Well, last night I stayed up and watched the Superbowl. Stayed up as in it didn’t start until 11:35pm UK time. My initial plan was to stay up until somebody scored, but the game was so good, and so close, that I stayed up for the whole thing. Halftime show was disappointing IMHO but, like I said, what a great game! I have been rooting for the Patriots in the past since Tom Brady is from my hometown, but, since I live near Philly, and they were such underdogs, and the quarterback was the back-up quarterback, I just had to root for them.
Anyway, the past week or so has been very busy, which is why I haven’t written much. Every morning we get up, have some brekkie, and then clean out the horse’s stalls, give them breakfast, and turn them out to pasture. I’ve become quite adept at mucking the stalls, and actually enjoy it! Kind of instant gratification.
Here are some action shots:
These are of me rolling a full wheelbarrow to the compost pile. Three horses, three wheelbarrow loads in the morning. The end shot is of me standing on top of the pile with a pitchfork – I was trying to get the pile size down by stomping on it, to make it easier to add more on it later. Thankfully Anthea lent me Wellies so I wasn’t wearing my own shoes!
This week we also went to Bath.
Kenn meeting the Chocolate Lady
Kenn with our waiter Valerio at lunch – Jamie Oliver’s Italian. Valerio seemed pretty stoked to pose, and all of his co-workers were excited about it as well!
The Cathedral in Bath, which is a …
National Heritage Site – indicated by this symbol.
Iceland – purveyor of frozen food. Some are Iceland brand, and then some are like Birds Eye frozen peas, etc.
River Avon flowing thru Bath
We also had a fine meal at The Red Lion, about 15 minutes from the house. I had a pithivier!
And another day I had fish and chips, with tartar sauce and mushy peas, for lunch.
In other news, it has been interesting using the wi-fi here in Britain. For one, I cannot access American Google – only UK Google (and it DOES make a difference). Same with Amazon. And I can’t stream videos on my Kindle because of “geography issues,” although I could download a book just fine. And I am very pleased with the charger-converter I got – so far, so good!
And I tried to log onto the site to check out my Discover card stuff – they said they sent me a security code via email, but I never got the email. I can’t “chat” with them to clear up the issue, without entering the security code. So, my only recourse is to call them, which will cost me extra $ due to the plan I got for my cell phone. It’s not anything immediate that I need, so I’ll just wait, but it’s annoying. I paid my MasterCard bill without a hitch.
I needed to get some extra cash today, and luckily I set up a PIN for one of my credit cards before I left. Tried it out today and it worked like a champ. Whew!
Anyway, I’m leaving for Norway tomorrow. I’ll be in Oslo tomorrow night, then am flying to Kirkenes the following morning. We’ll be dog sledging that afternoon, then spending the night in Kirkenes. Hoping to hit the bar in the Ice Hotel for a drink, and maybe something to eat. The next day we board our Hurtigruten ship, the Nordnorge. I checked out the webcam on it today – pretty cool! I should have wi-fi on the boat so will try to keep you updated. I do have some stuff to still catch up on for England, but, it may be a while. After all, I’m on this trip to experience things, not just write in my blog all the time. Right?
Keep warm people! For me, it will be 7oF in Oslo tomorrow!