon and I put together after seeing an inspirational photo my Mom sent.

So that was a fun evening and well worth the effort. Then on Sunday night we invited the Denslows over to dinner to thank them for all the dinners that they provided us the past year.

Anne Marie, Rhodri, Gordon, Joe, Tryfan (not visible), Sam, Rhiannon, and William

Beating and the gifts

Rhodri spent today "beating" on a hunt. This means he was one of the guys scaring the pheasants out of their hiding places in the woods and making them fly out into the open for a bunch of rich guys who paid to go on the hunt today. As part of the payment, he was given two ducks and two pheasants. We spent the following two evenings preparing the birds for eating.

Fun times in the Lewis house!

Birthday goodness

My birthday was yesterday and it was a day of nice surprises!

I got some lovely presents including this winter stealth camouflage lounge outfit. Here I am camouflaged against the polished pebble wall paint in the dining room.

We went for dinner at the Hatch pub nearby after swimming lessons. Always lovely to go out for food! Thanks family for making it special.

Riding horses in the hood

Today was an in-between sort of day, with Tryfan nursing an injured ankle so unable to go to rugby training this morning and Rhiannon restless to do something interesting. I was really tired after my stretch of days in Iceland (the time warp due to different light landscape, clocks permanently stuck at certain times, and then staying up through wee hours every night watching the aurora from the hot tub...), so didn't want to do much today.

Rhiannon suggested going horse riding, so she went to the trouble of phoning a nearby riding stable and reserving spots for the 3 of us on an afternoon ride. It was a bit of a rainy, sloppy muddy day, but the horses didn't mind.
Tryfan was lukewarm about going riding, but by the time we were all on our horses, he was nearly squealing with joy. Rhiannon rode Sparky, Tryfan rode the naughty little ___ and I rode Megula. Tryfan's horse didn't want Rhiannon's horse to go in front of him and kept trying to bite Rhiannon's horse! We rode around the farm and down through the woods on the edge of the farm - just the 3 of us plus a Guide. At the end we got to trot and that is when Tryfan really started squealing with joy and laughter. It was really fun and they've been begging to go again.

Iceland escape

On Friday evening after work, my friends Lou and Leigh joined me on a long weekend (ok, more like a week!) adventure in Iceland. We hatched the plan back in May when I remembered about the wonderful woman we met in Feb 2013 called Lene. I had been so fascinated by her skills as a tanner, so I asked her if she would be open to hosting a tanning workshop for novices. Its hard to put into words the enormity and other-worldliness of this time in Iceland, but let's just say it was very special.

Lou, Leigh and me

View of Hjalteyri from our house

Hot tub on the edge of the fjord at Hjalteyri

View towards Akureyri from our living room

I loved working with the fish skins

We worked with fish, sheep, and reindeer. The process was absolutely fascinating to me and I savored the time spent standing around a table working with our hands and having interesting conversations on all sorts of topics. Like I said, it was very special.

Lou, Leigh, Lisl and Lene