Tuesday 31 January 2012

Come fly with me..

You know the Orphan Annie song about tomorrow being a day away? Well that’s rather how I feel about WIs. I am always hopeful that the next one will bring me a side order of joy alongside a respectable loss. If you recall, I was hoping for it this week. But my sneaky side looks at SoD say I’m doomed to disappointment (I have unofficial WIs on Friday and Monday as well as the pukka version on a Wednesday). I’ll keep you posted.

It was rather a dreary weekend. I had to work (albeit from home) on Saturday and on Sunday we just walked the 2.5 miles to the supermarket and back. We have almost completed our photobook of our trip to the US though – just the captions to go. And this was quite a feat as it was whittling down 1000+ photos to an 88 page book.

But the highlight of the weekend was sketching out a rough idea for our honeymoon. Now, we’ve decided that although we’re getting married in November, we’re going to wait to do our honeymoon in May 2013. Otherwise we’re pretty much limited to yawnsome (for us) holidays on an identikit beach. So we’re going away for a few days after the wedding (I am not allowed to use the word ‘minimoon’ as it causes P to spontaneously projectile vomit) – hopefully to Norway to see the Northern Lights if we can manage it. Then we’re asking for contributions to our honeymoon fund as a wedding present. This is why we need to get it sorted sooner than we might ordinarily do so. I want to set it up as a present list so people feel they’re buying X trip or dinner on Y night or similar (note to self: this really may not be possible) as I think it’s nicer. So, this is our three week plan and if anyone knows anything about any of this, all travel advice is gratefully received:

1) Boat to New York (yes, I’m thinking the cruise liner in Anything Goes http://markgoucher.com/wp-content/uploads/Anything-Goes.jpg. More realistically it will hopefully be a dollop of retro glamour though. And apparently the approach to New York is breathtaking)
2) 2-3 days in New York. Emphatically not where we stayed last time – somewhere nice. I need to learn to love New York – and it’s a source of grief that we didn’t get to Grand Central last time so we can remedy that.
3) Fly to San Francisco (presumably). Do not loiter but (not necessarily in this order)....
4) Wine region
5) Big Sur
6) Yosemite
7) Fly to Boston (presumably from San Francisco), 2- 3 days there.
8) Back home.

Doesn’t that just sound AMAZING? I’m very excited – I do hope we get to do it.

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Yes, it does sound amazing! I can offer nothing except I loved NYC when I went so you must have been staying in the wrong place!!

Also v impressed that you're nearly done with photo book. I've printed a few photos from Australia (July) and Libya (February - before the war started but not much). I like having the pictures in my hand so I should pull my finger out!

Sarah x

Love Cat said...

You and your sneaky side looks! I hope the scales were very kind to you today and the side looks were just smoke and mirrors.

Honeymoon sounds AMAZING! I would love to do a big America trip and so am super jealous.

x

Linz M said...

Honeymoon sounds totally amazing, I love New York and San Francisco and really want to do the wine region and Big Sur - most jealous!

Hope the WI went well... mine did not!

x

Call Me Ishmael said...

Fingers crossed that the official weigh-in goes well. The fight must go on, regardless, right?

Honeymoon trip sounds fantabulous. I hope you like NYC better this time around. Grand Central Station is nice and all... but don't know that it's worth a return trip just to see that! I hope there's more to lure you back here. I also heart Boston, which is quaint and adorable in its downtown area. Very colonial. It sounds like you really can't go wrong with whatever you choose -- you have mapped out some pretty top-notch places to visit. As for the Thanksgiving versus Christmas debate in New England, well...hmmm. That's a toughie. I will say that Thanksgiving tends to be a family-oriented day, it's really just one huge honking meal traditionally taken at a relatives house (as a rule of thumb, the more annoying a relative is, the more likely it will be their house that's chosen to host), and there's not too much to see from a visitor's perspective. That said, once Halloween hits, Oct. 31st, we generally get into a really anticipatory holiday run-up, so the excitement starts to build all through November and it is a pretty festive time -- and the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, is a shopping frenzy as most of us have an extended weekend off. If you are in NYC of course there's tons of activity (parades, etc). It won't be so spectacular in New England -- but since that day starts the official countdown to Christmas, you'll see all the holiday lights and decorations go up right after thanksgiving, and then things get very pretty and festive indeed. I think you'll have fun anywhere in that season, honestly. I would say it can be hard to find somewhere to eat on Thanksgiving Day -- I think more restaurants shut down on that holiday than Christmas even!

Now then, moving on to important literary discussions, I would like to propose to you that you read (if you have not already), A Discovery of Witches. It's set in Oxford, breaks new ground in terms of supernatural stuff, and has a well-written mix of modern/historic references that make it pretty entertaining. If you don't mind a vampire hero who likes yoga, that is. But don't worry -- Matthew the vampire has been around since the days of Clovis, so he's more old-school than New Age, and plenty smoldering for an undead.

I also read the PD James detective story and you are right to avoid it. For a real love of Austen, it will only be a let down. She did a good job, PD James I mean, in re-creating Austen's characters and a bit of that world, but she's not really interested in Lizzie and Darcy -- she doesn't bring you into their inner world the way Austen did, and make you see them and care about them. They are really just the setting to PD's mystery. Yet it was entertaining to see and hear the Pemberley world as it might have been five years into Lizzie and Darcy's marriage, and PD was clever at inserting other Austen characters into the mystery in small ways -- there are references to an Emma character and the Eliots (the father and mean older daughter) from Persuasion, and so on. However, I could see that being a real travesty for a true-blue Austen fan -- too many worlds colliding, as it were. Good luck on the scale, Peridot!