Finally returning to the wee blog after some years. So much has happened since I posted last:
- We moved to a new country and now live in London. That was terrifying.
- Went to grad school and got my masters in Historic Preservation because I love
never making moneyhistory, historic spaces and their stories. - The pandemic hit just after we arrived in the UK, and we've been in lockdowns until recently.
Two years in a new country during a pandemic have like swimming through amber, like I've been stuck in idle. We've been lucky, though we did catch Covid when we first moved into our flat. Mr Pants lost his sense of taste and smell for about 10 days, (during which all of my cooking was fantastic and amazing, I tell him). His sense of smell is still a bit off— roses smell like meat stew and citrus is very strange. Have to try Szechuan peppercorn therapy.
Traffic was quiet under lockdown, enabling me to recognize the sound of green ring-necked parakeets, magpies, blackbirds, goldcrests and foxes, who make those hair-raising sounds in the middle of the night.
We ventured out of the UK when allowed, making it to New York to see two fantastic humans get married, to Paris to visit la famille de Monsieur Pantalons, and to Prague and Portugal to see friends. Rye, Bath, Cambridge, languid punting in Canterbury and gorgeous, windswept Dartmoor with good Seattle friends, were also UK highlights. Not bad considering these plague years.
With restrictions lifted, we pass glowing pubs with their etched glass and gleaming wood paneling and crowds laughing merrily into each others faces, still worried about covid but missing our old life of dining out as entertainment. Still a tad uneasy in restaurants, every nearby sneeze and cough makes us sink our heads into our shoulders and wince, but we miss our old life of dining out as entertainment.
Lockdowns and covid have mostly kept us from dining out in high-density London. So stay tuned for thrilling posts such as Best Lockdown Sammiches to Eat in Rainy Parks, Best Restaurant Delivery in Islington, and An Ode to Beloved Seattle Restaurants. Not food related, but also stay tuned for the Cats of Islington, because we needed therapy pelts during the pandemic's darkest days. Returning to restaurant posts shortly as we've been getting out more!
This blog seems trivial in light of climate change, sociopaths invading other countries, horrific mass shootings, and American policies that violate human rights. Still, people need to eat and life must go on. Sending love to you all three of you, reading this.
Highlights: London! Whaaaaat. Sammiches on park benches. Green parakeets, cats, foxes. Medieval, Georgian and Victorian architecture. Big red buses. Strange word spellings. All the global food!
Disappointments: Plague. Not knowing what it's like to live here without the pandemic. War in Europe. Difficulty finding gainful employment in pandemic times.
Mr. Pants: Loving London, loving his very challenging job, and still making bread almost every week.
