suziebeezieland

a few things happening in my garden this week

london: the big bus tour & a cruise down the river thames

   

The Thursday (April 1st) that we landed in England we went to Kew Gardens, as I've told you already, and then the next day (our only full day in London) was April 2, Good Friday. 

Trusty Rick Steves had recommended doing one of the unabashedly touristy double-decker bus tours if you find yourself in London for only a brief while, because you really can see a lot and have a lot of fun doing it.

We agree with him! It was fantastic.  We went with with The Big Bus Tour of London, which Steve's book recommended (he said The Original London Sightseeing Tour is also good), and I had paid for the tour tickets and printed out vouchers online in the U.S. before we left, so the whole thing was so easy. There are a zillion places to catch the buses, which run every ten or fifteen minutes or so, but we decided to begin at the beginning (where that red number 1 is below), so we took the tube over to The Green Park, which is just east of Hyde Park.  You catch the Big Bus tour across the street from The Ritz.

 
 

I'm sitting on top of our bus here taking a photo of another bus, although this one is completely open on top, and ours had only had half of the top cut off. (The company renovated old covered double-decker city buses to use as tour buses.)

 

Below is the Queen Elizabeth gate in Hyde Park Corner. It was put up in 1993 to celebrate the 93rd birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

For any of you confused by royal title styling, as I was, I'll quickly explain something.  (And by "quick," I mean, in the rambling and incoherent style you've come to know and love in suziebeezieland.)

When a British king ascends the throne, his wife is given the title "Queen", and is the Queen consort.  The king is the monarch.

The current queen, Queen Elizabeth II, is a Queen regnant. She is the queen in her own right, because her father was the king.  She is the monarch.

The husbands of Queen regnants are not given the title "King," because there would then be the sense that he was in charge.  So they're styled as "princes."  So the current Queen Elizabeth's husband is "Prince Philip" instead of "King Philip."

So Queen Elizabeth II's mom, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, married the man who would eventually become King George VI. (That's another long and scandalous story unto itself.  I am definitely not a fan of the selfish Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.)  

So then Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (who was a commoner, by the way) became "Queen Elizabeth," and was the Queen consort.  

This styling was fine until they had a daughter, whom they also named "Elizabeth," and who they knew would be Queen regnant.  So then, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth became known as "Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother," or more popularly, "The Queen Mum."

There are statues, gates, fountains, and doohickies all over England dedicated to "Queen Elizabeth," and you always have to figure out if they're talking about Elizabeth I, Elizabeth the Queen Mum, or Elizabeth II. :)

 

Here is Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. It looks like a patch of mud, but I've heard it comes alive on Sunday afternoons. :)

Mind Your Head! This is just good, solid philosophical advice for all of life, don't you think? It started to drizzle, and Claire and Bob decided to move forward to the covered part of the bus.  You can see the back of Bob's head and his gray hoody's hood up ahead. I stayed outside so I could take photos. 

   

Here is All Souls Church in Langham Place, at the end of Regent Street in Marylebone. John Nash designed this church. He is responsible for most of the architecture from the Regency era in London -- perhaps most notably, he turned Buckingham House into Buckingham Palace. (Decimus Burton, whom I mentioned in the Kew Garden post, helped complete some of Nash's projects.) Nash did a lot of work in Wales and Ireland, also.

In other words, for you Jane Austen fans, John Nash's aesthetic is much of you what you see when you're watching film adaptations of her movies. :)

 

(By the way, this is officially the longest post I've ever posted in suziebeezieland, so I'm using TypePad's "split extended entry" feature for the first time. :) Just click on the link below to keep reading.)

our resident dude's sweet pepper salsa video

I've been meaning to tell you for quite some time now that Our Resident Dude, Mark, started a cooking blog called The Resident Dude's Recipes & More.

If you are new to suziebeezieland or have problems paying attention (I'm kidding), Mark and his lovely wife, our Valeria, live down the street from me, and we are church family. 

They are good folks. 

Today Mark posted a little video about Sweet Pepper Salsa that is so sweet because his son Josiah filmed it, and then his son Isaac helped. (I liked seeing the salsa garden, too!)

That's Dodger Blue there behind them, if you are not familiar with that color. :D 

ps One of my favorite parts of this video is when Josiah makes the camera shake to simulate the blender action. :)

family fads

Does your family have little fads? We get on kicks around here all the time. Here are a few of our most recent favorites.

