The Vidler Boys

This morning I woke up at like 6am, which is strange for me, but it was good because James had to get up to do the pipe cleaning at 8am at the hotel. When he went in to work, I came with him and wandered about town doing some more shopping. I went to the grocery store, looked at things in the local market square and I even got another Christmas present for James (tehehe, yes James, I'm a sneaky girl and I'm spoiling you).

When we came home we had a nice brunch then took a nap. We did plan on going out to see some sites around Ross but I fell asleep...yet again. See, this is what happens when I wake up early.

After our nap(James had one too), we chilled around the house and then went to dinner with James' dad. It was nice having dinner with James Sr.; he's nice to talk to, more personalable than I thought. And the place was very nice--good food, nice place. james and I had a drink waiting for James Sr. then he joined us in the bar and soon after we went into the resturaunt and had a lovely meal.

We came home and watched TV in the living room with the rest of the family. I tell you these boys are MAD and they argue about the most stupid thing: the forecast tomorrow is snow, so they were checking the weather channel......I have NEVER seen 3 boys argue about the weather before. It's absolutely hilarious.

Tony came up James' room so they could look at Toys-R-Us online and make up his Christmas list for "Santy"--Santa. :) ADORABLE. <3>

We'll see how tomorrow turns out. If it snows us in, I'm gonna wrap presents. If we can still drive somewhere we'll go to Clearwell Caves, which are these underground cave maze that apparently is always 50*C no matter what the weather on topside is like.

SOME NEW ENGLISH DISCOVERIES:

*James + 1 bottle of wine to himself = hilarious, but then he snores and hogs the bed.

*My new favorite thing: TCP. It's like an antiseptic to clean and heal wounds, like Neosporin except it's a liquid you delude in hot water....AND IT ACTUALLY WORKS! :)

Welcome to Ross Vegas

First before I start my blog....here's the messy room I call home. :) Pictures of James and my room:

Right! Short blog today, I think. I'm quite tired.

We went into town today. James had to drop off his car at the garage to get it serviced. This gave us from 11am until 4pm to wander about Ross on Wye. The town is lovely, too lovely and quaint to describe, so I'll just go ahead and show you pictures now......

In a store that's sort of like a Wallgreens, James and I saw condoms called 'Mates'. We came up with quite a few funny slogans. Here's one: "Life's alright, when you have MATES."
Saint Mary's church. We walked through the graveyard there. It got harder and harder to withstand. At first there were grave from like 1700s, 1800s, and I found it fascinating to read what was on their Tombs and get to know these people. But then it went on and I found sadder things on the tombstones, like one girl, died 25years old on Christmas. :( Sad stuff. But when I REALLY lost it was when there was a whole little section of graves just for children. 2 years old, 7 years old, 12 years old, 4 years old.....so sad. I was in bloody tears. James got worried about me...I was okay, but i just felt for these people and their familys who lost them. Again, so sad.

A cross erected outside St. Mary's Church to honor the people who died in the plague and had to be burried without coffins.
The tower that was part of the city wall.
This is a bandstandand great green grassy area right by the river where they have a festival in the summer called Jamstand every year.

Me on the bridge by the river Wye.

Welcome to Ross on Wye. :)

James and his tea, inside this cozy little tea and biscuit shop.

mmmmm teeeeeaaaaaa. So good and I feel very english. Tea, milk, sugar, spoon to stir it all together, as well as a little plate to put it on. SO BRITISH. YAY!

The streets of Ross on Wye at night, lit up for Christmas.

Hmmmm.....what else. I was too busy being excited to take pictures but I met James' dad and went to see the hotel. I saw the flat where James spent some of his time before he got his car and could shuttle back and forth between home and work(at the hotel). I saw the restaurant, the bar, the cellar, a bit of the kitchen, and there's actually a 800year old water well that'd below the floor of the hotel restaurant.

James' dad (who's name is James), is aright. He was nice and friendly when I met him and he had a nice soothing voice that reminded me of Stephen Fry's voice, and he was the one that kept saying to my James 'have you shown her the cellar?', have you shown her this? have you shown her that? and followed us to the different places letting me take a look around the hotel.

Today was a nice little shopping day and getting to know the lovely little town of Ross on Wye. I also picked up a load of groceries for myself and for James' mum. And once again....James cooked dinner for us tonight. Pizza for the boys, Chicken Kievs for his mum, himself, and myself.

Jet Lag Day

Today was a complete rest day; I didn't really do much. James and I had a lay in until about 11am, then we woke up, got ready and he made us some breakfast/lunch.

Look at my little chef. :)

He made us a pasta, with a sauce made of tomato paste, chopped up pepperoni, sliced mushrooms, white wine, and fresh herbs.

