More from the apple winery

As mentioned yesterday, we went to an apple winery here in the Midwest. It was a great weekend to visit as the harvest was at its peak. At this particular small farm, we were able to walk amongst the trees to see it:

We were a diverse cultural group, one Canadian, one German, me from the US and one work colleague from Asia. The Asia colleague was taking an extensive number of close up photos of the apples on the trees, as opposed to the rest of us who were taking more landscape shots of all of the trees like above. He explained, in his highly urbanized 'concrete jungle' country, he's never seen an apple growing on a tree before:

The weekend in America's Heartland

Being from the East Coast and having lived on the West Coast, I'm now supplementing that geographic knowledge with occasional work trips to the Midwest (home of benevolent company J's headquarters). There is a large group of us in town for two weeks for a work project, which required us to be here for a weekend. Many groups are doing many different things; some are heading to the shopping malls, others are taking flights to cities such as New York City, but our small group of colleagues decided to stay local.

Our 'local' colleague (a Canadian who is based here full-time) put together an itinerary for us that included an 'art walk', a local diner, and apple picking. However, we quickly discovered that 80 degree temps on a weekend here brought out the entire state for apple picking, so we went off the beaten path. We looked for 'local attractions' in the GPS and found a winery 30 minutes away and off we went. It was the best decision as it was small and absolutely delightful:

It was a tiny place that specializes in apples, but they also had pumpkins for sale, along with plenty of apples. As we don't really have pumpkins in the UK (even though Halloween seems to be imported more heavily each year), I was most pleased to be able to take this photo.

As it was a working winery, they offered 5 free tastes of their wares, then it was possible to buy there the various local items then. They had all sorts of apple wines, liquers and ciders as well as different varieties of non-alcoholic apple juices for tasting. All in all a most pleasant Saturday.

Yep, back in the US

Behind this road (where I'm on the sidewalk), there are two highways in the background. Then again, I should be grateful for sidewalks, as much of middle America doesn't have them.

I did get some odd looks this AM when I went out of the hotel at 07.15. I knew there were stores, restaurants and such around a mile away, so I waited until it was clearly light outside and off I went. On the entire trip (with sidewalks), 1.1 mile out and then 1.1 back, I passed one other person on the sidewalk, and he was on a bicycle but avoiding the busy roads.

Because it's America though, there are plenty of Halloween decorations already out as well as for sale. I am pleased to give you an advance preview of Slocombe's Halloween costume this year:
I imagine she'll be as unimpressed with this one as she was with last year's. Currently, she's enjoying her vacation at the House of Treats in the UK where she gets freshly roasted chicken every night, while missing me immensely, of course.

Still here

Since fall ('autumn' in UK terminology) has come, I've been slightly swamped with activities, each of which probably deserves its own blog post. Some short highlights from the past weeks:

• I was in the US for work


• I foraged for berries, and then had to decide what to do with 10 pounds of them


• I foraged for acorns, chestnuts and walnuts


• I had 2 more sets of crashpadder guests


• I acknowledged 2.5 years in the UK

Today at the English seaside

One of the things I was looking forward to when moving to the UK from Germany was the ability to be able to easily take a day trip to somewhere along the sea. My former corner of NRW Germany was very convenient for the mountains, but hours away from the seaside.

It was predicted to be 25 today, and will probably be the hottest weekend day until next spring/summer. So I went out early and had time to enjoy the early sun before the masses arrived:

Essex has plenty of beaches and coastline, with much of it reachable by train, which is what I did today. This photo is of Clacton-on-Sea, it's a mere 90 minutes on a direct train line from London's Liverpool Street station.

More Germany: the Turkish market

A few years ago, I spoke about supermarket shopping in Germany, and mentioned that as a vegetarian, I did a lot of shopping at the two Turkish markets in the tiny town of B. While I was there last week, I took a photo of the only one still existing in B:

Now is such a great time to shop in DE as all the local produce is available, such as tomatoes from DE (rather than Holland!).

Above is the fruit side, and here is the vegetable section:

It was very warm in my corner of Germany last week, it felt more like Spain, so the umbrellas were all up to protect the produce from the sun.

Back from a week in Germany

I had a chance to travel to Germany this week for work. It's been announced that Benevolent company J will be moving from the Tiny town of B, so I brought along my camera this week, to capture some images of where I spent so many years.

First though, the trip out of Stansted (STN). I had heard that Airberlin is pulling out of Stansted and expanding at Gatwick. They have already cut down the Dusseldorf route from 3 times a day to 2, and now the only direct cities from STN are DUS, Stuttgart and Muenster Osnabruck. Back in the day when I first arrived, AB occupied 4 or 5 of these counters with a customer service team on-site and automated check-in machines.

Now, they've moved around the corner where they only have 2 counters that are only staffed when their infrequent flights are running and no automated machines or customer service. Of course, I can always switch to German Wings to Cologne, but Company J has a corporate deal with Airberlin; as well I prefer them anyway so I hope they do not disappear completely from STN as it's my closest airport to my corner of Essex.

In case you're wondering where else you can go from STN, here's a photo I took while waiting for the AB counter to open:

Unfortunately, there are no flights to the US, although they've broken into the Asia with budget airline Air Asia. However, from late October, Air Asia as well pulls out from STN and relocates to Gatwick.

Opening the pickled peppers

A while back, in October, I was awash with peppers and decided to jar them up. As the peppers are starting to appear on my plants this year, I'm reminded to eat them to clear out the jars. So how did it go?

