Not too jaded

1977

Our wedding! Bradford, UK, at dear pals Liz and Alan's house.

David and I just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary.... Jade. Did I buy or receive a jade gift? No. But we DID treat ourselves to the most beautiful painting by Flora Bowley with several jade green tones in it called, rather appropriately for the occasion, Rise Together.

Her paintings are beautiful, layers and layers of colour and pattern, bold images, unfortunately my photographs don't do them justice!

2 more of Flora's paintings in our house in Reston 

It's a bit of a shock to find ourselves still around, so many years later. How did it happen?! But, considering the alternatives, very grateful. And, as I suggested to David..... we could potentially have another 35 years to go yet! (at this point we both groaned in perfect unison)

Here we are now, still surviving, all grown up. Inside we don't feel as changed as we look. but where did all that hair go?!

Jolly Gourd Show

Hurricane Sandy swept through our area at the end of October and although we were spared any of the terrible effects NJ and NY suffered, it did put a swift end to Fall. A lot of trees went from beautiful to bald overnight and the temperatures suddenly dropped to wintery levels. I'd been procrastinating over posting the inevitable farm market, pumpkin pictures and now they have quite a tinge of nostalgia.

 In September I went to the Greenmarket at Union Square, NY, and took way too many pictures. Pumpkins look the same anywhere. It reminded me of my school trip to Paris, age 11 back in the '60s. The first place we visited was the zoo and I used up both the films for my Brownie 127 camera on pictures of animals! Came home with no record at all of the Eiffel Tower of the Arc de Triomphe.

 Farmers come from Long Island, upstate NY and New Jersey three times a week and set up as wonderful an organic farm market as you'd find anywhere.

 See the bees on the bear's nose, smeared with honey.... brilliant way to stop them from harassing the customers!

Found that picture a little confusing! But it's good to know you can buy duck if that's what you fancy.

Town and country. This was a wonderful organic bread stall, wished I wasn't living in a hotel!

It was really crowded and bustling with people shopping in the sunshine, lots of children, people on their lunch breaks from work, a few tourists like me.  New York is a very livable city.

After this wonderful trip it was back home to the N Virginia suburbs where the pumpkins lie in fields, even if they've just been placed there for effect....

This all feels a bit more authentic but I miss the cars, the skyscrapers and all that noise!

4 More Years!

After living here for 25 years, we finally took citizenship and could vote in this election. It was easy, a short walk from home and a 35 minute wait. There was an option to vote electronically or to fill in a paper ballot which you took to be scanned and and could see was counted immediately. We did that. I can't see why anyone thinks the electronic method is better? No paper record as back up if there's a dispute? I don't get it.
What I did get was this sticker. I've given many stickers out to children when I was an art teacher but I don't think I've been on the receiving end before. I felt really happy!

Then we went home and had a little patriotic red, white and blue celebration before David went back to work. Champagne would have been preferable but the Yorkshire tea sums it all up nicely!

Village In The City

I'm in NY for 2 weeks, neighborhood shopping for a potential move here next year. We usually stay within walking distance of David's office, which plants us firmly in the heart of all the touristy areas between Central Park and Times Square. It's fun but it's not exactly real life. So this time we headed downtown for the first week and stayed in Soho just outside the West Village. He experimented with a daily subway commute (which he still reverts to calling the Tube half the time) and I spent the days wandering around imagining being here permanently. I should be so lucky!

These roads of beautiful townhouses in the West Village used to be considered the heart of bohemia and in the 60s it was a very run down area. Now they're out of most normal people's reach financially and Bleecker St looks like an oldtown version of 5th Ave, lined with designer stores and film set locations.

While taking the photograph of the townhouses I was curious about the excitement a number of young girls were displaying over this building on the opposite corner. ("I can't believe I'm here, seeing it in real life!") Turns out it was used as the exterior shot for the apartment block in Friends.

The arch at the north side of Washington Square Park. 

We first went to Washington Square Park in '87, a few months after we moved to America from England. We visited David's cousin who was sharing a tiny studio (one room) apartment in the Village with a friend. It was so tiny his bed was on a platform accessed by a ladder, the rents must have been exorbitant even then. Long time Velvet Underground and Dylan fans, we were excited to be in Greenwich Village but it was a bit intimidating. At that time the park was full of disreputable characters,  music and craziness and we had Chloe with us, age 5. Like Times Square it's been cleaned up and made quite safe and respectable since then. NY University has moved there, buying up several blocks of buildings around the park, so it's a major hangout for students, a popular destination for tourists and a general resting place for people with time on their hands like me.

