Shakespeare in the Park

Every summer the various colleges at Cambridge play host to Shakespeare in the Park. Last year my friend Rebekah and I took my mom to see Taming of the Shrew. This year, Rebekah and I went to see The Comedy of Errors and have plans to see Much Ado About Nothing (one of my all time favourites!)

TCoE was absolutely brilliant! I've read it before, but had never seen it performed. Bless them, I'm sure they were freezing to death! We were all bundled up to our eyebrows: Jeans, jumpers, hoodies and coats, sitting on one wool blanket (over chairs) and huddled under another. Yeah, we just about survived it. But hey... this is the joy of the Great British Summer! It did not rain, ominous black clouds not withstanding. So all in all, we made out well.

Of course, we had to have the obligatory Scones, Clotted Cream and Jam! Yum!

Dressed for an English Summer

This spring, as the weather finally began to warm up, my sister was quite appalled at the shocking lack of warm-weather clothing in my closet. But then, I've been living in England the past 7 years. What need did I have of warm-weather clothing? I had a few short sleeve tops, and a couple skirts that were lighter weight. That's more than enough for the odd day that got above 24 C (that's roughly 75 F)! It just never hots up in the UK.

So, here I am back in the UK, and true to form, it's 14 C (52 F) out there, in July! Love it! Oh, and yes it is rainy today. Not chucking it down, but definitely wet. Seriously, I adore the cooler temperatures over here. It was quite a relief to escape the building heat of the US Western Desert. Have your 40+ C (100 F) temperatures! You can keep them. I'm happy over here in my jumper with my cuppa (herbal, of course).

Belated 4th of July

Every year I promise myself, I will be in the United States for Independence Day. And where am I? Not in the United States! Again! Seriously, the last time I was Stateside for the 4th was 1999! I think that's grounds for revoking my citizenship.

Anyway, instead of getting to celebrate back in the US, I always invite my friends to my house for a barbecue to "Celebrate the day we kicked you out of our country." :-D They always reply that they'd, "Love to come celebrate the day we got rid of you." Which always makes me laugh, because there's the whole, you fought us for several years to try to keep us, and then you came back later during the War of 1812, thing! Hilarious.

This year, though, it was a little different, because I wasn't in the US, but I'm not LIVING abroad, either. So I couldn't invite people round. But, my best friend, bless her, offered to help me make a 4th of July dinner for me :-) We couldn't do it on the 4th, but . . . never mind! Today is close enough.

We made pulled pork sandwiches. Here's the recipe we started off with.

We made a few tweaks.

1st - We didn't marinate (at all). We just bunged it all in together and let it simmer.
2nd - We didn't use the oven. We used the slow-cooker. Just turned it on and left it for 3 hours. Perfectly done and perfectly moist!
3rd - We didn't have all the same spices, but we got close.

It turned out absolutely PHENOMENAL! Absolutely gorgeous! Loved it. In fact, it was so good, we stuffed ourselves to the point where we can't even eat our Apple Pie!

Along side we had:
A Gorgeous Salad - Greens, Mushrooms, Bell Pepper, Carrots, Walnuts and Cranberries with Honey Mustard Dressing.
Pickled Beetroot - Ok, I know, that's not really "American", but we both absolutely love it, so we had it anyway!
Corn on the Cob - Anything more 4th of July?

Here's some photos of our yummy dinner.

Evening Cool

Summer's finally arrived to England. This past week has been truly lovely. Every day has been sunny and warm. I've even had to work to not get sunburnt. It's been wonderful. I've been doing my PhD work outside at the patio table. It's been wonderful to work outside, instead of being cooped up in my office. But my favourite time of day is the evening. Around 8.00 pm, as the sun goes low in the sky, the blackbird comes to perch on the back fence, and starts singing his heart out. As the sun sets, a breeze picks up. The heavy humid air is still warm from the sun, but the breeze is cool as it ruffles the hem of my skirt. The breeze also brings with it the sent of the jasmine growing along the fence. The breeze, warm humid air and sent of jasmine is enough to make you forget that you're in England, and not on some tropical island paradise. Evening is always my favourite time of day, and these have been enchanting.

Summer In England

I was enjoying a lovely morning's work in the garden today. The sun was out, the air was still and warm. I was happily going along doing all the trimmings that I've been neglecting for the whole of Spring, when a dark black cloud started drifting over my sun. Pretty soon some fat drops of rain were splashing down on my back. Regardless of the size of the drops, it was still a light sprinkling, so I kept working. Before long, though, it picked up the pace. So I started cleaning up the clippings, getting them inside. Usually, when the rain decides it wants to be serious about getting things wet, it acts just like snow. The larger the flakes (or drops) the less serious the storm. Well, every once in a while that pattern breaks. And in fact, this cloud let loose with a heavy downpour of enormous drops. By the time I got the clippings all gathered, bagged and into the shed (so the containers wouldn't collect rain) and got inside, I no longer needed a shower. I was wet enough that it looked like I'd just stepped out of one! And those fat drops were running down out of my hairline, streaming across my face. Within 10 minutes, the rain had passed and the sun was back out. Unfortunately for my gardening ambitions, though, it had succeeded in drenching everything. It's no longer feasible to cut the grass or do any more trimming 'til things dry out a bit. Never mind, that's Summer in England!