Birthday Loot

London Aquarium

 

On this day, thirty nine years ago at 3.33am EST, a miracle was born. Or rather, I was. It was a pretty big deal. At least it was for me. While I’m not a big fan of aging, I’ve gotta say that I love it when my birthday rolls around. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always had jobs that have allowed me to have the day off (as a holiday day, of course). When I was a little girl, my parents used to let me and my sister have one day off per year, providing that that day didn’t fall on a day when we had a test or a project due. (Please note that my parents DID NOT advocate truancy. They’re just really cool parents who wanted us to have one special day off from school each year.) I always chose my birthday.

Anyway, I’ve managed to keep it special this far through my adult life and hope to do so for the rest.

On my birthday, I like to do stuff that I haven’t done before. Go someplace I’ve never been. This year, I decided to channel my inner 12 year old girl and go to the London Aquarium. It was a really fun day. I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed with the aquarium as it wasn’t as majestic as I hoped that it would be (especially considering how much they charge you to get in!). It was very cramped and you had to fight with school children to be able to see any of the exhibits. Because, yes, today was field trip day for a few schools. *sigh* Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of cool stuff. Including this:

Photo bomb!

No trip into central London would be complete for me without a visit to Forbidden Planet. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it a time or two but it’s my favourite place to shop. Yes, that’s right, I would rather buy books than shoes. I picked up some goodies from there which I’m sure I’ll review fairly soon.

Birthday loot!

I’m especially looking forward to reading The Empire Striketh Back! I read William Shakespear’s Star Wars ages ago and it was a hoot.

So, that was my birthday! I must go now. We still have birthday brownies to eat and Netrunner to play.

 

He Blinded Me With SCIENCE!

The Science Museum in London

Hello there, bloggy friends! Hope your weekend is going well. My weekend has been really nice.

Just a bit of background before I tell you about it. Mr. Buffy is a freelance cinematographer, so when work comes along, he pretty much has to take it. Well, work has been coming a long quite steadily (which is good) but a lot of that work has been happening on weekends (kind of sucky). With me working a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday job and him working something like 18 weekends in a row, we haven’t seen each other much lately. Ok, I’m being dramatic. It has only been 4 or 5 weekends in a row. It feels like a lot though.

Anyway, I was thrilled to find out that he was finishing up some work on Thursday night and would then have three days in a row where he didn’t have to work. Three days, people!

The obvious thing for me to do was to take Friday off so that we could spend them together. So I did. And we decided it would be fun to head into London for some sight-seeing and shopping.

Our first stop was the Science Museum. It’s been a few years since we last went there so off we went.

My favourite part was the space stuff. There were lots of rockets and space shuttle parts. There was even a small piece of the moon. There was a floor dedicated to genetics and what makes us who we are. There were a lot of interactive booths, mostly for kids, but we pushed them out of the way. We got to see what we would look like as elderly people. The software wasn’t really great. They pretty much just put lines on my face and gave me kinky grey hair.

I’m going to relish my role as a grumpy old lady!

The hubs pressed the button to see what he looked like as a baby and it was super creepy because it didn’t edit out his beard. I wish we had gotten a picture of that!

Anyway, after the museum, we went for lunch and then we went shopping and ended up at my favourite store: Forbidden Planet!!! I bought Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer because it’s gorgeous.

A must have for anyone who writes sci-fi or fantasy. and it was £2 off!

Like I said, it was a good day.

We spent Saturday at home together. We had a massive cleaning session and then chilled out. Oh and FYI to my male readers: DO NOT underestimate how attractive you are while you are cleaning the house. I’m just putting that information out there, free of charge. Do with it what you will.

So, that was my weekend. I hope yours was nice too!

Oh and here’s the video that inspired my blog title. This song runs through my head any time I think about the Science Museum.

Come back on Wednesday as I’ll have a book to talk about with you!

My Saturday of Culture and Geekiness

So, I don’t actually have a book to talk about this Sunday. Again. I’ve got about 2 weeks until I take my exam for work so, as I mentioned last week, that’s where all of my energies are focused. Urgh…

Anyway, I took an afternoon off from studying on Saturday to spend some much needed quality time with the hubs. We ventured into the vast wilds of London in search of culture and unadulterated geekiness.

Our first stop was the National Gallery. If you aren’t familiar with it, here it is: 

(I didn’t take this picture yesterday, by the way. We go here often. I don’t know why I felt the need to tell you that, but there you are.)

Here’s the view if you’re standing with your back to the National Gallery: 

We like to visit every now and then when we feel like we need some inspiration. There’s some really cool stuff in there. This time I felt like the impressionists were really speaking to me. Not literally, just so we’re clear. I just really felt drawn to them. Perhaps that style of art represents what my life is like at the moment: messy but beautiful.

I feel that I have to tell you that I know next to nothing about art. I like looking at it, but I don’t have anything profound to say about it. So, I bought postcards of these paintings to remind me of a couple that really moved me.

The Boulevard Montmartre at Night by Camille Pissarro (from National Gallery website)

A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, 1889 by Vincent van Gogh (from the National Gallery website)

After the National Gallery, we went to Forbidden Planet which is my most favourite shop in the whole world. It’s full of wonder, geekiness and so much win! We probably spent as much time there as we did in the National Gallery. No, I’m serious. We perused shelves full of comic books, many of which I’ve earmarked for Christmas. Then on to the books. *sigh* The books.

The past two weeks I’ve been such a good girl, studying hard like I should, but I can’t even begin to tell you how much I miss reading books for fun. Half an hour before bed each night is not even close to being enough time to read!  I’m suffering from withdrawal and an intense envy every time I see someone reading a book for fun. I must soldier on. Only two more weeks…

I’m sure that you can imagine, given the above information, how sad it made me to walk through the shelves and look at all of the books that I won’t be reading in the next two weeks.

Poor me.

However, I did treat myself to a sliver of awesomeness to dull the ache. Feast your eyes on this!

 

Now my oyster card can travel in style! (For those of you unfamiliar with the oyster card, it’s how we Londoners get around on the buses and underground.) I would have preferred a card featuring Lumpy Space Princess, but alas, they didn’t have one. This one is really amazing, though, as I do love Lady Rainicorn and it makes me smile every time I use it.

It was a lovely way to while away a Saturday afternoon.

Hopefully I will have a book to talk to you about on Wednesday. I’m halfway finished with one, so the outlook is positive.

Anyway, I must go study.