Handover

So I'm moving out of training & development and into geothermal energy and I'm sooooooooooooo happy!  I agreed to hand over a bunch of my previous position's work to Laura, who I've been working with for the past 7 years and who I consider a friend.  She flew over here on Monday and we did a few hours of work in the Gatwick office (where it all began, she reminded me!) before heading back to "The Gate" where she is staying at a B&B nearby. 

We worked together all day on Tuesday, went out to dinner Tuesday night to the Red Lion, and then worked all through Wednesday before I took her to the airport to fly back home Wed night.  It was really great to have her here and actually be together in person!

We went to Plaw Hatch farm to get a mid morning coffee and sit in the cosy barn

We took Annie on walks in the forest, and it felt really great to share my favorite spots and scenery with Laura. Hopefully one day I'll travel to her home near Madrid and meet her family!

Girls Night

Tonight was our swimmer friend Ali's 50th birthday and she had a do at a club in Brighton.  The last time we all got together was to do the Silent Disco Walking Tour in Brighton.

Cat, Emma B and I got dressed up and took the train in for the evening. We ended up missing the last train and had to take a taxi back to Cat's house, but it turned out fine and actually not too expensive.

They even had a dancer up on the stage who was a man dressed as a lady. So exotic!

It was a fun night although Cat and I left at a sensible time of 12:30 am while many others stayed on until 3 am (apparently).

This was a weird week because of the new month and all the changes happening right now (like my new job that just started on March 1st!), but its all good. I was supposed to go on a ski weekend with some other friends this weekend, but I needed to cancel that because of my new job and the handover that will be going on next week. Can't do everything, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, the boys

 All the while the boys were holding down the fort with Annie.  They watched films and Tryfs played on his Playstation while Rhods worked and Annie probably paced around whining for someone to play with her. One day they went go karting with Oscar and Harrison, and that sounded pretty fun.  Sadly I don't have any photos of this time period. 

Anyway, at least we are all back together now!

A wet and wild return

 Rhiannon and I landed on Friday morning when there was this big crazy Storm Eunice just kicking off! I'm glad we didn't hear anything about it before traveling because it would have been a bit scary.  This was I think unprecedented because even the postal service was modified for this day only!

So yeah, it was wild and windy and rainy, and trees fell down and all sorts of damage was done in places. We survived intact and the next day I went for a walk with Emma and Annie to survey the local woods. We found this hefty Scots Pine fallen down blocking the bridle path, and this was the most dramatic in our 'hood.

Last day in NYC

We had a grand day today, which we spent speeding past the Statue of Liberty on the free ferry and then walking the length of Manhattan to get back in time for our taxi to the airport. 

One of the highlights was discovering an indoor market (on our quest for donuts) and having a lovely chat with the owner of a really great lunching place that did those frozen shake bowls with extra stuff in them. 

My long lost friend Kerry met up with us for the last 15 minutes of the walk and it was such a thrill to see him in person!!

We pretty much achieved our goal of getting worn out from walking all day so that we could sleep on the plane. This worked pretty well for us and we landed early the next morning to be met by our friend and driver Guy to take us back home. This was such an incredible trip for us girls and we feel really lucky!

Summit One

This was the one place that we had booked tickets for prior to leaving England, so it was the main event we were looking forward to. Summit One Vanderbilt is the name of the venue, and it was totally worth the entry price and all the hype of the build up. Even standing in line to take the elevator was like being on Space Mountain at Disneyland, all futuristic sounds and fancy lights and a whole immersion experience. But then when we entered  the first of the 3 floors of the exhibit, it got really awesome...

We entered at 3:30 pm and stayed until about 6:30 pm, since we wanted to be there for the sunset and there was no place we would rather be! So we sat on the floor in different spots around the the exhibit and took photos, watched people, and looked out over the city from different angles. It was really awesome.

Then we went for an amazing Cuban dinner at Victor's Cafe near our hotel.

