February 2014 - Snow-versary

Heeyyyy! Thanks to all of you who took the time to read my last blog post! You will be pleased to hear that this one will be much shorter with a higher ratio of photos to words! February was all about snow days and baking, working and new friends, dinosaurs and fun! (And exclamation marks apparently. Woo!)

February began with a trip to Wegmans for groceries, because apparently a 45 minute journey to the supermarket is normal for us since the shop downstairs closed! This led to a fun weekend of cooking and baking, with N making a loaf and some brioche buns, and me making some jammy dodgers after promising them to some friends (they went down very well, in case you're wondering, here's the recipe, so easy!) And I cooked a roast chicken, I think for the first time in my life, which was also pretty good, with Chinese five spice and soy sauce. I even used the leftover carcass for soup! So very domesticated!

The second weekend of February saw the arrival of our fifth anniversary, which we celebrated by booking a car and taking a cold walk at the very pretty Cylburn Arboretum, cooking duck for tea, and making an anniversary battenburg! We were so proud of ourselves for that, and it tasted soooo good! I spent the following day helping to sell Girl Scout cookies in the freezing cold, which was less fun, but did lead to me finding us a cheaper and closer supermarket to use. Also, if anyone in downtown Baltimore still needs cookies, we still have some, so get in touch!

The day before Valentine's Day we had a big snow storm which led to a snow day, even for me and I don't even live that far from work! But thankfully it didn't stop our planned Valentine's girls' night checking out some of the bars in Fells Point, which was so much fun! Although it may have ended a little messily for pretty much everyone but me... :) We even stopped by a bar which reminded me so much of a proper British pub that I felt very much at home!

The rest of the weekend was spent recovering (I may not drink, but it was a long time since I've stayed out until 2am!), taking a very snowy walk at Fort McHenry, and, of course, more baking. I made chai tea loaf which is a recipe in the BBC Good Food magazine from Frances who won the British Bake Off last year. Unfortunately most of the filling oozed out in the oven, but it was still very tasty. I also made pineapple and date relish which I'm enjoying very much on my sandwiches right now, and have been giving away to everyone because I made so much! Oh and it was restaurant week so we finally tried out The Helmand, which is the Afghan restaurant just up the road from us. I can't believe we waited so long to go there, it was incredible! Everything tasted amazing, right down to the cardamom tea at the end. It was extremely busy, but that wasn't actually a problem because they were so smooth and efficient.

And then last weekend we visited the Science Centre with our favourite little girl and her mum which was a lot of fun, and so lovely to have some mild weather for a change (unfortunately it's back to being ridiculously cold now).  And on the Sunday I went to the Craft Council Show with our friend, which was awesome. So many beautiful things on the display, but I definitely have expensive taste! Oh and I baked lime and ginger bars which don't look very appetising, but tasted pretty good, especially considering I'm not a huge citrus dessert fan!

Oh and I can't end a February round-up without mentioning that on Friday night I found an Irish pub that does decent fish and chips, it's been just up the road this whole time and I never knew!

So that was February for me! And that's not even to mention all the evenings spent doing Girl Scouts and learning about camp, gatecrashing Hopkins post-doc association events and Friday night happy hours. Busy but fun! :)

How was your February? Did you get up to anything fun? Make any tasty food or baked goods? Like last month, if you leave a comment below I'll send you some surprise snail mail!

January 2014 - Cardiff Hen Do Fun Times!

OK so yes, I totally failed at updating you on the second half of 2013. In fact all I managed to do before giving up was give a summary of the first half of 2013, which I had already told you about! Needless to say, the second half of 2013 was busy. I've put some photos up here for your perusal, from Independence Day to New Years Eve. If you want to know more about any of our adventures from last year just ask and I'll write about it!

But anyway, onwards to 2014, a year which promises much excitement, and has in fact already offered up some fun times! Instead of trying to do a weekly blog post and failing miserably, I think I'm going to aim for a monthly round-up, with extras as I fancy. Let's see how I do!

Our year started like this:

No, we didn't have people over! XD

This was shortly followed a couple of days later by a lovely meal at Alewife with some new friends.

