Picture Post!

10/1/09 7:51 PM

Lots of pictures to show you at the bottom!

I’m all moved in at Sally Smythe’s place, and I should be here for about a month, if everything goes well. I’m on my own computer again, and using my internet dongle thing.

More importantly, though, I am in Salisbury and can curl up in front of my computer with a cat and a plate of cheese. There is no closer place to heaven...

Today, I woke up to find Mother Ann was out at a service. Joshua and Jamie had been put in their cage so they didn’t try to ransack the kitchen, and I let them out. Jamie was fit to burst, though, desperately needing to go pee, so I snapped on their leads and took them outside. I’m such a good person. I was still in my pajama pants, though I had added a fleece to the top, and it was -7 C outside. Everything was coated in a layer of frost/snow, and it looked breathtakingly gorgeous. All the way into town, all of the craggy old trees looked shrouded in delicate white flowers, and the vines that wrapped their trunks were also were dusted over. It was a thin layer, though, so you could just get a hint of the browns and greens beneath the frost. In the distance, barely visible through the fog, you could just barely make out the silhouette of the cathedral.

Mother Ann sent me off with a big bag of food from her party last night. I had a plateful of cheese, a shopping bag full of sliced bread, a container of beef stew, a full thing of butter, a litre of apple rhubarb juice, some apples, and some desserts. Quite an impressive spread, really! I only bought a few extra things at the store, as a result, including some Bovril and some chocolate-covered digestives.

Emily—while I was out shopping, I passed a shop called “The Compleat Artist” or something like that. They had Paint by Numbers outside! I actually went in to look at them and thought of you, but I decided it wouldn’t be worth making a purchase at this point. Maybe closer to when the family comes to visit. There was a very nice oil painting by numbers of Van Gogh’s bedroom picture.

Anyway, I returned to Sally’s house and put my things away, then prowled around to take pictures for everyone. After that, I cuddled up with Gizmo, her wonderfully sweet cat, and watched TV. Nanny McPhee was on, and I’ve wanted to watch that for some time.

I saw a commercial that truly terrified me, though. It’s about a new show coming over here called: Paris Hilton’s British Best Friend. The tag line was something like “Sorry, Americans, we’ve got her now!”

You can have her! I thought, though I did have to admit, she looked better in the commercial for her new TV show than she ever did in the States.

Anyway, I have a lot of pictures to show you. Let’s start with Mother Ann’s place, shall we?

This is Joshua:


And this is Jamie. They’re all tuckered out here. Joshua wanted me to stop taking pictures and get back to cuddling him.

This is my room at Mother Ann’s house, from a variety of angles. I still haven’t figured out why British people have sinks in their bedrooms, but it’s awfully convenient.





My view out the window this morning. Lovely frost in a lovely valley!



Salisbury Cathedral font and angel heads. Look how flat the water is!



Michael:

Michael and Uriel:


Here’s the mossy grave I told you about the other day.


This is a sign from the Salisbury Market Square. I thought it was amusing.


And here’s a tour of Sally’s house:
Start at the front door and look down the hall. She’s got one of these long and narrow British houses.

The sitting room is the first on the left


Gizmo!

Connected to the sitting room is the dining room, but it’s cut off by a screen, so we go into the hall and down to the next door on the left to enter. On the right, we can see a view of the garden. The dining room is actually the computer room now. This is where mine is set up.



Further down the hall we can see into the kitchen, and past the kitchen is a mudroom area and out into the garden.



Retracing our steps, if we go up the stairs, my room is immediately in front of us. I have a TV with a VCR, but nothing to watch on it.



Lovely view out my window, don’t you think?

Next to my bedroom is a bathroom. You can’t tell from this picture, but the ceiling is bright red.

And then further down the hall. Sally’s room is straight down there, and her daughter’s room is to the right (daughter doesn’t live here anymore, just comes to visit). Her friend’s son, Christopher, sometimes stays overnight here, so his room is up the stairs. I don’t plan to use those rooms, though, so no pictures.

Oh, I forgot, there is another bathroom hidden on the ground floor, but that’s the one Sally uses, so I’ll be using the upstairs one most of the time.