Certainly looks ok...no major loss of colour:

Looks ok here too, smells ok:

On taste though, a little too heavy on the vinegar. So they preserved really well, better than Old El Paso version here in the UK that retails for 1.24 GBP a jar, but I need to use them in cooking, so on pizzas, in tomato sauces, etc. where the vinegar will burn off, rather than raw and in a salad. In the past weeks I've been through 4 jars already.

So last year was a learning year, this year will be better. :-)

From the garden this week

With guests coming next weekend, I'm trying to get organized.
Being 4 stories up from the ground, I'd love to know where these fellows originally came from...

And the way they eat my chilli pepper plants, if I could find someone who would eat them, I'd happily hand them over....

The American flag across the street

I mentioned a few posts back, about the construction across the street. I had to zoom today when i spotted the American flag bandana being sported today:

I wonder if he could ever imagine that an American would be taking his photo in this corner of Essex. ;-)

From the rooftop garden - tomatoes

I'm rather pleased with my tomatoes this year, perhaps because it was so hot here and not so rainy, they've done well. Today's high: 28 C/82 F!

from my rooftop garden - peas

The view from my window

Across the street, they've taken a vacant building and they've started to gut it and built it up by one story. This was my view from my kitchen window today, on the zoom setting:

In the US, I've yet to see a Sikh construction worker, but here in the UK they are plentiful. So much so that the UK has published regulations, http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/fod/oc/200-299/282_27.pdf regarding their exemption from wearing helmets on construction sites.

More from America - rules

While seeing a free 'summer concert in the park' Friday night event, I noticed the children enjoying the fountains in the hot and humid summer night. I later noticed the 'FOUNTAIN RULES':

It cautions against anyone with a communicable disease, or 4 wheeled recreational vehicles, or diaper changing.

A few interesting things to note:

-It's not a fountain that includes a pool, it's only shooting spurts of water from the concrete.

-It's a tiny park tucked inside an upscale shopping area. Any 4 wheeled recreational vehicles would not be welcome well before arriving here.

-Diaper changing in the water area defeats the idea of dryness.

I have not yet noticed any 'fountain signs' in Europe, so I have no comparison points to America.

Another reason to love Philadelphia airport

Free wifi!

You are located at:
Philadelphia International Airport
8500 Bartram Ave.Philadelphia, PA, 19153

They could use a few more outlets, however. Newark is much better about outlets, they're usually on the poles, with plenty available. With Philly you're usually camped out in random corners on the floor, or I see a few people tucked into them in the airport eateries.

So it's been a short visit back to the US for the 4th and a week of 90+ temps in Philly.

From the rooftop garden - strawberries!

Sorry for the delay, I've been back in the US for work, and then busy with work here.
While away, my strawberries were gearing up, so I came back just as the first ones were ready. Then, I had about 3 weeks straight of strawberries for breakfast, freshly picked off the balcony each day.

Here are some of the last ones (notice the green insect on the right one--organic!):

I have around one more week left of strawberries. I currently have three runners started, so the rest will soon follow suit.

I arrived in the UK in early 2009, so this is the third year for some of my plants. Strawberries build up in the first year, peak in the second and then start to wane in the third. So the runner plants will get planted in as starters for next year's crop.

The countdown continues...

This week is a small milestone. The UK, like Germany, allows for permanent residency after 5 years of residence. Different from Germany, however, the UK in addition allows for a path to dual citizenship after a few additional activities.

Even though I had Germany permanent residency, it did not count for anything in the UK, so the clock started over again for me in 2009.

5 years x 365 days = 1825 days

This week I dropped into triple digits, so below the 1000 day mark.

The next milestone will be the half-way point of 5 years, in August 2011.

Life in Germany: the Department of Order

A short article about Germany's Ordnungsbehörde, or Department of Order. If you're planning to move to Germany, it's worth a quick read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/magazine/you-are-here-germanys-anti-chaos-crusaders.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

I personally never met them, but a few work colleagues in Cologne (both German and not), have mentioned experiences with them, mainly those crossing the street (empty or not) against the light, and for bicyclists going through red lights rather than following the rules of stopping with the cars.

An impressive UK border agent

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I don't have the highest of opinions on the folks controlling the UK borders, in particular, because I'm irritated with playing 20 questions with them when I have a legitimate work permit that is valid into 2012.

Although I'm as equally annoyed when they play 20 questions with you tourists and I'm usually in the queue behind you, although their questioning of how you are getting from London to Shakespeare's house, and the waiting while you get out the Rick Steve's book all marked up with post-its can be endearing (or would be if I wasn't so jet-lagged).

Yesterday, I went through the usual at Heathrow:
what kind of work do you do?
how long have you been doing that?
what is the company?
where is the company?
etc.

Then, a brand new one:
Are you planning to stay for residency and perhaps citizenship?

Why yes, that is the plan. And my tired heart soared, as no one usually thinks that one can have both, or maybe people expect that Americans go home, but no one ever asks that question. In particular, no one has ever asked me that at the border, so it made my dream a little more tangible, that I didn't have to present it or explain it, that someone can see the path, that it seems feasible.

As he stamped my passport he then explained:
In that case, you'll want to take care, they will want to review all of these entry stamps, and we must stamp in the page next to or behind your permit. It those pages start to become too full and the stamps not legible, you'll probably want to get a new passport to avoid any hassles later on with your application.

Not a concern as I need to get a new passport anyway late this year, but I was impressed that he proactively presented the tip.

Back in the UK

After 2.5 weeks (mainly work related), I am back in the UK. Our plane was 4 hours late to take off due to storms in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Jet lag gives me a wonderful opportunity to appreciate the time prior to sunrise here. In the UK our winter days are very short, but our summers are very long.

Sunrise today: 04.57
Sunset: 20.50