Cake and Brighton

Boiler is getting fixed as we speak... FINALLY! :)

Here's the cake Mat and I made the other day...

Okay fine I mostly just made it - I can't blame Mat really.  I know what you all are thinking though.. "Allie how can I make a cake just like that?! It looks so yummy and edible!"

Here's how you do it:

1. Use the wrong pan.  This recipe called for a tube pan, which we didn't have. So we used a normal round cake pan.

2. Completely leave out the pecans for the filling because you don't have any in the cupboard and you can't be bothered to walk to the grocery store.

3. Then, put the topping inside as the filling, and the filling on top as the topping.

4. Make the whole thing by hand rather than with a mixer as the recipe says.

5. Only bake it for 49ish minutes when the recipe says between 50-60 minutes and do it in an oven that never holds a consistent temperature.

In summary, don't follow the recipe at all and you too can have an inedible coffee cake!

Okay we actually did eat most of it. We just scooped out the batter in the middle. Most of the outside was cooked through.

You should have heard the sniggering between Mat and Paul when they realised this American recipe for Sour Cream Coffee Cake didn't actually have any coffee in it.  "Surely the most important ingredient in a coffee cake is coffee!  Stupid Americans!".... I tried to justify it by saying that it's a cake you eat WITH coffee but they weren't having any of that explanation.

Not a lot else to report.  We're heading to Brighton tomorrow to see Mat's brother.  Brighton is one of my favourite little (big) cities!  I just love the beach. I realise it will be freezing but I'm still excited.  

It won't be as good as the last time I was at Brighton beach with some pretty ladies though!

MISS YOU GIRLS!

And continues...

We had our 4th set of plumbers in to look at the boiler tonight.  We were under the impression they were just putting in a new one, but apparently that would be too easy.  They got here, stayed 5 minutes, told us they needed to order more parts to fix it so they'd be back on Wednesday night.

It's now going on 8 days with no heat or hot water.  I'm just really not a happy camper.

I will write happier blog posts when I can shower in my own flat again, I promise.

The boiler saga continues..

The saga of the broken boiler continues...

The plumbers came yesterday to replace the boiler that British Gas couldn't fix on Friday.  Our landlord said he would give the plumbers keys to let themselves in so we didn't need to be home.  So we weren't home.  And, of course, our landlord didn't give the plumbers keys.  So the plumbers sat outside our house for an hour with our new boiler and no keys and then left.  We all got home about 15 minutes after they left, but we all could have been home earlier if we had known they had no keys. SO ANGRY.

It's now been 6 days with no heating or hot water so Mat and I decided to just go stay in a hotel.  We found a nice one, booked it, and checked in.  If you were thinking, "Huh.. Mat and Allie seem to have pretty bad luck.. wonder if the hotel is going to suck too?" you were thinking along the right lines.  The hotel is very nice.. our adjoining room, however, is NOT.  There's a door in our room that used to connect the two rooms (I think) so noise travels.  Noise travels more when you are yelling conversations and having a grand old time with your two children... at midnight, then again at 6 am.  Honestly. What is wrong with people?  It's a hotel!  There is obviously going to be someone sleeping in the room next to you.  Why get up and yell at 6 am?  We're going to see if we can change rooms tonight.  The boiler won't be fixed until Monday so we're staying here until Monday.  It's just so nice to have a hot shower!

On a happier note, King's volleyball won the league yesterday! Whoooohoooo!

Now I need to actually do some work. Good thing there's a fancy desk and chair in this room :)

Cold.

I have to say after looking up the weather in Madison, I am glad I'm in London today!  SO COLD in America!  It's pretty chilly in London today too.. in the 30s.  Which would be fine weather except our boiler is broken.. womp womp womppppp.

That means no hot water AND no heating.  And it's not getting fixed until Friday!  Holy cold.

We've been having problems with the hot water for the past few weeks so I've perfected the art of the 30 second shower (we only got about 30-45 seconds of hot water before it turned stone cold).  I'm not sure I can bear it with absolutely no hot water though.  I'm going to try to boil a ton of water (stockpot full+kettle+every saucepan we have) and pour it in the bathtub for a bath instead of showering.  We'll see how that goes!

Busy busy rest of the week.  Work and meetings with supervisors at school and work and back to Dorking for Ollie's birthday.  Plus an essay, a dissertation, a book report, AND a case study to be working on.. plus weekly readings for class.  And I'm procrastinating the time away blogging.... :)

Snow and our new pub venture

We had snow again yesterday!  A decent amount, actually.  It snowed most of the day and was still on the ground today (I think the drizzly rain might wash it away today though).  Mat and I got locked out of our flat for about an hour, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the snow!  He made a snow angel in the middle of the road (we don't have a yard.. we have to use what we have) and I pouted under the covering outside the door.. you can tell which one of us was more excited about the snow :)

Mat and I have a massive list of restaurants to visit in London.  However, we can't really afford to go out to eat all the time.  So, instead, our new venture is to visit a bunch of London pubs!  We've compiled a list of unique pubs (like Bounce, which is full of ping-pong tables) and old pubs (like Ye Olde Mitre Tavern, which was built in 1546).  Last night we visited the Princess Louise in Holborn.

