Wandering around Wales-Llangollen

After submitting two massive essays, I fled from Leeds to enjoy more of the English countryside. Taking a break from most academic work as well as my blog. I drove with Tim down to Chester and after mentally resting for a few days we went on a lovely walk around a tiny place in Wales called Llangollen. It is strange to see Welsh written everywhere, and I tried this treat called a Welsh cake that was delicious! We had good luck with the weather and walked along the canal periodically stopping to watch the ducks dip in the water. I love it when they do that completely upside down thing, it is just hilarious. We managed to walk over to a really lovely Abbey, Valle Crucis Abbey founded in 1201. I am amazed at the way in which the United Kingdom is littered with historic old sites. They are so saturated with these beautiful old sites, that this Abbey is actually bordered by quite a large trailer park. Which is kind of amusing to me. Old beautiful ruins, trailer park, sheep, did I mention a few rope swings as well? Yup. All in a days walk.

My mother is a Christmas cookie genius

This is the reason for the season. Every year my mom whips up some of the most tasty cookies for the holiday season. As I was snowed into my parents house for the first week of my holiday break, I had plenty of time to sample the festive Christmas goodies... YUM!!! The cookies that you do not see featured on this plate are called Peanut Butter Kisses... they are my favorite; which may explain why... by the time I got around to taking this photo... they were gone :o) But I have included the recipe following for anyone who feels adventurous. They are not the healthiest item on which to nibble... but hey! It is Christmas!

Peanut butter kiss cookies

1 c. butter
2/3 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. granular sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 2/3 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
16 oz. pkg. chocolate kiss candy

Combine butter, peanut butter and sugars; blend until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; blend. Mix flour, salt and soda, add to cream mixture; stir well. Roll dough into quarter size balls. Roll ball in bowl of sugar. Bake dough at 350 degrees for 8 minutes, take out, place chocolate kiss in center of each cookie. Bake an additional 2 minutes.

These Cats are on the Naughty List.

These are my mom's cats: Thelma in the back, and Louise in the front. As the title of this blog entry may suggest, they are on the naughty list. The teacher in me wants to say that they are not bad cats, but it is their actions which are of a deviant nature... but I am not entirely convinced that this is true... I can handle them unplugging the Christmas tree once, but everyday? Multiple times a day?? Christmas lights on... off... on.... off... there must be a solution to this. I foolishly left the ear buds for my Zune sitting on the bed, and when I returned they had detached the left ear bud in what I can only imagine to be rambunctious playtime... however, the following day I returned to find the other ear bud mangled from its source... I can only conclude foul play... also carelessness on my part.

The picture above was taken after I had left to make a cup of tea... which takes so much longer at my parents' house because they do not have an electric kettle... To say that these cats are needy is a bit of an understatement, especially Louise. She will actually run up onto the back of a chair and try to jump into your arms so you will pet her. Quite cute actually.

Please don't misunderstand me, I love cats. I have a kitty cat blanket that my grandmother made me when I was a child, I was a black cat on Halloween for a decade of my childhood, not to mention the blue ribbon (okay now I am just bragging) as I was saying... the first place blue winner mcwinnerson ribbon I won all by myself in kindergarten for drawing 100 cats in the district wide art competition. (In storage in my parents front closet, viewings available upon request.)

I guess the moral of the story is that whilst the cats are indeed a bit mischievous and troublesome, I have enjoyed their company in my mornings of jet lag since returning to Washington State... we are on the same schedule. 5am! time to wake up! I can take a little bit of their penchant for trouble (as long as I hide my electronics!!) if it means I have a friend with whom to snuggle next to the fire during the winter storms. :o)

breaking news..... Okay a little amendment to this blog entry. Louise (the primarily white cat) just came sprinting into the living room as if her tail was on fire, obviously startled by the Starbucks bag she had managed to fall into and get the handle caught around her neck... oh man. I wish I had taken a video. The cat is fine, startled but fine, and my mom and I could not stop laughing. Of course there are now Starbucks gifts all over the house, and Louise was wearing the paper bag handle like a necklace, but my sides hurt from laughing... so I would say I got the good end of the deal.

I'll be home for Christmas...

Just after Thanksgiving this year, I decided to fly to Washington State to visit my friends and family in the greater Seattle area for the holidays. It was quite an adventure, I chose to keep my homecoming a secret surprise from my mom as well as from my housemate for two years and friend, Tracey. I do love giving a good surprise! I flew in on Thursday, and not a day too soon! Turns out that Thursday night the northwest was hit with the worst snow storm in at least a decade! People are stranded at the airport unable to get connecting flights out, or in... I had an unusually large amount of good travel karma for my trip... I think maybe stored up from all the bad luck I've had with trains for the past few months... Not only did I score a direct flight on British Airways, but it was fully booked and I was bumped up to business class :o) free wine! better food! It was one of the more enjoyable flights of my travels thus far.

