You're Always Welcome Here

WMR&Me (Wally, Marie, Robin & Me) decided to try the nearest neighborhood pub, The Gardeners Arms. Inside and out it pretty much looks like 99% of all English pubs. It wasn't crowded and the patrons who were there seemed to be regulars.

Of course Robin strikes up a conversation with Frankie, the young blond woman who's with Oscar, a small King Charles Spaniel (also a regular here). And Wally, who matches Robin in the Outgoing & Friendly Department, immediately makes friends with everyone at the bar.

Oscar left before I had a chance to take his picture, but I shot this photo before the busser cleared his dinner setting.

We got detailed explanations and recommendations from the patrons for all the menu items on the blackboard, then Frankie says "You've got to meet Vinnie, he lives upstairs and he knows everything." She rushes off to the billiards room and returns with Vinny, who is super nice and hospitable. It turns out that about four people live upstairs, including Carina, the barmaid/waitress.

Wally chats with Vinny and Frankie at the Gardener Arms pub.

Carina puts in an order for us.

Before eating I chatted with Ian at the bar about football (soccer) and Rugby. The food was good, the cider (Strongbow) was great, and we're making this place our European Headquarters. Since we write a blog for Peachpit Press (The Nondesigner's Blog), I think we'll also make Gardeners Arms our Nondesigners Blog Euro Headquarters. For sure the pub should be the European Headquarters for the Mary Sidney Society (If the Board approves. Hey Board Members, if you get a chance, hop over and see what you think. Or take my word for it.)

Ian (blue shirt) anchors the right side of the bar. A very important position that requires years of experience.

While we're at it, we might even start a new organization, The Uxbridge Art Club. It will focus on graphic art, theater arts, and Shakespeare plays, sonnets, and The Authorship Question. Hopefully we'll hold the first board meeting there in the next few days.

Speaking of art, I made a crude napkin drawing in the pub to continue the napkin art theme I started on this trip. Carina said she would post it on the wall, but instead, I think I'm going to take a sketch book with me from now on and sketch something (no matter how crude or badly drawn) on each visit.

Ye olde pub napkin sketch. The drawing isn't very good, but not tooo bad considering the cider glasses are empty.

As we were leaving, everyone said goodbye, including a couple of people at the bar we hadn't met yet. As we said goodnight, Ian said "You're always welcome here."

I was afraid of this...

Sorry for the incomplete article that was posted a day or two ago. I was blogging from a phone app and did something wrong, then lost my connection, then... well, as they say here, things got a bit twitchy.

So I've repaired the twitchy stuff.

We've been here in London barely 8 hours and I've already got more stuff on my "gotta-do" list than I can do this week.
That's partly because we met Maria, one half of our flat-mates. She and her husband Wally (one of Robin's students, and also the other half of our flat mates) organize tours of London from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Note to self: Make reservations to see Jerusalem, starring Tony-Award-winning Mark Rylance (also head of the Shakespeare Authorship Trust and former Creative Director/actor at The Globe Theatre). Mark is getting rave reviews and Wally says the performance is amazing.

Since I'm currently using a computer in the lock & key graduate student section on the third floor of the Brunel library, I can't upload photos, but I'll do that later.

Last night we (Wally, Marie, Robin & Me) made the ten minute walk to the nearest neighborhood pub, The Gardeners Arms. Not sure where the name comes from, but there does happen to be a community garden about a block down the street.

This pub is fabulous. But that's another blog, with photos.

Arty Airways

Wow, who knew Continental Airlines provides art supplies on the Albuquerque to Houston flight.

Can't wait for the live nude models on the Houston to Heathrow flight. What?!

Countdown to London

For a couple more days I'll be wrapping up deadlines, packing a few clothes and lots of digital devices, along with device chargers, adapters, cameras, loading essential software onto a laptop and posting a few test entries to jtchatter.posterous.com and jtchatter.blogspot.com.

For the next three months we (Robin & me) will be blogging from London and who knows where else. Certainly we'll report from various Apple Stores in London and beyond. Also expect reports from pubs, museums, tube stops, pubs, theaters, ferris wheels, universities, and, possibly, pubs.

Testing, testing. One two.

Blog Pre-Alert!

Almost time to dust off the jtchatter blog again and prepare for another London trip in Janu ary.

At the moment I'm on a Southwest Airlines flight halfway between Chicago and Albuquerque, pleasantly surprised to learn that the flight has Wi-Fi available.

More later. Or soon. Or whenever.

From The Sketchbook

I didn't have time to sketch as much as I planned to. It's pretty hard to sketch while shooting photos and video and running up or down Tube station stairs. At least I dusted the cobwebs off the sketchbook and tried to remember which hand to draw with.

   

Always studying.

Inception

Amazingly and surprisingly, one of the movies available on the flight from Heathrow to Houston was the fairly recent release, Inception. A reeeeealy weird mind warping movie. I didn't exactly follow 99% of it, but it was interesting -- something about being able to enter other people's dreams and implant an idea into their sub-conscious, and oh yeah (this is important) you can build anything for your dream world: houses, cities, whatever. You can create things from memories or imagination. And you can plan to have a dream within a dream, or even another level down, a dream within a dream, within a dream. Although, the deeper you go, the more unstable things are.

I mention this only because I think maybe this flight is in the middle of an Inception thingy.

Sitting in an isle seat, in the center section, there was an empty seat between me and the other isle seat of the three-seat section. A stewardess stopped by and said, there's an empty row behind you if you want more room. I thought "Great!" and moved back one row. While watching the movie I noticed that the people to the left and right of me also had a row to themselves. OK, that happens. Not too often, but not unheard of. I dozed off during the movie, but woke up (I think) in time to see the last half and the ending.

Later I got up to walk back to the lavatories, hoping they wouldn't all be occupied. That's when I realized the plane was nearly empty. Empty, at least, by any normal expectations. Other London flights I've been on were always stuffed full. I haven't been on a flight with this percentage of empty seats since flying on Southwest Airlines in the early 70s, when that airline first started flying and they were sending nearly empty flights to Austin and San Antonio several times a day.

Hey, it's a pretty nice way to wrap up a great two week visit to London with Robin.

Oops, gotta go. I think I just saw Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Little walking up the isle and now I have to figure out if they're in my dream or if I'm in theirs. We're over Nova Scotia and I've just got 4 hours and 45 minutes to figure it out. Aargh!