And then... we got back from a fleeting visit to Cardiff a whole month ago already! Ten days in the motherland certainly made me feel totally homesick for the UK, but I'm feeling much better now that we're back in our apartment. We fit so much into that short time, and I managed to see loads of my friends, in no small part due to my awesome sister being in cahoots with said friends to organise me a fabulous HEN DO! Bur more of that shortly.

We arrived at Lemon HQ on the Sunday afternoon after an uneventful journey. My marvellous friends let us stay even though they're both knee deep in work right now, so a massive thank you to both of them, especially Kate for giving up her bed! We were promptly treated to a proper roast dinner, a great start to our stay.

N was right off to work on the Monday morning, even though he wasn't supposed to be working on this trip, go figure! I spent most of the day chilling over jetlag, but did go in the MRI for the first time in the afternoon for one of N's studies. It was much louder than I expected, but fine really.

On the Tuesday we met a friend for lunch at one of our favourite cafes in an arcade in the city centre, The Plan, which serves the most amazing salmon baguettes. Then spent the afternoon relishing the novelty of shopping on a high street, before collecting my friend from the train station who had awesomely taken a couple of her days off to come down from Sheffield to see me :D We had sushi for dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant in Roath, Tenkaichi. I wish I'd taken more photos!

The Wednesday involved much chilling and shopping - my friend and I both bought new phones! And a lovely lunch at another favourite arcade-based cafe, Madame Fromage, where I indulged in ginger beer and a panini featuring chorizo. Then of course it rained (similar to every afternoon we spent in Cardiff) so I had fun picking up the hire car and driving back to Roath through the rush hour traffic, before having to put my friend back on a bus to the train station :(

On the Thursday I drove N & I down to Dorset for the day so that he could visit our wedding venue for the first time. We made it through some torrential rain on the M5 and trudged through some mud, and thankfully N loved it! Yay! We also met our photographer who was sooooo lovely! Excitement! Then we headed for Montacute House to meet my lovely aunty for lunch, before driving back to Cardiff through some more rain. Great day!

Friday lunchtime saw my little sister arrive in Cardiff. We spent the afternoon shopping for bridesmaids dresses which was incredibly unsuccessful. Apparently our wedding colours are absolutely not in fashion right now! Once we were allowed back to the flat I was greeted by this:

Haha, oh dear! Hen do had begun! I had a surprise bake-off to judge, I was crowned Mary Berry for the evening! Amazing cupcakes and iced buns, and plenty of 90s pop. But best of all were these incredible mugs, one for every guest of the weekend (and N), all hand-drawn by the two fantastic residents of the Roath outpost! As if they didn't have enough to do! Thank you guys!

After not a huge amount of sleep we were all up bright and early for a mystery trip! After spending a not insubstantial time heading west on the M4 we eventually ended up near Tenby and met up with some more friends - we were doing high ropes! My sister is awesome, she had organised exactly what I asked for. Unfortunately I was waaaayyyy more terrified than I expected to be, as in, actually hysterical! But I am so proud of myself for facing my fears and doing 2/3 of the course, and hopefully everyone else had fun too! Unfortunately I was too busy to take photos, but one of friends who was waaaayyy too pregnant to do high ropes took lots for us, which you can see here. We followed this with some well-deserved (and long craved for) fish & chips and pots of tea in Tenby before heading back to the Roath outpost for pizza, and a quiz all about me! Which felt pretty narcissistic, but at least I didn't write the questions. Thank you Kate for putting it together (with N's help), they were great questions and it was fun to find out what all my crazy friends know and don't know about me! Everyone did pretty well though :)

The pace on the Sunday was entirely different as we headed for a spa in the countryside for a lovely chilled day of swimming, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, sitting, drinking tea, lunch, reading magazines and having afternoon tea. But unfortunately the hen do had to end, with some sad goodbyes, but happy memories :)

Unfortunately there was no time for a lie-in on the Monday as it was time to do what we'd come for: the wedding license appointment! We had stayed our required seven consecutive nights in Cardiff so just had to show up and prove identities and we were set, as long as no-one came forward with any legal impediments before February 5th! We took some photos in Sherlock's mind palace (aka Cardiff University main building, which just happens to house the lab in which I did my PhD :D ), then I headed into town, spending some time saying goodbye to the city centre and buying British stuff to bring back, before a final meal with our lovely hosts.

