… your road system is ridiculously over-complicated and supremely unpleasant to navigate: twisty connecting ramps on multiple levels, exits every few yards, and the need to change lanes repeatedly in order to avoid being spun off to goodness-knows-where. And that’s not to mention the fact that everyone drives horribly. Seriously, it all makes driving in New Jersey look positively civilised.
So how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Turns out that all you actually need to do is join a choir which books it as a performance venue, then you’re all set!
New York art aficionados are currently being spoiled with two once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions of old master drawings*, as both the Met and the Morgan have shows on display. Despite drawings not being entirely my thing, I went to see both in the same week, and have subsequently been horrifying all my arty friends by grumbling about one of them… Continue reading
For the last few years, the community ministry at St Bart’s has augmented their regular activities (running the soup kitchen, homeless shelter and food pantry) with a gala dinner held on the day after Thanksgiving. Entitled Fare Share Friday, this event sees the church transformed into a banqueting hall, with a turkey dinner catered by some of the grand midtown hotels.
In an attempt to banish my really-not ready-for-it-to-be-December-yet feeling, I should finally get around to writing about Thanksgiving. Obviously this is not a holiday we had any previous experience of celebrating, but we’re very much in favour of cooking and eating extravagant meals so have enjoyed getting into the Thanksgiving habit over the last few years. So much has happened since I wrote about our first one here in the US, including meeting all sorts of lovely people who are happy to trek across to Hoboken to join us for dinner, and this year we had a lot of fun preparing and sharing a feast with some good friends.
In a perfect example of why committing your thoughts to print can be somewhat hazardous, after my two posts yesterday the universe clearly decided to prove me wrong – today the weather is a whole season warmer (mild and damp, feels like London in July), and Tom went out last night and bought three extra fish and two more snails for his tank, bringing the total headcount to seven and three respectively.
However, in the spirit of making the most of it all, I shall enjoy not being cold outside today, and this gives me a perfect excuse for more pictures too – here is Brian in his favourite spot, and one of his new friends, Bob:
Regular readers with nothing better to do than remember my random ramblings may recall that I posted about Tom’s acquisition of a small fish-tank back in July. Despite numerous obstacles – including both major calamities and minor setbacks – it is now home to four glowlight tetras, a little bumblebee nerite snail (named Brian, obviously), and a red cherry shrimp (although we haven’t seen Shrimpy for a few days so it’s sadly possible he has become fish food…).
Being English, complaining about the weather is part of my DNA, and of course it’s always a handy topic of conversation, especially since this autumn hasn’t really been at all autumnal – we’ve lurched from wintry chill to balmy warm days and back again, seemingly at random.
Leaves from the big apple 