Oh to be in England

now that April’s (t)here.

Because this year, it seems as though Spring has been a long time coming and now it’s finally arrived, we appreciate it all the more.

It looks as though the plants in the garden have been waiting to burst into flower and the number of primroses in the hedgerows is remarkable.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many.

Almost all self-seeded in our garden, the range of colours is delightful and I imagine we have the birds to thank for the planting?

Spring colours are lovely and a little sunshine this morning drew me outside with my camera.

I love the buds on this willow tree, which break out into fuzzy pompoms.

The fuzziness catches the sunshine and looks lovely against the sky, too.

We plant a few grape hyacinths – muscari - each year to add to the little clumps here and there.  I usually cut a few to bring inside but this year there have been so few until now, I’ve left them to bloom in the garden instead.

My favourite isn’t a flower at all, though, but this gorgeous lichen which has been growing steadily on a gate post for several years.  I love the colours, the shapes and the texture of it.  Whenever I’m in that part of the garden, I pay it a visit and see how it’s doing.

This morning I had a surprise.  The opposite gate post has begun to cultivate its own baby lichen!

So, although I’m thinking that last Sunday, we were in Central Park, enjoying the sunshine with Jordi, having lunch behind the red curtain in the Parker Meridien and leaving Michaels without all my purchases, on this Sunday, it’s good to be at home.

One last day in the city

I promised the night time shots of Manhattan, seen from Williamsburg on Monday night.

As always, the best pictures are in my head, but these will do for now.

Jordi will need to remind me exactly which three bridges are in this photograph.  I know the one in the foreground is Williamsburg Bridge, but the other two?  (See her comment below for the answer!)

Before wandering down to the waterfront with our friends (of both the human and canine variety) we’d enjoyed a feast at Fette Sau.  It doesn’t look a very prepossessing place, does it?  But outside appearances don’t give any clue to the great food, the interesting set up inside or, for that matter, the great company we had!  Not a good place for vegetarians, though!

Our flight home wasn’t till late evening, so we made the most of another beautiful day and headed downtown to Madison Square and took yet more photos of the Flatiron.  As if I could walk past without taking another one…and another!  I’m not sure about the bird artwork there in the front – made entirely from nails, it was causing quite some interest when we were there for sure.

I was on a mission to visit Eileen, having seen a jacket I liked in the Times Warner Centre but which wasn’t in my size.  Thoughtful staff called the 5th Avenue store and set one aside for me so we were there at opening time to give it a try.  I guess the outcome is clear from the photograph!

This was to be a day of accomplishing several missions, the next one being the HBO shop to buy a T shirt for our Game of Thrones fan.  “My Mind is my Weapon” seemed a pertinent logo to choose.

Across the avenue to Kinokuniya, in search of a particular pen, I had to stop and peruse the craft books where this interesting scarf/shawl/cowl caught my eye.  Nice!

One last mission – seam binding (don’t ask!)  Following the advice of a customer in the first shop I called in, we headed for Pacific Trimming.  Oh. My. Goodness.

Do you need a zip?  Look no further!

Of course, there’s always the other wall too…

I got my seam binding, no problem.  Super cheap, too.  Yes, you’ll see it here on my blog in due course, I’m sure.

So, all missions accomplished, we had a couple of hours to have some fun.  First, the bus to the Guggenheim, because we’d heard about an exhibition of Japanese art from Aaron last night.

Actually, the art didn’t do a great deal for us (and to be fair, thinking back, Aaron didn’t actually say that it had done a great deal for him, either!) but the building itself is a star and these plastic bags of liquid suspended in the atrium were quite fun.

Though my hero didn’t think the yellow liquid worked as well as the others.  I have no idea why ;-)

Our very last stop was Grand Central Station, where there was a small exhibition in the Transit Museum.

Unclaimed items of lost property had been collected and documented over the years and displayed here in an altogether charming and sweetly nostalgic way.