1. our recent dessert fad

FAGE (pronounced "fa-yeh") Total Classic Yogurt

Have you tried this? I bought some out of curiosity at the grocery store, and my goodness, it is delicious. It is very creamy Greek yogurt, kind of tart/sour, with a little bit of fruit (or honey) to mix in.  All the flavors are delicious. We've tried them all. Several times. Each. :D

2. our recent t.v. show fad

Jeopardy. We've all started watching Jeopardy at 7 PM every night. I hadn't watched it in probably a decade, so it has been fun.  Every now and again there is a category or question I mute and/or pause the DVR on because it's inappropriate for Claire, and then I fast-forward through it when they get past that part, but otherwise, it has been a really fun family show.

I was cracking up last week because Claire got a little bunny rabbit toy and named it "Alex Trebek."  :)

3. our recent restaurant fad

The Counter: Custom Built Burgers. The Counter opened up a Pasadena location awhile back, and I think we've been four times in the past five months. :) It is a fun place to go with friends, and the kids love it. I'm sure there are similar places around the country: they give you a little checklist and a golf pencil (I am always a sucker for little golf pencils) and you design your own burger.

The first time we went, I tried to create a Greek burger and liked it so much that I keep getting the same thing!  I get the 1/3 beef burger with feta cheese, bermuda red onion, sliced cucumbers, and roasted red peppers with the tzatziki sauce. (One time I got tomatoes instead of the red pepper, and that was also good.)

The sweet potato fries there are SO GOOD.  And you can get a half-and-half basket with half sweet potato fries and half regular fries, if somebody doesn't like sweet potato fries.  Or if somebody doesn't like regular fries.

I haven't ordered any shakes because I'm concentrating all my energy on the burger and sweet potato fries, but Claire and Bob have had shakes, and The Counter lets you mix flavors.  Claire got a vanilla and apple pie shake, and it had huge chunks of apple at the bottom. I tasted it, and it was delicious.  I can't remember what Bob had, but our friend Rich got coffee and chocolate (or maybe chocolate and coffee and banana . . . I can't remember . . . I always start talking to people about things and then can't remember the actual details).

Anyway, it's a fun place to be creative with food. :D

What are some of your recent family fads?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

constance

I was doing a bit of online research about vintage British caravans, and stumbled onto these sweet photographs on the SnailTrail.co.uk website, which hires out some classic retro vehicles for things like weddings and photo shoots, and some VW camper vans for camping.  (The camper vans have the delightful names of Betty, Pearl, Flo, Elsie, Matilda, Nell, Pru, Dot, Gracie & Daphne. :) 

I'll get the rest of our vacation photos up over the next two weeks, so you may want to avoid suziebeezieland for awhile if you don't like pictures of old churches and yellow daffodils and green fields and sheep. :)    

In the meantime, this is Constance, and she's a 1957 Sprite 14. Isn't she cute? (You can click on the photos to see somewhat larger versions that won't quite fit into the width of suziebeezieland.)

   

   

   

   

 
   

   

 
 
 
  

stripedy tights & flowerdy wellies

vintage classics

I've got nine more days of English vacation to show and tell, but here is a quick, somewhat related digression.

I have liked Vintage Classics paperbacks for several years, and have a few of them, but when we were in England I saw so many neat Vintage Classics covers I hadn't seen before. 

When you stand in line for tickets at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, you're standing in the gift shop, so that's where I first saw these, while we were waiting to buy tickets, and then I saw more at other book stores throughout the vacation. For all I know these are available at my local Borders here, but I rarely go to bookstores when I'm home because I just order everything from Amazon, so I don't know. :)

Of course I didn't want to lug a bunch of books home, but I got back here and found out that several of these editions are available through Amazon.com. (Others are available through Amazon U.K.)  Just search for the book's title, then add "Vintage Classics" afterwards.

I had especially not seen the covers with "Vintage + Author'sName" written up top.  

Here are a few of my favorite covers.  

The ship in the bottle . . . so poignant. (There is a mini Captain Wentworth in there.)

I love the snood on the Little Women cover! I always wanted a snood when I was younger. :)

Yay, stripey stockings.

Did you know that in the novel, Barrie wrote that Peter flies to Neverland with Wendy and the boys by following the directions "second to the right, and straight on till morning"?

