one more voice in the human choir

A new house and a new niece

We've had so much going on in our lives lately and so much to pre-occupy us that it didn't even occur to me to blog before today about the fact that we had an offer accepted on a house a week and a half ago. While this is happy news, it means something quite different than having an offer accepted on a house in US. In England, an accepted offer is not legally binding, and it's only the beginning of a long, drawn-out, complicated process. The house survey was done on Friday (another thing different from the US - this is primarily for the bank's benefit, not the buyer's) and we're just waiting to find out dates for exchange (exchanging contracts and paying the downpayment - at which point the agreement to purchase becomes legally binding) and completion (taking possession). It could take two or three months to get to the point where we can actually move in.

The house is South Tottenham, and is about 3/4 mile northeast of where we're currently living. It has a lounge, dining room and kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms and a large bathroom upstairs. The garden (i.e. backyard) is fantastic - it's the feature I'm most excited about. It's not huge, but it has a little patio, veg and flower beds on either side, and a shed and tree at the end. I hope we get in the house early enough to be able to enjoy most of the summer in the garden.

The other big news is that I am an aunt! My sister Dana gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl, Leah Marnae, on Saturday, May 3. About a week before she was born, my siblings and parents and I all gave our predictions for what day the baby would be born and whether it would be a boy or girl. I was the only one to predict May 3, but I said it would be a boy. So I was half right. (And I think picking the right day gets more credit than picking the right gender because with gender, you get a 50/50 chance!) I won't get to meet Leah until our trip to the US at the beginning of August (for my brother's wedding) and am counting on getting lots and lots of pictures in the meantime (hint, hint).

Bargain hunting in London

Reading last week's Observer Magazine, a climate change-themed issue edited by Thom Yorke, I was finally convinced to make a commitment that I've been pondering for a while: for the rest of 2008, I'm only going to buy a brand new item if a) I can't get it used or b) I am buying it directly from the person who made it. That includes clothes, shoes, furniture, kitchen stuff, etc. Given that we're planning to move house in 2008, that could end up being quite a challenge, but I'm going to do my best.

I didn't have to work last Friday so I decided to use the day to explore some London charity shops and vintage clothing stores. Helpfully, the issue of Time Out that had arrived on our doorstop three days previous had a feature on where to shopping for used clothing bargains in London. I picked out six of them, plotted my route, grabbed my A to Z, and headed out on my thrift shop adventure.

I started at the Salvation Army store in Princes Street just behind Oxford Street. They pack a lot of clothes into a smallish space! The selection was decent and prices were dirt cheap. Most items I looked at fell in the £3-7 range. I had the delight of overhearing an older gentleman ask the clerk why a particular men's suit was priced quite a bit higher than the others on the rack. She pointed out that it was Christian Dior. That didn't seem to mean much to him! I didn't buy anything at the Salvation Army this trip, but it's definitely one that I will be returning to.

From there, I walked up to Marylebone where I stopped at Barnardo's in George Street and Cancer Research UK in Marylebone High Street. Both of them were -- as you would expect in Marylebone -- quite posh and a good bit higher priced than the Salvation Army. Cancer Research UK in particular seemed to mostly be stocked with designer duds. I wasn't really looking to spend more than £10 on any single item, but if I had wanted to get a pair of Carolina Herrera pumps for £30, that would have been the place to go! Most of the clothes were small and medium sizes, so not that much there for me anyway. It was fun to explore, but unless I'm specifically looking for designer frocks on the cheap, I'm unlikely to go back.

