February. Blah. Blah. Blah.

For the first time in months, the sun started streaming through my bedroom window this morning.  It's finally high enough in the sky to illuminate my flat once again, which is an event that hasn't occurred since November.  It feels like a victory of sorts: the winter blahs that absolutely everyone has right now (ah, except for you Aussies and Kiwis) have an end in sight.  While there is absolutely no end to the photos of piles of snows that I'm getting from friends and family in the Northeast, I have confidence that there is green grass hibernating under stacks of snow.  It might just be another month before you see it.

I haven't taken my camera out in more than a month now.  I should just.

London continues to grow on me, despite the yawning maw of a sinkhole that is developing under my window.  Something to do with the water main.  I'm sure it will be really quiet to fix.  I'll hardly know they are working.

More soon- I feel I have a lot of creativity right now, but no way to organize it.

Stay toasty.

A view....

Working in the glass and concrete jungle section of London is not without its charms.  The high, vaulted ornate ceilings of Leadenhall Market, a decent variety of lunchtime choices, odd tiny corners of park created pretty much exclusively for people in need of some vitamin D after being locked up inside for hours upon hours underneath flickering florescent.  

City of London is a tiny slice of the actual city, which expanded from this central Thames-side spot to gobble up other nearby cities and villages to become the behemoth that it is today.  It is mostly skyscrapers now, with small reminders here and there of the Roman past.

Also, views like these:

London, while growing, is much lower than NYC.  From low heights such as the 9th floor, you can get really lovely views, this one including the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.  Views like these are a real productivity killer.

Pas de souris, pas de problèmes

One of the things I'm loving about London is the fact that I don't have mice in my flat.  

I had been living in an infestation for so long I had started to think it was normal to wake up to cold, dead furry bodies scattered about the kitchen.  Mind you, I knew when I had moved in to the apartment in Paris that this was the case- the landlord gave me a box of rat poison when upon move-in (which I never used as snap traps are much more humane).  Old buildings are filled with holes, and despite the fact that I filled everything I could get to with steel wool and tin foil, the little bastards still got in.  

They were brazen, too- I'd have a few friends over and we'd be chatting it up and dining, and suddenly a loud snap would alert us to the fact that a mouse had been prowling around just a few feet from us.   I had the traps set  around the kitchen constantly, baited with nutella and a sunflower seed wedged in so they couldn't just lick the bait off and run off.  Some days, I would be dumping the bodies five or six times a day.  It just became normal routine....Wake up, dump the bodies, reset the traps.  Come home, dump the bodies, reset the traps.  They never got into food as everything was put away where they couldn't get, and I am clean as all get-out in the kitchen.  Still, all the crumbs of so many baguettes sustained them.  

My life is just easier without this morbid ritual.  

But somehow, it is more difficult for me here because I still don't have internet installed in the flat.  Seriously!  I moved in almost a month ago, and the tech isn't showing up for another two weeks now.  It's making life a bit aggravating, but at least I have a portable little laptop and a cafe across the street that has free, slow-as-hell, unsecured wifi.  They will probably miss me there once the tech finally shows up. 

Anyway....

Here are some pictures.  I took a chilly walk along the Thames, across the Tower Bridge and past the Tower of London.  I haven't done too much touristy yet aside from a few museums, as I'm saving that for when guests come to town so I don't end up with 18 ticket stubs to the same attraction in my collection.