Disney folks later added the word "star" to that phrase in the movie, which is what everyone quotes.

I have been reading a little Rudyard Kipling lately. I used to get him mixed up with Rumer Godden when I was younger, for some reason.

Isn't the name sleek up top? It's uncluttered. I love that.

They've even gone and done a "Bright Star" cover for Keats' complete poems and selected letters. I don't like it because it's too busy, and I never buy books that are movie tie-ins because (a) they always mess it up with some seal or badge on the front that says something like "Now a major motion picture!" and (b) I like artwork rather than photos, usually. 

But I had to show you this since we talked about Bright Star a bit ago. :)

I liked Dodie Smith's 101 Dalmatians much better than I did I Capture the Castle, but here is the cover.

A Town Like Alice absolutely gutted me when I read it. (So did the miniseries with Bryan Brown.)  Really, really good, but be prepared to experience emotions. :)

I wasn't familiar with The Worm Forgives the Plough, but then I read the description and I think I need to get it. :)  Isn't the cover beautiful?

Here is the description. It really does sound like something I would like:

During the Second World War, John Stewart Collis volunteered to leave his comfortable life as an academic to work on the land for the war effort. His account of this time perfectly captures the soft-handed, city-dweller’s naivety and wonder both at the workings of nature and the toughness of life on a farm. It’s set in the south of England and comprises exquisitely written sections on whatever happens to take Collis’s fancy and inspire his thoughtful curiosity, ranging from humorous sketches of the characters he works alongside; mini-essays such as ‘Contemplation upon Ants’, The Mystery of Clouds’, ‘Colloquy on the Rick’, ‘Meditation while Singling Mangolds’, ‘The Garden of Eden’; and celebrations of the earthworm, pea and potato. His mind ranges far and wide through literature science and philosophy as well as amazing descriptive writing, which makes for a book that is as uncategorisable as it is enchanting.

I'll stop now or I'll be up all night, and besides, if you like neat book covers you'll have fun finding them yourself. Go here and just start scrolling through the List of Titles. (The Virginia Woolf covers are interesting . . . they're all her silhouette, but each novel has a different pattern inside it.)

describe it in three words

We played this here awhile back and I thought that because it was so fun, we might try it again.  Here's how it works.

I start the game by writing a random word.

The person who posts next after me describes that word in three words (and only three words, or your answer will be null and void), then posts a new word for the next person posting to describe in three words.

For example, if I post the word "apple," the next person might describe it as "a crunchy fruit" or "Snow White's temptation," and then post the word "zoo" for the next person to describe. The more creative you are, the more fun it is.

Get it? It's simple. If two people post at once, the next poster (after those two) can just choose either word to describe. 

It goes without saying that this needs to remain G-rated. :)

Ready? The first word is "England".

:)

london: the pelham hotel & kew gardens

We had such a lovely time in England! It was actually perfect. I'm excited to share some of the highlights with you over the next couple of weeks. :) I took about 900 photos, so I'll sift through them and show you the stuff I think you might like.

After we landed at Heathrow and got situated (the morning of April 1st), we took the tube to South Kensington.  We stayed at the lovely Pelham Hotel (that's it up there, through the doorway on the right), which is conveniently located diagonally across the street from the tube station.

We loved the Pelham, and hope to stay there again the next time we visit London.  It has the comfort of a modern hotel, inside a lovely old, interesting building. Claire slept in a foldaway bed at the foot of the big bed.  She loved that!

The neighborhood is beautiful. I loved all the terraces throughout this part of London, and the cute house numbers and topiaries everywhere. It all really appeals to my love of symmetry and order. :) It also reminded me of 100 Dalmatians. When I was little, I really wanted to live in the cartoon London of that movie.

Here is Paul, right across from the hotel, which is a chain of DELICIOUS French bakeries. We ate breakfast here both mornings we were in London. (They have inside upstairs seating and the best coffee we had the entire time we were in England.)

After we rested for a few minutes, we bundled up, jumped on the tube again, and headed for Kew Gardens.

Claire always finds cats to love on vacation, no matter where we go.

We entered Kew (officially "Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew") through the Victoria Gate.

Kew has a long, complicated, and interesting history, like almost everything in England. :) Because it's located on a prominent bend on the river Thames, it has been a busy site for thousands of years. They've found mesolithic tools and neolithic artefacts in the area, and other stuff ("stuff" is not the official archaeological term) from the Bronze and Iron ages. 