It's hard to get a good picture because it's such an odd pub.  It has all these doors with foggy glass etched windows.  Some of the doors lead to little cubby holes where you can sit with a group and have a drink.  Or they have 2 bars downstairs and 1 upstairs.  Very cool little pub! Good beer too :)

School and college and university

Recently I had a conversation with someone and we were talking about drinking.  And I told a story and said it happened when I was "at school".. and the person looked at me incredulously.  "You did that at school?!"  I had to clarify that in America, school can refer to kindergarten-12th grade, community college, university, etc.  

In England, school is just primary (ages 4-11) and secondary school (ages 11-16), college is sixth-form (ages 16-18), and university is university.  College and university are not interchangeable like they are in America.  I seem to always forget that and refer to my entire schooling life as just 'school'.. it's a bit confusing to the Brits!

We got our first marks back.. I definitely did not do as well as I had hoped.  I need to step up my game for this next essay (aka spend every waking second in the library).  It's full speed ahead until the end of April with 2 essays, 1 book review, 1 presentation due and a dissertation to work on. BRING IT ON KING'S! 

.... this post sounds so much more confident than I actually feel about the next few months.

grad school is hard.

I did find this funny sign today on my walk through a dodgy alleyway to school (see what I mean? that should say "to university").

What is anti vandal paint? And why on earth would it be on the roof and not on the walls?  

I don't get it.

Snow in London!

Woke up to snow this morning! This never happens in London. It only lasted a few hours and it was just a tiny bit, then it all melted.. but it was pretty! Now it's raining...

I have a new favourite British saying.. in America, we say "I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole!"

In England, they say "I wouldn't touch that with a barge pole!"

Barge pole. I just think it's so cute.

I was uncharacteristically organised today. I colour-coded all the articles I need to read for my dissertation and sorted them by subject. 

Now I just need to read them all....

We had a volleyball tournament and we kicked ass!  Won both matches (4 games).  

Notice the scoreboards...

The other teams scored a total of 11 points in two games of the match :) GO KING'S!

Beginning of January

Helllo all!

I'm sure you want to hear about another thing Brits don't have that I miss? Applesauce. Plain ol' applesauce in a big jar just for eating.  I asked in the grocery store today for applesauce and they took me to the condiment aisle and showed me a tiny, barely jam-sized jar (next to the ketchup and horseradish) of Bramley applesauce - for putting on pork.  The guy was amazed when I said I just wanted it to eat!  So, Mat and I had to make our own applesauce.  It's really simple.  Just cooking apples, water, and a bit of caster sugar!

Apples.

12 minutes later - applesauce!  Much better than Mott's :) 

Mat was off on Sunday so we went out exploring in London.  We went to Spitalfields Market in east London, then walked through "the City" (aka where all the big tall buildings are).  I made Mat take my picture in front of everything.

The City.

Some super tall building.. I have no idea what it is though :)

Gherkin

I'm a tiny little dot down there next to this huge building.. again, I can't remember what it was. Some sort of finance building or something.

Then we went to Bodean's in Soho for some quality American-style barbecue.. and Blue Moon! 

I've also been spending a lot of time in the library.  I finished my dissertation proposal and wrote a whole 228 words of my 6000 word essay!  Slowly but surely making progress.

We've also started planning our weekly menu and only grocery shopping once a week.  It's a good idea but walking home carrying a week's worth of groceries is heavy.  Especially when they include a bajillion vegetables (including potatoes) and a liter of milk.  

On the menu this week - 

Butternut Squash Risotto with Sage and Pancetta

Braised Pork Shin with Saffron Mashed Potatoes

and Beef Stew

Obviously Mat will be doing the cooking on those nights.  My nights of cooking are pasta with peas (Mat made me write Pasta alla Mente on the menu so it sounds fancier) and leftovers :)

Off to do some reading about attachment theory!

New Year and cookies

Happy New Year from London!  

We were lucky enough to get to watch the fireworks on the South Bank.  Very impressive!  Mat's friends from Dorking and his brother came up and we had a great night!

Now a bit of complaining:
In the last hour Mat has spilled two whole glasses of liquid on the carpet in the living room.  Why?!  The first one was water but the second was orange juice. And our washing machine broke today.

On a happier note, we made these magical cookies today:

Brown butter + sea salt Nutella stuffed chocolate chip cookies. Honestly. They are just as magical as they sound!  Beautiful chocolatey goodness :)

And I got my new wellies (aka wellington boots aka rain boots) today.  They are magical.  I jumped in every puddle on my walk to the bus stop just because I could :)

Back on the grind tomorrow.  Will be spending the day in the library writing my dissertation proposal and reading a tree's worth of journal articles.