The Rest of September

In an attempt to catch up to the present I'm going to do a quick overview of the last two weeks of September (and then try and get October done shortly thereafter)

September 15th was Rob's birthday. To celebrate, we did something he's been wanting to do for a while now- the Handel Hendrix House. You can read more about it here, but basically, Handel and Jimi Hendrix had both lived in the same building in London- 200 years apart of course, and now the flats that they each occupied are set up as they would have been when they each lived there. The highlight (for me anyway) was that they had a musician in one of the Handel rooms playing a theorbo- an instrument none of us had ever even heard of. The theorbo is a large lute with the addition of bass strings. This link will take you to a YouTube video of the young man we watched at the museum. 

After the museum we came back to the Leytonstone area for a pub roast. If you've never visited England, one thing you have to do is go for a Sunday lunch (or early dinner) at a pub. Many pubs make a delicious meal with your choice of meat with gravy, roasted vegetables, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding- yummm. That night we went to the Red Lion on the Leytonstone High street.

To surprise Rob I had planned on getting him a birthday cake from a local shop. Online there was an option to order a cake and pick it up the same day. For some reason I was having trouble ordering on  the website. No problem, the Cake Inn (yes, that's the real name haha) is just down the street from the Red Lion pub. One thing about my husband- as smart as he is, he is not observant (I don't mean religiously, well, that too...). Kendra, Rob and I sat down at the pub and once we'd ordered I excused myself. I walked out of the pub and down the street. Ordered the cake, walked back to the pub and sat back down. He hadn't noticed that I'd left, he just thought I'd been in the bathroom! When we finished eating Kendra and I suggested we walk the longer way home (so I could pop into the shop and pick up the cake). I suggested that we needed some fruit and veg from a shop nearby and while Rob and Kendra shopped I went to pick up the cake. That time he did notice that I'd left- and was a little concerned when he couldn't find me, noticed I had picked something up, but didn't realize it was a cake! And as it turned out, the Cake Inn has really nice cakes :)

One other lovely highlight from Rob's birthday is that Kendra had commissioned her best friend (and visual artist) Julia, to paint a picture of our house in Toronto. Julia did a beautiful job! She put our cats Pierre and Ghost looking out the downstairs windows, and our late cats Molly and Ginny in the upstairs windows. The painting sits on our mantel where we sit it all the time.

We've been doing a lot of walking! If you've been following my social media you've probably seen me post about some of our walks (if you're not following me yet, click the links below!). One walk we did in September was along the Regent's Canal from Paddington Station up to Camden Market. That was fun! We'd only ever been to Camden Market on the weekend when it's absolutely packed. This time we arrived mid afternoon on a Friday and left as it started to fill up around 6 pm. I've made a video that follows much of our walk and posted it on my Instagram and TikTok accounts!

At the end of September, went to the Tate Britain. However, we had one errand to do first. Kendra had a bit of a cold, so in true Jewish mom fashion, I made her a batch of chicken soup with Matzoh balls and delivered it to her at school- Mountview in Peckham. From there we took a bus- double decker of course, North West through the city and across the river which dropped us off at Vauxhall bridge, a short walk from the Tate. Taking the bus is a great way to see the city, and the view from the top of the double decker is really fun!

We enjoyed meandering through the Tate- permanent exhibits in galleries are mostly free in London (although we bought a membership so we can see all the exhibits while we're here) which is great for so many reasons, but I really appreciate seeing short amounts over multiple visits rather than spending the whole day. After our visit that day we took a long walk through part of central London, passing the MI 5 Headquarters, Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, China town, Covent garden and the up to Holborn station to hop on a central line tube to head home.

At the end of September, just one month into our stay in London, Rob and I performed a concert in the local church. As it turns out, our neighbour Rosie books entertainment to play an hour long set about once a month or so. Despite not really knowing anyone in the neighbourhood we had a great turn out. Interestingly, Rosie's husband Ricardo is a Latin American harpist!

In other musical news- Rob and I have joined a choir! I found this really great community choir and started going on Monday nights to the Ladies chorus in nearby Woodford. Rob has started doing some piano teaching down in Brighton on Monday evenings so that worked out nicely. Soon after I joined the choir they had a gig at a local fringe festival (I wasn't in it since I'd just joined). Rob and I went out to hear them and I somehow convinced Rob to join the mixed version of the choir on Wednesday nights! The picture of me drinking a glass of wine in a church that Rob posted on Facebook for my birthday, was at that show.

While the ladies choir on Mondays is a friendly group, the mixed choir on Wednesdays is in a legion hall with a pub! Many of the "singers" stay behind for a drink afterwards- actually many of them have a drink during! Needless to say, it's a lot of fun, very social and still sounds pretty good. Oh- and it's all pop music, mostly from the 80's and 90's. So I now go to choir twice a week! You can read about the choir here. Lizzy, the director is fantastic and has decided that Rob and I should start a Toronto edition of Natural Voices choir when we return- who's in? 

October's blog post or posts, not sure yet, will be coming soon- definitely sooner than this one did :)