And then of course the Romans took over for awhile, and in fact some people think this is where Caesar crossed the Thames to invade Britain. (Veni, Vidi, Vici.) So it's really old and important. You get the idea. The history of the gardens themselves begins in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Anyway, years later Queen Victoria donated quite a chunk of land to the gardens during her reign, and so they named a gate after her.

The first thing you see coming in at the Victoria Gate is the Palm House.  It has 700 panes of glass, and was designed by Decimus Burton and built between 1844 and 1888.  It's considered the most important surviving Victorian iron and glass structure in the world.

Victorians were really into greenhouses because the British were traveling to exotic lands (colonizing everywhere they could get their hands on) and bringing back tropical plants which needed warm places to grow.

It's steamy inside! My lens fogged up. So did my glasses. :)

I've probably mentioned before that I'm afraid of heights. So sometimes on vacation, Bob and Claire do fun things without me, and I photograph them. It's best for everyone involved. Trust me.

We have never seen as many yellow daffodils in our entire lives as we did on this England trip. They are EVERYWHERE right now. And as you know, daffodils naturalize and spread, so once you plant those bulbs, they'll just do their own thing for years to come.

Bob's favorite mythological creature is the Griffin, so we try to photograph them whenever we see them.

It was early in the growing season to visit gardens, but Bob and I agreed the entire time we were in England that we were so happy to not be fighting the crowds during the height of the tourist season. We'd rather take our chances with the weather and see the spring flowers and the stark trees, than be smashed in with people not being able to see anything, anyway.

Here are primroses and daffodils, and cabbage and daffodils.

Claire got nipped by a hungry duck once on vacation to Disney World several years ago when she was little, which cooled her ardor for them quite a bit.

But she seems to have gotten over her animosity towards water foul, because she chased every goose she saw while we were at Kew.

Here is the Temple of Aeolus, and more daffodils.

I should note that the gardens are huge (300 acres), and we were jet-lagged and knew our ability to walk was not going to last long, so we grabbed a map and did a quick "Best of Kew Gardens" surgical strike in mostly the northeastern and eastern bits of the park. We were there for maybe three hours. (I forgot to mention that we started by eating lunch at the yummy cafe that was to the right when we walked in.)

Here's the Princess of Wales conservatory.

What are these orange flowers? I have no idea. Kew has the largest and most comprehensive living plant collection in the world -- they have representatives from one in every eight plant species in the whole world! It was fun to go somewhere that doesn't just contain the Home Depot garden department. :)

Here is the Rose Pergola and the Order Beds, ready for warm weather. I love the tidy expectancy of the order beds. What will pop up this summer? I do not know, because I forgot to read the markers.

Grape hyacinths are also all over England right now. They smell delicious.

And what is this twirly swirly plant with these sweet little bell-shaped flowers?

Here is my free-spirited girl doing a bit of dancing. It was so nice to walk in the fresh air after ten hours in a plane.

Okay, do you know what a monkey puzzle tree is? I had heard of them a long time ago, but had no idea what they looked like. Now I do. It's not what I had imagined at all.

We should stamp more pretty things into concrete here in the U.S.

This is Kew Palace. It is a British Royal Palace, but looks like a manor house. George III purchased this, and I think he and his wife (Charlotte) were the last royals to actually live here (you might want to check that -- I get them all mixed up a bit).  I also think Queen Victoria donated it to Kew when she gave them all that other land. It was opening for the season the day after we visited. :) I like it because it's more like a manor house than a palace, and you'd have the whole awesome garden to play in.

Bluebells! I wanted to jump in them and roll around, but refrained.

More daffodils!

Here's the Temperate House. You can't tell from this angle, but it goes back for ages, and is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world. It's massive.

Who are these people? I can't remember. By the time we saw them guarding this door on Temperate House, we were pretty pooped. 

So we headed on out of Kew via the lovely gift shop. :) Then we jumped on the tube and headed back to the Pelham, where we ate downstairs in the fabulous bistro. I loved the turquoise chairs and the cyclamen in the windowboxes outside the window wells. We sat right by the window and it was fun to look up to see the street.

Then we all went to sleep. :)

More of London to come!

here is something cool to think about the day after easter sunday