A bunch of glass...

some of Jason's drawings:

We will place them in Jason't Etsy shop over time. So if you would

like to buy one, keep an eye out.. :) Of course there shall be

drawings from Thailand, Cambodia and India, too.. Your collection

could be quite an exciting one..

Jason's Art: trying out ideas.

flapjacks...

Croxteth Hall / Open Day / Liverpool

Silly us, we forgot to photograph the mansion from the outside.

Here is Jason in the basement pointing along with signs.

And the picture below is upstairs in the long hall.. In the only

moment where the hall wasn't filled with streams of sightseeing

people.

It was nice to get out for a few hours, there are huge parks

around the mansion and we went for a little stroll once we

had seen most of the building. To be honest I am not sure

we are overwhelmingly excited about looking at other people's

faded wealth, and a wealth that was based much on warfare,

loyalties paid to the right people (in this case loyalty to a king

in the 11th century started the family fortunes..) and of course

not to forget colonialism and the slave trade, without which

this house would probably not stand here.

Anyhow... It was nice to be out and smell mothballs and even

better that we snuck in on the one day a year where entrance is

free. The parks are huge, and we only covered a small portion of

the estate, had to get home for some an afternoon nap, some food

and some work.

(J = ideas and dishes, B = dissertation, but actually sidetracking and uploading photos instead)

Jason's theory was that he was like a snake in the tree,

invisible and branch like..... Did that work?

oh and we came across another park on the way home and

just popped out of the car to take a VERY quick look and

pose with the ball. Too much hunger to linger longer.

no news

we just haven't updated the blog much because while we are kind of busy, we haven't really done much out of the ordinary that we could photograph or write much about. Birgit is shackled to the desk and laptop most hours: working on her dissertation; and Jason is carrying on being happy, inspiring, yogaing, meditating, climbing and sharing the household love for good food. We eat a lot of lentils and have become experts at cooking them.

That is about as exciting as life gets at the moment...

Yoga in the park with Jason

Natarajasana (Lord of the Dance Pose)

Yoga in the park with Birgit and Jason

actually there's no Birgit on the video, just Jason, but she was

definitely on her mat, doing much the same as Jason. The whole

practice takes us about 90 minutes to 2 hours. It doesn't feel that

long when you're doing it. Very relaxing and refreshing.

Sunshine and Sand

visiting the pretty beach with Jason a few weeks ago.

We sat in the beach forest on our yoga mats for some

time, breathing, doing a total of 108 'om' (54 each) and

climbed over some dunes to reach the sea. (we found

lots of crab shells this time)

It's a good life!

Jason's Sunday breakfast

It is Sunday lunch time, Jason has just finished his yoga practice

(while Birgit looked blankly at material for her dissertation which

is progressing at the rate of the global economy recover... i.e. barely)

And here is Jason's breakfast:

I have a feeling that this is the WRONG video!

Another attempt and I hope this is now the right file:

catching up ...

... on the events and things we did over the last week.

So saturday the 23rd was Birgit's birthday and below some of the day's itinerary:Jason made pancakes for breakfast on his camping stove, we waited for a replacement electric cooker to arrive (as Birgit's had given up the will to live and couldn't be fixed until after the weekend). Then dashed off to Princes Park, which is at the end of the road to see the Carnival parade of the week long Brouhaha Festival.

Then we got some veggy food in the park and saw the Hip Hop Circus (after much delay and waiting around).

This made the day great.. Then we went to Yoga class and at last had dinner, I forgot what dinner was but Jason made a wonderful tiramisu and is now ready and prepared to work in Italy as a tiramisu chef.

and Jason made coffee granita, too....

We watched a cooking program by Rick Stein, who is a well known TV chef in England and learnt about northern Spanish cooking. Jason was inspired to buy chorizo at the next best opportunity (monday). This sample video of Rick Stein cooking is actually from Morocco, so it's not what we saw, but if you want to know who Rick Stein is, this will do fine:

Sunday we cleaned the flat and as soon as we were done Birgit's friends swarmed in (in comemmoration of her birthday the day before) and we were a little surprised, it was probably obvious and to be expected that lots of people would come but somehow we were a little sleepy and had simply forgotten that people were invited..

A lentil dal saved the day. It was a lovely afternoon! And some friends also bought stuff from Birgit's 'house-shop' (we had to turn the bedroom into a EVERYTHING in HERE is FOR SALE ROOM.. ) And Alex took home one of Jason's glass works. We've been invited to visit her in Leeds where we can stay with her (in exchange for more glass - sounds like a great deal.)

Monday: we escaped from the flat before anybody could come and visit us and went to the beach. It's tough being loved and having friends.. ;)

We sat in the beech forest on our Yoga Mats and did a combined 108 rounds of OM. Jason may tell you more about that himself perhaps..

We walked along the beach and through the shallow water, collected more shells and left over homes of crabs and eventually were driven into town by hunger. So we took the train back to Liverpool Center and ordered Panini's at a Spanish tapas place. needless to say the flavour was good but our wallets got a little shock. So we do tend to stick to cooking lentils for pennies at home most days. Or at least many days. Eating out is almost always disappointing and to pay to be disappointed is just not right. But we had a nice time. Jason's chorizo panini was good and so was Birgit's (non chorizo - but veggy). We felt lazy so we just cycled to the train station and hopped on the train with our bicycles to ride the train the 3 stops home.

I bet we cooked lentils that evening.

p.s. Jason bought a chorizo, which makes him happy.

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PHOTOS COMING UP AFTER DINNER. - please return in an hour or two. or even tomorrow.x