Birthday parties and muggy weather

Austin's birthday is the 29th July but we had his party on Sunday. Yoon-Mi and I made all the food and got everything ready in the morning for the guests to arrive at 1:00. Had lots of lovely food and I think it looked good.What we hadn't taken into account was the weather. It was the hottest day this year( I think) at 30 degrees it was so muggy and humid, I have forgotten how to deal with this sort of weather, Cape Town gets very hot but not humid. The birthday cake was fantastic, can you believe a 3 layer 8" square chocolate cake with that fantastic icing only cost £16. Truly amazing. Of course we still have cake in the fridge because it turned out to be far bigger than we thought.
The weather stayed dreadful on Monday. I managed to find an optician to fix my glasses after I broke the one piece off on Saturday. Thank goodness it only took him a few minutes to fix them, I had visions of fumbling my way home and not being able to sew any bears because I am seriously short sighted. Definitely need to get another pair as a back-up, you don't realise how you rely on your eyes until you can't see anything.
There was supposed to be serious thunder storms last night to relieve the pressure and cool this weather down but it didn't come too much. Another small thing I miss is the huge storms that clean everything up and keep it cooler, and in Cape Town it gets cooler at night no matter how hot it was during the day.
Will have some new bears to put on the web page at the end of the week and Wendy is working on a totally new pattern for eBay.

Just a short note. I have just put a new little boy bear called Wyatt on ebay. He is 3 1/2" tall and looks very cute in his coloured scarf.

I have been missing Wendy's beautiful garden. I have a black thumb (I think Wendy used to dread having to leave me in charge of her plants but they did manage to survive) but regardless of this I want a bit of greenery around me and the little balcony is the perfect place...
I thought to start off simple, a couple of herbs that can be used in cooking as well as looking nice. Off I went and brought a mint and a coriander plant, we put them on the kitchen window sill as a start. Yoon-Mi being the tiny Korean girl that she is, got cold so wanted to close the window, the plants got moved onto the bedroom window sill for the night (old sash window with wide sill). This window looks into a central light well down to the basement, all the flats windows get light from here but lower down the windows don't open. A big wind comes along that night and as would happen the poor mint plant fell to its doom, so unless someone abseils down to fetch it (and I cant get any volunteers) we can forget about that plant.

Decide to move the lonely coriander to the balcony for safety. Next morning wake up and it has been attached, just stalks left! You can start to see the picture about me and plants.
Next night lay in wait and see a rat happy munching on the few stalks. Austin thinks this is most amusing and says we now have curried rat.

Undeterred off I go to the nursery and come home with a pretty pink flowered plant, only to have Wendy laugh hysterically, as what have I brought, but an import like me. Nemesia is a hardy South African perennial but the good news is that I most probably can't kill it. The rat doesn't like it and has now taken to digging for coriander roots.
With it looking a bit sad out there, on Sunday Yoon-Mi and I head out to the Columbia Road Flower Market while Austin is at army training. She is not quite sure how to get there so we get out at Moorgate St and end up walking for 1/2 hour, wasn't bad because we went through Spitalfields Market and really had a nice time looking around. When we get there I was overwhelmed, a whole street full of plants and at give away prices (wish Wendy could be here). We brought a fuchsia in a hanging basket, a 1m high flowering plant, some lavender, rosemary and a small ivy all for only £16. But did we think how we were going to get it all home? Oh no, why worry about minor details.
It was an interesting journey, the walk back was bad enough but taking the plants on the underground was bizarre. Had a lot of strange looks but also a lot of smiles, we were totally exhausted after that, especially after I had a proper look on the map and found a much quicker way to get there. Next time definitely check the destination before you head off and take someone to be pack-horse.
Two days on and they are looking good, the balcony looks a bit better and poor rat has now given up even digging for roots, luckily none of the new plants seem to be to his taste.

Found this picture on my digital camera, I think I must have taken it a couple of days before I left. My beautiful Leila kitty. I miss my furry children so much, hopefully it wont be long before I see them again.
The next picture is of the sky last night as it got dark. I miss seeing the vibrancy of an African sunset but this is just as beautiful in a totally different way.

Hello and yes I am alive. Cheers and celebration, I am Internet enabled and my computer is all set up. Boy do you feel isolated from the world when you are not online. So much has happened and I cant believe it but I have been here a month and don't really have much to show for it.
My life is almost sorted out, we have telephone and Internet and you know you live somewhere when you start paying council tax :-)
This is a photo of the front of the flat from the street, we are above Snappy Snaps on the second floor, the open window is a good way to see our floor. Beautiful old building and luckily all the rooms still have the old high ceilings.This is the view from the back of the flat, my bedroom has the fire escape from it but the advantage is we have a little balcony.
Here is the little balcony. Not the best photo but it is just a bit boring out there at the moment.

This is the view from the front, standing in the lounge looking down onto Finchley Rd. Rather noisy in the day when the windows are open but really nice and quite at night. Don't you love the quintessential English street with the red London double decker bus.
I am literally 10 minute walk away from Hampstead Heath in one direction and this park Golders Hill Park is down the road behind the flat. I try and go for a walk there everyday. The weather is just perfect at the moment, for me anyway, I don't like hot weather so the mild summer is just perfect.
Lots of pictures of the park. Really lovely place to live and I think if you have to live in London, up north is the place to be, of course we could never afford to buy a house here but is not important at the moment.
Yoon-Mi's friend was having a photo exhibition for his collage course so we went to have a look. Got out at Waterloo station and walked to the Oxo Tower , spent a lot longer looking around and talking than we realised (it gets dark here at about 9:30 pm - not a problem when you are used to it but coming from winter in Cape Town I am still completely confused) so when we walked back to the station it was getting dark but what a magnificent time to take a photo of the London Eye. This is when it hits home that I live in London now.
As I am sitting writing this I look out of my door into the street below. I can have the door open, there are no burglar guards on the windows and it is completely safe. I don't think I will ever leave behind the paranoia and fear that you live with in SA but I think you start to relax just a little bit.