“Baby arrived just in time to support Roosevelt” announces the telegram addressed to Grandfather and Grandmother Byrne.

I am always fascinated by the platform entrances here, so different from a British station and so enclosed, it’s possible to visit the station and never see an actual train!

The poster marking the Centennial Celebrations said it all.

The photograph I took as we walked back up the street to our hotel captured two all time favourites there in one shot. 

Very grand, indeed.

We collected our bags from the hotel and headed off to the airport.  What a great weekend we had!

Still in New York

Well, no, not really.  I have to go to work today, but looking through my photos I found I still have a few to share.

Don’t you love the effect of the sunlight on the building opposite our hotel room window, seen through the white cotton blind?  I do!

Then of course, if I’m at 14th St station on the subway, I’ve got to take a photo (or few) of Life Underground

Fortunately, since we had Metrocards, we didn’t have to squeeze under the barrier!

In Williamsburg, there was this handy chair placed thoughtfully on a streetcorner.  Curious, n’est-ce pas?

Of course, the late afternoon/early evening view from there was terrific.

(wait till you see the night time shot)

The Divers

One of the reasons we went to New York on this particular weekend was to go to a concert.  Yes, our all time favourite piece of Raff, the Piano Quintet, was on the programme being performed by the Jupiter Players on Monday afternoon and we wanted to hear it very much indeed.

 

These divers – a photograph of which prompted Mary’s comment the other day – are an installation on the wall of Rosa Mexicana’s restaurant opposite the Lincoln Center, where we enjoyed margaritas after the concert.  Water is running down the tiled wall and the small (5” wide, approx) figures represent the cliff divers of wherever it is in Mexico that the young men dive.  Jordi alerted me to take a closer look at them, for though they appear to be identical on first glance, there are some individuals amongst them.

The light on the running water makes them especially interesting and they are a great talking point.

The margaritas are good, too!

Stories for telling

We had such a great time on Monday evening and got in so late, there was no chance of recounting every last detail of the day.  Well, really, I’m not sure you’d want to read all of that anyway…believe me, some aspects have already been told at least once too many!

For me, the day started in a less than optimal way.  On Sunday afternoon, we’d found ourselves in Michaels and even though I had nothing on my list, I managed to find one or two small things as usual.  The place was frustratingly full of people, mooching around and generally getting in our way, so by the time we reached the cash registers, Jordi and I had had quite enough.  (Meanwhile, my our hero was sitting at the store Managers desk, chatting and making himself quite at home)

We were chatting too – to each other about the MaryJane sweets we found by the registers and just had to buy for the wrappers alone, to the sales clerk about the things we’d bought and about the tiresome number of customers who were in the store on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Hadn’t they got anything better to do?!  We picked up our bag of shopping and off we went.

Except, on Monday morning, when I opened the Michaels bag to examine my purchases, the two main things I’d bought weren’t there!  Oh no!

Perhaps they’d been put in Jordi’s bag by mistake?

Sadly not.  Jordi had already texted to say she’d eaten all her MaryJanes and would surely have said that she’d found unexpected items in her bag, in any case.  No, she hadn’t got anything extra in her bag.

I blamed myself.  After all, I ought to have been paying attention when I was paying for the things.  I should have carried my own bag and not left my hero to schlep my shopping around for me – because then, I might have spotted that the two main things weren’t there. Above all, I should stop talking and concentrate on what I am doing.

There.  Having given myself a good talking to, I decided to move on and forget about it.  No good crying over spilt milk.

But, I can’t let things go quite that easily and spotting the phone number on the receipt along with the two items I was missing as well (proving that yes, I’d paid for them) I decided to telephone the store.  I described what was not in my bag of shopping when I returned home and before I had finished, the person on the other end of the line said “They are in our lost property, here”.

We went straight out again and caught the bus up to the store on the Upper West Side to collect them.

This note was stapled to the bag.  I interpreted it as “not your fault, Gill”.

Now, I must do something with them!