Then we went on a walk with Tilly(their other dog). Tilly is a sweet old dog. She's Lock's mum and has been in the family for quite a long long time. Apparently tilly barks at everything--she's a good gaurd dog and doesn't like strangers cause she thinks anyone might intrude and hurt her family, The Vidlers. BUT!, when she saw me with James straight away she was okay with me, so that's fine. :)

We went down to The Dam by James' house, about a 5 minute walk in the freezing cold (about 1*C) and it started to lightly LIGHTLY sprinkle rain on top of us. It was so light I couldn't feel it at first. I took loads of pictures of us down by the Dam...because it was frozen over. :) We chucked HUGE rocks onto the Dam, but the ice didn't break. It was as solid as sears. :) I wanted to go no more than an inch on the water to take a picture of me standing on it.....but James said he wouldn't jump in after me if it did break( about 2% chance of that happening) so, he didn't let me.

The wood just before the Dam.

You can just sort of see the branches turned into icicles.

James with Tilly.

The Ice, cracking and little bits that aren't frozen over yet. :)

The reeds, frozen in place by the ice.

Me standing on a patch of ice on the grass. :) It was quite slippy.

You can definately see where the dam is frozen over and where it is not.

We walked back to the Dam Barn(that's what his house is called), and I was so cold and tired that I just went up to bed to take a short nap. Yeah right...... A 5 HOUR NAP ACTUALLY! I slept until about 8 (james stayed to nap and cuddle with me until about 6, then went downstairs for the rest of the time, leaving me to sleep more).

When I woke up I went down, watched Ratatouille with Tony, James and Alice until dinner was ready. Alice/Harry put a ham in the oven, and (when it was almost done) James whipped up some nice cabbage. It was a good meal. Another one from the Vidler Kitchen.

Harry I'm starting to see a bit more to him. He's a selfish 17 year old, more so than 17 year olds are. And he doesn't clean up after himself, and he's not much for conversation. James tells me that Harry exactly like their dad--messy chef, doesn't put anything away, never cleans up anything, leaves things strewn about the house and doesn't talk much.

I got the rest of my things put away as well. James' room is nice. he switched with Harry so that we could have the master bedroom-more room. It's a nice cozy little set up. I'll try to take pictures tomorrow so you can see the house and such.

James and I are about to settle in for a movie and go back to sleep, so....until tomorrow!

From Busy City to Rural Countryside

Last night while I was typing up my blog James was absolutely adorable. He was so exhausted from the day that he went to sleep before me, I carried on blogging and checking various social networks until I looked at the time and it was past 3am. All of my vigorous typing startled James awake. It was then that I realized it was 3am so I put my laptop down and cuddled James back to Sleep.


Anyways today we finally made it to Winter Wonderland carnival, it was absolutely breath taking. There were shops(I bought a zipper coin purse, a coin purse that completely unzips to one strand) and food stands....carnival rides(We went on a rollercoaster that was a cross between six flags' ninja and california adventure's mullholland drive) and skill games (James and I tried a ring toss and failed miserable). James lost his hat on the rollercoaster and noticed it halfway through the carnival, but luckily a worker at the ride picked it up when we went back to the ride to look for it.

James by the 'typical' fairground attraction: The lighthouse slide. You slide down this wooden slide on a floormat.

Here's James coming down the slide. Then we went into a 'funhouse'....mirror mazes, leaping across stepping stones over a pool of water, etc.
Here I'm walking through one of those spining tunnels where you can't walk straight.

This is a video James took of me. There were these spinning disks on the floor that really messed you up.

James, in the funhouse, walking on two boards that are moving in opposite directions.
This one is of James at the end of the funhouse. We walked through a mirror maze and it was extra trippy because the mirrors were the double sided ones so we could see OUT of the fun house, but it was hard to find the right path. I got out first so I took this picture of James making his way out.

THIS is the deathtrap that we went on and James lost his hat. I was scared to ride this because if you think about it...this is a temorary fairground, so this coaster was probably built in a day and not build permenantly to last. So.....I was afraid that a bolt would come out and I'd fall to my death. Luckily, no such thing happened. After wards James bought me(us) a keychain with our picture from the ride. Sorry I can't put it up here, the picture glares in the frame.

This is the zipper purse I bought. It's quite cute. James is unzipping it, playing with it in a pub.

After Winter Wonderland carnival James an I headed to the center of London to go to a pub near the river that I went to last year. We had lunch there and a pint before heading back to Ealing(where our hotel was and car was parked) to get in the car to leave for Ross On Wye.

