the pub life.

It's been a nice week. The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival has begun and Ray and I are attending some crazycool concerts starting this evening with a performance of John Cage's music by pianist Phillip Thomas. He'll be playing in an art gallery exhibiting some of Cage's drawings, which I've never seen and am quite looking forward to. 

On Thursday I went along with Ray to a lecture by an American composer, Evan Johnson, who's in town for the festival. It was a great lecture, well delivered and I was intrigued by the sounds of his music as well as the perspective he takes towards work and notating scores. There are many overlaps between music composition and writing, perhaps all of the arts, really, and it's nice expanding horizons like this. 

Afterwards, we walked over to the Rat and Ratchet, a pub nearby. My first English pub experience! I had a half pint of pale gold, an English brew. The atmosphere is somewhat like a hotel lobby, or a den-ish lounge, but a cozy one with low ceilings, stone (or were they wooden) floors, ornamented red carpet in some areas, lots of wooden pillars, wrought iron banisters along raised and sectioned seating areas, small upholstered chairs and little round tables, curtains, framed posters and a pinball machine in the corner of the place. Plus they have what are called beer gardens, which is essentially a patio, but even someone's backyard patio is referred to as a beer garden, unusual isn't it? I will get some pictures next time, in fact, I may make it a project to take photos of pub signs in town. (Starting with the Olde Hatte from a week or so ago.)

oyster shells and my two feet.


(an old photo from Yscloskey.) 

november!

Yay, it's November! That means it's Dad's birthday and Ray and I's anniversary month; five years! (We can't remember the exact day, so we have the whole month.) 
Other highlights for the month include the showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I in the theaters, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, a visit from Tim, and Thanksgiving! 
It's been a busy last few days and I haven't blogged in while; as Ray says, "Two whole days and nary a blog post." So here are some pictures from recent adventures. 

On a dreary Sunday, we set out with our umbrellas for a walk in the town. . . 

(Foggy Halloween morning.)

The Olde Hatte; a local pub.

Mail can be dropped off in these Royal Mailboxes. 

We aren't entirely certain what "Franked" mail is but I think it's metered mail. 

A nice tree we passed on the way home. . . 

And some little berries Ray picked for me.

(In the background, an old picture of Blaine and I in Yscloskey.)

Halloween night we walked from our house over to Kate and Iain's to watch scary movies and eat sweet treats. There were zombie gingerbread men, zombie guts cupcakes, pumpkin pie and Haribo chewies. We watched what I think was my first Zombie movie ever? called Flesh-Eating Zombies. And we watched an older film, The Haunting (1963) with Julie Harris, Claire Bloom and Richard Johnson. Both were great picks. By the end of the night we all agreed that Ray would be a very good person to have around should any Zombies creep out of the ground. It was a dandy night hanging out with some new friends.