The News Part Dos

Here it comes...

The News Part Dos:
With the crocuses and daffodils popping out and the occasional drop of snow or hail (happened just a few weeks ago, believe it or not), spring has finally come to Leeds.

We've been doing a lot more exploring lately. Here’s a short tour diary with pictures.

I don’t remember when it was, but sometime in the last few months we went to check out the Bronte sisters’ house. Here's our favorite Ian checking out the Old Apothecary across the street from the Bronte Parsonage.

In March we went to Halifax for an artists’ book fair with our friend, Jo. We stopped in the little English town of Hebden Bridge for some tea and homemade scones with jam and cream.

Later in March we took a short trip to Liverpool for our anniversary. Just as we got off the bus and into the city, I saw a city bus marked "Penny Lane" in the destination slot. Wish I had had my camera out! Anyway, we paid respects to John, Paul, George, and Ringo by visiting a few Beatles sites including The Cavern Club where The Fab Four used to play back in the day. Fabulous. We also checked out some museums, stayed in a fancy hotel, and had a fantastic anniversary dinner. The only thing that wasn’t fantastic was that I caught what I was sure was the bird flu, and then I gave it to Ian! Nice anniversary present, huh? Both of us ended up calling off work and spent most of the next week cuddled up at home with the tissue box. Anyway, despite minor health issues, we had a great weekend seeing Liverpool, watching TV in our hotel room (we don't have a TV), and reminicing about the past year.

We had some time off this past week for Easter so we rounded up some friends and headed to Yorkshire Sculpture Park for the day to hike around. We forgot the camera, unfortunately!

Next stop… in a few weeks we are headed to Italy to experience Rome and Venice, stroke our chins at some great art, and eat lots of good food!

In other news, Ian has now made it to number 29. Last year in Okinawa we looked forward to taking advantage of things in the UK that we didn’t really have access to there, so we celebrated by going to the symphony and using our oven. We had a fun time trying to be gourmet for his birthday meal – I planned a menu that included New Zealand roast lamb (Ian supervised and it turned out fantastic) and a Pavlova (I made by myself when Ian wasn’t home and it flopped!). Oh well, at least it tasted ok. Last year I tried to make Ian a birthday cake in our little Japanese microwave-pretending-to-be-an-oven, and it came out with a big chunk missing, so I’m hoping that next year will be the year when I’ll be able to pull off a good cake. I’m learning!

More news later…

I am the walrus,

Kristy