Coming home I had my dad go in first then knocked on the door and my mom almost choked on her broccoli as she came to the door to give me a hug and trilled repeatedly: "Rachey's home!" Was great fun surprising her. :o) I've decided to include a little photo I took in the height of all the excitement as she called people to tell her that I had returned for the holidays. ha ha ha.


It is lovely being with my parents for the holidays. I arrived amidst the flurry of snowy weather, but also amidst the flurry of Christmas cookie preparation... one of my favorite bits of Christmas is the over abundance of cookies made especially by family... especially by my madre. As any one of my longtime friends will attest, my mom really has the magical touch when it comes to baking. I think it is because her recipes include love. Yup. that's right... LOVE...


Friday I was off to surprise Tracey. I arrived at the Tacoma house and it was really strange how normal it was to sit and chat with Mike on his lunch break, as if I hadn't been gone for months. Eventually I cozied up in Tracey's bed and waited for her to arrive home from cross country skiing. When we finally heard her come through the front door I put the blankets over my head and waited for her to walk into her bedroom where she thought someone had been taking a nap in her bed until I popped up and said, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" She proceeded to tackle me witha big hug and hit me on the back saying, "What are you doing here!?!" "You are suppose to be in England?!?!" "How are you here!?!" And though I will be a little bruised on my back... it was so worth it; I'll never forget her face!

All in all not a bad start to a holiday. I think it really set the right tone of celebration for me. I have no gifts to bring but tea and some jaffa cakes, and the real present for me is being here with people that I love, an added bonus is the realization that being present with the people you love is a gift you can enjoy anytime you come together... anytime of year... Merry Christmas!

Chester

After finishing course work (excepting essays) for the term, and before going home for the holidays, I took a little trip to the historic town of Chester! What a great little mini-break! I adore Chester, the city is fantastic, retains a small town feel whilst having all the pubs and shops for which one could hope. I also really enjoy the fact that Chester is also the name of my brother's pet bunny, so when I often think of my brother :o) This first picture is me under Eastgate clock. I am told it is one of the most photographed clocks in England. I can see why, it is really lovely. One thing you can't sense from this picture, however, is the smell of the donuts shop that is directly to the right under the bridge. All good sense tells me I should abhor the smell of fried dough covered in sugar, but for some reason in that moment it completed the clock experience.... and made me hungry...

View from the bridge. Chester is unique because it has the remains of a the Roman wall that still surrounds most of the city and all these lovely Tudor style buildings that those crazy Victorians saw fit to build. I think the Christmas lights are fairly modern.

I went to my first proper tea shop whilst in Chester. It was great! Tim and I ordered tea for two and then I wavered between the Victorian sponge cake and crumpets. In the end, after having the proprietor of the tea shop explain to me the different types of cakes, I went for the Victorian. I am practicing my British smile in this picture :o)Friday night, Tim and I went to this really awesome celebration on the waterfront in Chester. I think they called it some sort of wish festival and involved ambient hippie music and ethereal paper lanterns that they then ceremoniously released into the water, glowing as they floated past the crowds. the lanterns and paper shapes were floating from the trees and all around, it was beautiful. There was one point that defies description, but I will try my best by saying it involved large electronic swans the size of small boats and there was a person on the back of each of these swans doing an interpretive dance. Yup. I think that sums it up. Then there were the fireworks... best display I have seen in quite sometime! I very much enjoy Chester.

The One Where Rachel Actually Becomes a Superhero...

end of term already??

That's right folks! It is time for the illustrious first term of my graduate school experience to come to a close... hence the lack of blogging for the past few weeks... been a little more than preoccupied with some reading and writing and criticizing. (I know what you are thinking, oh Rachel! You read and write now too!? Leeds must be a great University... it is).

This entry may be ever so disjointed as I intend to use it as a little mental vacation from my work that I am doing at the moment and may return to... any second... but you will not know because I will publish these various episodes of distraction in one lucid and shockingly fluid post reflecting upon my university experience this year. Yes, that's right. LUCID. Besides, I know how annoying it can be to regularly check someone's blog and see the same post remain for weeks on end... How am I meant to properly procrastinate by reading about my sister and bro-in-law's adventures if they do not move on from their experience with 'Judy the Travel Nurse'. Am I meant to get actual work accomplished for my courses? I mean, really. When I am most busy is when I find time to write and read about everything not related to the task at hand (hence current blogging).

Back to life as an EnglishpostgraduatestudyingattheUniversityofLeeds...I would like to draw your attention to the last sentence in the preceding paragraph. Please note that the period/full-stop is placed outside of the parenthesis as according to MHRA style guide. This rule also applies if I were to tell you, 'How much my very nature revolts against putting the period outside of a quotation, especially when using the single quote'. Yet there we are, and here I am in England and oceans away from MLA. It is not all fun and punctuation here in England, but will save that for the next blog... holidays are just around the corner...hooray! Last bit of that line was written after I finished my unassessed essays... :o)

okay back to the books. :o)