Zombie fruit and other good stuff

This week was filled with lots of beauty, some of which I was able to catch with my camera.  You may say– What does that have to do with 'zombie fruit'.  –Nothing really, but since you mention it I have had a run in with a number of different British foods.  One thing particular to the UK is many of their sweets have raisins in them.  As I was talking with one of my colleagues about sweets, she commented about how much she disliked raisins– "I hate raisins, I wish they would die!"  That's when it dawned on us: "Raisins can't die, they're dead grapes; but raisins are fruit so they must be undead.  Raisins are zombie fruit!"  I actually like raisins. Eat them before they eat you is a good motto for these wrinkly little bite-sizes.  Oooooh… strange thought… raisins are wrinkly like BRAINS are wrinkly…!

I've seen some food here this week that has made me scratch my head.  For example, how would you feel about eating a 'toad in the hole'?  Or how about a can of mushy?  I guess Americans do have strange named foods too.  How inviting does eggs in a nest sound for a meal, or a pig in a blanket?  Assuming the 'pig' and the 'blanket' are clean I guess it doesn't sound too bad.  Regarding the can of mushy– From what I gathered, it's for those who like their sweet peas softer than the typical canned peas.

It rained pretty hard yesterday.  And you might say– "What's new for England?"  To which I might say– "Gee you talk a lot for being a reader."  Anyway,  I was able to take a few pictures after the storm cleared up, and here's what I got.  Not so bad for being within the city limits.

A walk in the woods of Ruislip

I was informed Saturday that unless it is summer, it's not typically good to walk in the woods without shoes that are good in mud.  Since the high temperature then was about 32°, I figured it would be a good day for a stroll in the woods.

It was nice walking along the icy snow packed trail. I was hoping to find some cool animals like a fox, deer, or something out of the ordinary. I was disappointed in my hope, but found contentment in listening to the birds in the trees. A lot were up in the trees. I'm not familiar with any of the songs they were singing, but the songs were all beautiful.

I don't know what else to tell you about the woods. As I walked through them, I found they all looked pretty much the same. Trees without leaves, some bushes that were still green, and ivy.  I could see how people could get lost in the woods. Because it all looks the same it's hard to tell where you've been and where you're really going.


 I found this little make-shift hut that may have been made by some local scout troop.  We'll just keep with that story, cause I could see myself doing that when I was about that age.

This twisted tree looked pretty cool.

The main thing I was hoping to see was Ruislip Lido, which, from what I could tell, was a small reservoir. I was really surprised to find something like that around London. It rains so much around here that I figured they would never need something like a reservoir, but there it is.

These pictures were taken while I was walking through Mad Bess Wood. It makes me wonder what poor Bess did to get the whole wooded area named after her… It was all pretty bleak. Not even one evergreen tree, which is something I guess I've taken for granted– that if there is snow there is a tree somewhere that is still green. This is definitely a place I'll have to come back to visit sometime later in the year, when things have come alive again.

This was something really random to me. I never thought someone would be so interested in climbing a power line pole, but just to make sure, barbed wire was wrapped around the pole. I guess it's just proof that the mindset of people in England is generally different than those that I am used to living around.

Snow in London

I woke up this Sunday morning to two text messages telling me the same thing. Church was cancelled today because it snowed about 6 inches here last night. I'm sure I have a few friends out there who like to ski or snow board that would hope for something similar in Salt Lake City, but there's two major differences here: having snow isn't common in London, and you can find better places to ski at public parks in the Salt Lake area. Since my reason for getting up early was stymied, I got up (a little later) to take a look around.
Because it only typically freezes around here, there are no snow plows to push the snow around. I once saw a truck that looked very similar to a snow plow, but it was missing the plow. It had a tuck bed loaded with grit, salt and sand, and it just sprinkled the stuff everywhere it went. So, the roads that appear to be clear look that way because there has been enough salt thrown down and enough cars driving through to push everything to one side or another. There was a lot of slush at the edge of the main roads I crossed.

Something I thought was cool to see, was that kids here are just like kids in Utah. You may want to click on the picture (to the right) to see it better, but this snowball is about half the size of the kid that's been rolling it. Later in my stroll, I found four boys working together to make their snowball about four feet high. I haven't seen snowmen like this in a long time. I mean, really well done. I'll give an excuse for those in Utah, where I don't see as many snowmen. It wouldn't be near as fun to make if it snowed more than once a year.



There's an interesting little quirk I heard about in England's laws regarding snow removal. I heard about it from two people that don't know each other, so it must be true, right? Their descriptions were really close to being identical. The government here sees snow as an act of god, thus if someone is injured because of the snow no one is to blame. If however, you clear your walk way and someone hurts themselves on your cleared walk way, you are then liable for their claims. The way I heard it summed up was, "Do it properly or don't do it at all."