There's still music.......

.....and there's still craziness......

.....this guy in the aluminum foil hat is giving a tarot card reading. He wouldn't allow anyone to photograph him with his special hat on but I was sitting behind him having a sandwich.

The other Dylan, Dylan Thomas, stayed in the Village several times in the 1950s as did so many of the Beat Generation writers and artists before the hippies and musicians of the 60s and 70s moved in.

 Dylan Thomas was staying at the infamous Chelsea Hotel and preparing Under Milkwood for it's first recordings and performances when he was taken ill and rushed to St Vincent's Hospital in the Village where he subsequently died. Despite notorious heavy drinking, drunkenness on stage, blackouts, a fatty liver....  pneumonia, not alcoholism, was deemed the cause of death. There was smog in the city in those days,  another thing that's been cleaned up.
You can take a Dylan Thomas walking tour of the Village looking at the houses he stayed in, the places he wrote certain poems and the pubs he drank in, or maybe do the Sex And The City walking tour showing you Carrie Bradshaw's apartment house where she wrote her articles, the bars she drank in and Magnolia Bakery. Except she wasn't real of course, I was forgetting that. One end of the cultural scale to the other and all within the same few blocks. I love America!

Hearts and minds

I need something to occupy my mind when I'm walking so I set myself a goal to find 3 hearts....

Mission accomplished!

Swapping postcards.... summer project number 2

The Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap....

..... is a 4 times a year project co-ordinated by the wonderful Beth Nicholls of Do What You Love For Life fame. She picks a theme, you enroll, you design and make a postcard, post a photograph of it on a Flickr group, then mail it to the person assigned to you.

"Why?" you might well be wondering. Just for the fun of it and the sense of community.  I really enjoyed making mine and it was an interesting exercise to put so much time and effort into something that was going to be given away to a stranger. There's an online gallery of some 300 photos of various postcard contributions from people all over the world to look through. People leave each other encouraging, admiring comments. I love that sort of stuff!

This time the theme was Discover. I made an envelope out of felt and fabric, added beads and buttons, then attached charms to the inside, to be discovered when it was opened. Then I sewed it onto a postcard and off it went. Actually I mailed it inside an envelope as it wasn't practical to send as-is.

Now I'm waiting for mine to arrive from Canada! 

The fabulous fit and the flab fighters

Lake Newport, my new gym

By the end of my recent 2 year gym membership I had gained 20 miserable lbs. There was no mystery as to why.... .. A/ I had not actually been to the gym once, not ONCE! during the whole 2 years and B / I had stuck doggedly to my preferred diet of caffeine, sugar and alcohol and it had ceased to serve me well.

Although I was now finally desperate enough to get myself to the gym I could hardly justify the cost after wasting so much money, so instead I decided to join the ranks of the Reston-ites who enthusiastically take advantage of the fact that we live in a planned community. We have 4 residential lakes to walk, jog or run around for free. In fact Robert E Simon, (who put the Res in Reston) designed this little suburban haven with our exercise needs in mind and there are miles of pretty footpaths wending their way through the communities, as well as tennis courts and so on for the ultra keen.

The people who, like me, head to the footpaths round Lake Newport every day fall into a few distinct categories. The fit and fabulous fly past in shorts, expensive footwear and tank tops, ipod headphones in place, exuding an intimidating sweaty, youthful vigor. Occasionally they can be be seen recklessly pushing sports-style baby carriages in front of them as they run, maybe with an equally athletic dog alongside, gamely keeping up the pace. They're like super-human beings from another planet compared to the rest of us.
The flab fighters slog wearily round on their worthy mission in thigh-hiding capri length sweats, surely the most unflattering garment on the market but cooler in our 100F humid summer weather than full length. (Been there, worn them) We exchange rueful smiles of mutual appreciation of each other's commitment and suffering as we pass.
After successfully shedding the offending poundage I've graduated to a kind of contented middle mode, addicted to accomplishing a brisk-ish 2 loops every morning but without the former sense of desperation. There are a few of us around, we're in it for maintenance and mental health or maybe just to walk the dog and meet the neighbors.

I'm not usually bold enough to ask people if I can photograph them but this lovely lady in her hat seemed to invite attention and sure enough, she obliged!

Lucky people live in lakeside houses. The paths weave their way around and between them

It's the heart of the suburbs ..... a mailbox may have it's own picket fence......

......  a plastic goose may guard a lamp post......

.

while some go for a more sculptural ornament .....

......and others fly the flag.

There are a lot worse places to live than Reston. Thank you Mr Simon!