I walked up to Baker Street and jumped on the tube, exiting at Bayswater from which I walked up Queensway to Westbourne Grove, my destination being the Westbourne Grove branch of Traid (an acronym for Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development). Here, I hit the jackpot! They had a sale on: every item in the store was £2, the exception being coats and jackets which were all £6. This was another store that was absolutely packed with clothes and shoes -- high street fashions, designer wear, and a good selection of vintage. I had a great time sifting through the racks and ended up taking quite a stack into the fitting room. I left the store with a couple of bags of clothes including: a short-sleeved heather grey cable knit jumper, a black cowl neck sleeveless jumper, chocolate brown corduroy jeans (Miss Selfridges label), a blue striped v-neck empire waist long t-shirt (also Miss Selfridges), a wooly rust-coloured scarf, navy blue yoga trousers, a bright pink knee-length lightweight coat with gorgeous floral lining, and a vintage sleeveless dress with a pleated skirt in a coral and white floral pattern. (I'm hoping to add to the dress a short-sleeved lightweight black cardigan, a wide black patent leather belt, black patent leather flats, and a black bead necklace -- all second-hand of course -- and wear it at my brother's wedding in August.) The total bill at Traid? £20. Rock.

After a brief stop for lunch at a little Italian cafe, I walked down Pembridge Road to Retro Woman, part of a cluster of renowned Notting Hill second-hand stores. This is another store packed to the gills. I enjoyed perusing the masses of designer label shoes and accessories in locked cabinets, mostly priced around £20-£50. Tucked between Retro Woman and Retro Man is a store where everything is £2. If I wasn't carrying two bags of clothes, I might have spent a little longer digging through the racks and would surely have been rewarded with some great finds. I will definitely be going back to those stores as well as Retro Home.

By the time I left the Retro group of stores, it was late afternoon. I took a quick look around Dolly Diamond vintage shop in Pembridge Road and Trinity Hospice in Notting Hill Gate before heading home, very satisfied with my day of shopping. I had been planning to stop at Marie Curie in Highbury but that will have to wait for another day.

A couple of weeks earlier, I had spent an afternoon sniffing around some great East End vintage shops including Absolutely Vintage, Beyond Retro, and Rokit Vintage. Absolutely Vintage is a treasure trove of vintage shoes and bags. And Beyond Retro is just enormous. Rokit Vintage has shelves and shelves of cowboy boots, and lots of seventies fashions. All of them are definitely worth future return visits. I'm also looking forward to checking out the East End Thrift Store.

Shopping for vintage and second-hand goods requires a lot more patience and persistence than shopping at high street and big box stores. But the thrill of landing a great bargain makes it worthwhile. And while only buying used goods isn't going to save the planet, it's a step in the right direction.

Out and about in London

The last week has been great for getting out in London and taking advantage of the fact that we now live in a big city with lots of stuff going on all the time.

Last week Friday night, we tried to see a Brazilian parade around Covent Garden, but the parade never showed up. (Not sure if it was too cold or got delayed or we had the wrong date or what...) But since we were in that part of town anyway with our friends Matt & Clare, we went over to the National Portrait Gallery - which is open late on Friday nights with free entry - and browsed the Photographic Portrait Prize 2007 exhibit. From there we went back up to Stroud Green and had great Italian food at La Porchetta. Following dinner, we grabbed a late drink at The Larrik before calling it a night.

On Saturday afternoon, James and I headed over to Broadway Market in Hackney. There are so many great Saturday markets in London, and I've been wanting to check some of them out, but since Saturday is our only day of the week to sleep in and not hurry off anywhere, we tend to laze around most of the day until it's too late to get to any markets. So last week we decided that come Saturday, we would actually get moving and get to a market. Broadway Market is easy for us to get to since we can take the 254 bus from Manor House to Westgate Road very close to the market. The ride itself was very entertaining as we went through Stamford Hill right when the synagogues were getting out and the place was swarming with Hasidic Jews in their fantastic costumes.

The market itself was well worth getting up for. Within about five minutes of arriving, I said to James, "I think I'm in love!" There are stalls selling artisanal cheeses, breads, chocolate, and olive oil; free range and organic meat and eggs; fish and game; organic produce; gourmet coffee, tea, hummus, curries and spreads; Ghanaian stew; crepes with all manner of fillings; "The best burgers in the world"; etc. It's a foodie paradise! In addition, there are lots of stalls selling vintage clothes, handicrafts, etc. We came home with three different kinds of Italian cheese (cut and wrapped for us by a gal from Oregon whose mother and grandmother went to Grand Valley State University), pheasant & pear sausages and a whole pheasant, Vietnamese coffee and the little filter for making it the Vietnamese way, and amazing baked treats from Violet made with Valrhona chocolate. It's a place I hope to go back to many Saturdays and will be a wonderful place to take friends who come visit us in London. (Hint, hint!) You can see my photos of the market here.