(this is a picture we were sat by in the pub. It's a picture of London from late 1700, just before the Great Fire of London. That big bridge of buildings going across the Thames is the original London Bridge *squeals*)

......MOVING ON!

The Car ride was long I took a short nap and then argued with James about how awful the rules and guidelines on the motorway are. Seriously it's retarded; a car in one lane literally can't drive faster to pass another car without out getting a bollocking.

In any case we made it to Ross On Wye safely and where gladly meet by James's Mum and brother Sam. Evaluation on the family:

Alice (Jame's Mum): Alice is a riot she talks quite a lot, asks you plenty of time's if you want this or that. She's a bit over bearing at first because she's always embarassing James and always talking and always making sure if you want anything (potaetoes, a cup of tea, are you warm enough...those sorts of things), but I'm sure I'll warm up to her in time. She's interesting to listen to and talk with. I can't wait to see what the next seven weeks with her will do to me.

Sam(Brother): Ahhh what can I say about Sam. James made him out to be an attention seeking little brat. My first impression of him is that he's a typical 15 year old boy. Sam and I talked a bit. I asked him about school and what he was playing with on the computer (Games, Facebook and looking up gun controllers for the Wii on ebay) So far I think were getting along.

Tony(Brother): Tony's sick right now, so I can't really evaluate him just yet but from what I can tell he's a shy six year old boy. I made me sad though to see him sick because he reminded me of a sick coughing child from a Charles Dickens story. I wanted to be able to help him, ask him what he needs but he'll need some warming up before he trusts me or talks to me.

Harry(Brother): Harry I didn't talk to much. He was at work when I arrived but we saw him when he came home. I expected him to be this pipsqueak boy, but he looks a lot older then that. Didn't talked to him very much since James and I were already going to bed. I have a feeling he's going to be the difficult one to connect with.

Locke Gorman(Dog): Cutest little Lab Collie loves attention and craves it intensely I think I'm his new favourite person.


When I arrived, we got my luggage upstairs then Alice practically forced Champange on us. It was lovely to talk with her in the sitting room with James, and Sam on the computer near by.

An Awful Lot of Walking to do

Today was quite a good day actually. James and I deemed it our "walking day" and our first Pub Crawl day. James and I woke up, had breakfast at the hotel then set off for the day.

We decided to take a nice Sunday stroll through Kensington Gardens.

We saw the Peter Pan Statue:

And we saw alot, and I mean ALOT of birds, geese, pigeons..... the birds barely had anywhere to go on that pond because the pond was half frozen over.

(note the two different textures to the lake. One is smooth and one is choppy. The smooth one is ice). By the way, today it ranged from 1*C to 8*C (That's 33 - 46*F). I didn't mind. James kept me warm.

After Kensington, we went to Camden to do some vintage shopping. It was quite good. There were TONS AND TONS of shops and stalls.

Think China Town, but about literally 10 times bigger, with all sorts of variety shops. There were food stalls, lolita shops, punk shops, sex shops, tourist items, vintage clothes, off furniture stores, smoking paraphernalia shops....I swear there was so much incense and old smelling clothes James and I probably inadvertently got high just walking through there. Then, around 4-o-clock we went and found a pub to sit in, eat and watch the Chelsea football match (Chelsea is James' favourite football team in the English Premier league).

After that, we went further into the center of London to get ready to take the Jack the Ripper Walks Tour. We got there early, so we went across the street to another pub to have another pint.

The Ripper tour was amazing. for £8, we got to walk around the east of London for 2 hours and hear stories about how the ripper case worked, and exact locations where events had transpired. Our tour guide was Donald....the same Donald who wrote a book on the Jack The Ripper Murders...a book that James has in his collection, so needless to say James was excited to have an expert show us around. And it was WELL worth the £8. Towards the end of our tour we were shown a bit of the street and a pub which originally was the Ten Bells, the 'whore pub' of white chapel. Jack the ripper had once set foot inside that building.

So naturally after the tour James and I doubled back and had a pint in the "Ten bells" which is now called something else but I don't care. it was originally the Ten Bells. :) Picture from inside the Ten Bells:

After that we took the tube to Kings Cross to look for Platform 9 and 3/4. Unfortunately there's alot of construction going around so we couldn't see it. :( So, we decided to go to a chippy to get food and then hit another pub before going back to the hotel. We had a pint and played "Pub Quiz" and "1 vs 100" on a game machine. A waitress at O'Neil's Pub took this for us:

Once we were done at the pub it was about midnight and apparently the tube stops running at midnight on sundays....and our hotel was WAY out of the zone....sooooo it looked like we had to either pay to get a cab or walk loads of miles. We took a cab. Cost us about £30, but it was an experience and we needed to get back to the hotel.