All in all, an amazing day!

Central Park tour

This morning Rhiannon and I started the day (after breakfast, of course) with a bicycle tour of Central Park! We actually took the bikes out on our own for about 30 minutes and then went with a guide called Phillip. It was a gorgeous day and the tour was just the 3 of us, so it was fabulous! Here is my girl getting ready for the day in our hotel bathroom..

And an action shot of Rhi with Phillip.

Phillip did a great job of pointing out filming locations for TV and movies we might know, pointing out who owned which building, who lived where, and also a lot about the history of New York city and Central Park itself.

It was a great morning! We turned in the bikes and headed back to our hotel room to book a lunch location and then get ready for the rest of the day.

NYC!

It was soooo exciting to fly into New York La Guardia airport at night and see all the cool lights from above, having a few days to play with! We ended up getting a really great hotel room on Broadway halfway between Central Park and Times Square. 

Today we headed out into the cold and bright city for a day of exploration!

We walked down to Times Square, over to the Empire State building, down to the station where Buddy the Elf found the chewing gum (!!), then over to walk along the Highline. Around this time we started feeling hungry so we booked into this rooftop restaurant above a posh furniture store!

And then we continued walk south to the 9/11 Memorial and then onto Wall Street (total let down!) 

and finally onto the subway to get back up to Rockefeller Center for our ice skating session!

We were pretty cold when we finished skating and got back to the hotel, had a quick turnaround and then went around the corner for some warming Japanese soba noodle soup, which was soooooooo amazing. Yay! We were finally warm and this was such a delicious meal. We went back to the hotel and slept soundly with no alarm set for the morning.

A special trip to St Louis

Rhiannon and I are in St Louis for the weekend so that she can visit Principia as a possible schooling option for next year. We had a fun flight over - watched some movies and then played Battleship and also tried to sleep a bit - and even made a friend along the way! Pam is a nice lady who is also an American living in London who was also flying the same route as us to St Louis. The queue at the car rental place was really long, so the two of us chit chatted the whole time and swapped mobile numbers at the end so we can keep in touch. So nice :-)

Anyway, our first full day in St Louis was spent visiting the campus for a private tour from JP, then shopping at West County Mall for about 6 hours. We went a little crazy!

The next day (Sat) we met Annabel and went downtown to visit (and go up!) the Arch of St Louis - "Gateway to the West". It was really cold but bright today!

Later we walked to Laclede's Landing where we were able to locate the former site of our favorite haunt, "Hannegan's", which closed several years ago and is a sad, derelict building now (like the rest of Laclede's Landing).

We then drove to Delmar Loop and looked for thrift stores, then found a place to have lunch and meet up with Mr Lindsay (Annabel and my coach from Prin). Then we raced back to campus for Rhiannon to start her visiting weekend at 5pm. 

I don't have any photos of her evening on campus, nor of the following day which she spent on campus as well, nor really of today when she attended a full day of classes, but we did manage to get someone to take this one of us together in the lobby.

It has been a really special weekend here actually. Prin does feel like home in a way, since it is so familiar and there are plenty of names and faces still around that I remember from my days here as a student. We are visiting because Rhiannon is considering attending here instead of doing A-levels (Sixth Form) in England. It's kind of a crazy idea, but right now we are just exploring options.

Tonight we will fly to New York City for a few days of girl time!

Big day before a big day

Today has been a really big day because tomorrow Rhiannon and I are flying to St. Louis to visit Principia, and then on to NYC for a few days of discovery. Due to the NY rules for Covid, we needed to pull out some extra stops to get Rhi the jab today before going. So we managed to get permission for her to get a jab 2 days before she was supposed to, but we needed to drive to Crowborough to do it. This went mostly fine, and then I took her to school and the rest of the day followed. This evening Sophie came over and they made Valentine's Day cookies for their little brothers to enjoy. So sweet!