Sunday afternoon and evening were for resting as we had gotten up at 5:00 a.m. in order to be at church at 6 to help with the homeless Night Shelter breakfast shift. On Monday night we were out again seeing our friend David Bazan who played at 93 Feet East. Before the gig, James and I and our friend Matt took Dave for a curry in Brick Lane and had a great time catching up. The gig was terrific, and we were delighted to meet up with our friends Iain & Miriam, Phil & Gabi and Rachel at the gig too.

This afternoon James is headed out to Cheltenham for a Greenbelt strategy meeting. Since he'll be there overnight, I'm joining my friend Clare and heading out to Staines to stay overnight on our friends Steve and Lorna's houseboat. So far I've only seen photos of the boat and have been very eager to see it in person, so I'm glad the opportunity has finally come round. So I'll be partying on the boat tonight. Sweet.

You can never go home again

So I started an entry about our trip to the States just after Christmas but, frankly, it was boring. So rather than go into much detail, I'll do a quick summary.

Spending time with my family in DeMotte was wonderful and weird and difficult and all those things that family are. It was treasured time together as "just us adults" before the first grandchild arrives in April. We're still navigating the dynamics of having added brothers-in-law (and a sister-in-law to be) to the family, though. And one thing the time with them made me realise is that especially now that we live in London, I can be such a snob - I live in the big city and I'm so sophisticated and cosmopolitan. I need to watch out for that.

The three and a half days in Nashville were as wonderful as they could have been. Arriving at Trevor and Jenna's felt like coming home. And being loved and cared for by the Hendersons and Darks was just what I needed. We had a totally rockin' New Year's Eve party at the Hendersons' and a wonderfully chilled New Year's Day at the Darks'. And adding Steve to the number of dear friends that we so eagerly anticipate seeing on visits to Nashville was a joy beyond words.

I could have stayed in Nashville much longer, but other friends in Grand Rapids were awaiting our arrival there. It was wonderful to see those friends, but being in Grand Rapids was weirder than weird. Even though we had been gone for seven months, it didn't feel like it had been that long, but in the meantime, people's lives had moved on and so much had changed. I'm glad that we got to see as many people as we did while we were there even if all the running around to see them got a bit mad. I hope that future visits will be more comfortable, when we've been away longer and we feel more like visitors than people who have just been away from home for longer than usual.

The last two and a half days of our trip to the States was spent in Chicago where we had the great delight of meeting up with our dear friends Kate and Nathan for lunch. They moved from Grand Rapids to Philadelphia in August of 2006, and we had debated whether to try to fit in a stop in Philly on this trip in order to visit them. In the end we decided that it was too much to squeeze in, so imagine our delight when we discovered that they were going to be in Chicago that weekend for a wedding. We rearranged our plans a bit in order to get to Chicago in time to meet up with them before their flight out. It was just a treat to see them. It was also delightful to spend a bit more time with my sister Dana (5 1/2 months pregnant at the time!) and her husband Pete. We've imposed on them frequently over the years since they live in the fabulous Chicago neighbourhood of Lincoln Square, and we've always appreciated their hospitality.

Perhaps the best part about the trip was coming home to London. I realised how much I have totally fallen in love with this city. I love living here, I love working here, I love being surrounded by tall buildings and big green parks and people - always so many people! - so many of whom don't look like me or talk like me. The energy and the rich diversity and the incredibly history - all of it has completely captured my heart and imagination. My life in Grand Rapids was great and my time at Calvin shaped much of who I am today. But I'm so glad to be a London girl now.

My photos from our time in Nashville on Flickr.

James' photos from our trip on Flickr.

I am Lizzy

Coming soon... a summary and review of our first trip to the U.S. since we moved to London.

For now, there's this:

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