And then Tuesday N and I headed to Cardiff Bay, to go to the Doctor Who Experience initially, which turned out to be closed on Tuesdays :( So instead we had a nice walk across the barrage and back, and some Wagamamas, before going to Starbucks to check in for our flight. The rest of the day was spent drying off, packing and basically waiting for our trip back to Baltimore, which started early on the Wednesday morning.

Everything went smoothly, although it was a long flight because of the wind. This did mean that I was able to watch four full films though! About Time (loved it!), We're The Millers (very funny), Blue Jasmine (meh) and Austenland (brainless, but fun to fill the couple of hours at the end of the flight when I couldn't think any more!)

But the January fun didn't end there! We were straight back to work on the Thursday, and then on the last Saturday of the month we headed out for brunch at our favourite spot, City Cafe, with our wonderful friends, and my favourite little girl :) It was actually the best brunch ever: I couldn't decide whether I wanted savoury or sweet so our friend suggested we get one of each and swap halfway through, it was the perfect balance of Croque Madame & French toast! That weekend was also filled with baking and cooking and tea: N made rolls, I made pork, chorizo & bean stew; and bara brith for St Dwynwen's Day, and set out afternoon tea with one of my new Christmas teapots and the milk & sugar set from my aunty, and I also tried out one of my Christmas flowering teas! So much excitement!

Anyway, that was a lot of writing, so well done if you made it to the end. I'm sure you didn't want to read every little detail of my month, but it turned into a bit of journalling so that I wouldn't forget the fun time we had! More pictures here. I hope you had a lovely January! What did you get up to? Any New Year's Resolutions? How are they going? Leave me a comment and I promise to send you a surprise item of snail mail! :D

Gemswirls 2013 recap: May - June

I don't really feel like I need to write anything more about May, I was lucky enough to spend most of the month with my sister, first in New York, then here in Baltimore, and then on our road trip down to New Orleans, and I wrote blog posts about our New York trip here and the road trip here. That last link also includes what we got up to in June, with me back in Baltimore and the weather getting warmer. So that's it for today! I have a feeling I got quite lax in the second half of the year, so I might have more to say over the next few days!

Gemswirls 2013 recap: March - April

N was away either in Europe or Salt Lake City for most of March & April so it was a relatively quiet time, but we/I still managed to fit in some fun times. This post gives a pretty good update of how my March went by, quite heavily food related as usual. And our nephew was born which was exciting, although still sad that we can't be there to spend more time with him.

Easter happened, obviously a perfect occasion for more baking.

The following weekend saw me commuting to Washington, DC for a massive cancer research conference, where I also managed to fit in some cherry blossom sightseeing.

Apparently I was super excited about spring coming, which is funny because right now I'm still enjoying the colder weather a little. Although I'm sure by the end of January I'll be singing a different tune!

Otherwise not much more to say about these lovely spring months, apparently I did a pretty good job of blogging about them! I spent most of the rest of the time working or planning for my sister arriving in May!

Gemswirls 2013 recap: January - February

I feel that I didn't do a very good job of keeping my blog up to date this year, so I figured that this time between Christmas and New Year would be a perfect time to do a recap of my 2013, if I can remember it!

I wasn't too bad at blogging in January (see here) and the year started out well.

2013 Goals

I set some goals for 2013 out in my New Year blog post, and I'm happy to say that I did pretty well:

• Join Girl Scouts - this actually took a lot longer than I expected, but I ended up starting with my troop of Cadettes (age 12-13) when school went back in September, and accidentally became troop leader!
• Lose American belly - pretty happy with my health and fitness levels at the moment, got a good exercise regime going and have been maintaining a healthy weight for a while.
• Plan wedding - happy to say, with 5.5 months to go, that things are well on track. We had a good start with finally starting our savings account in January and then booking our venue in February.
• Stop scratching my face - not so good with this one, although I did better over the past few weeks when N threatened to take one of Christmas presents away for every time I did!

Baking & Cooking

N got two baking books for Christmas last year, so January last year was the real beginning of the obsession, making tasty simple bread, and Dutch filled cookies. And I started a digital subscription to the BBC Good Food magazine and made lots of tasty meals, trends which both of us continued all year.

Other stuff

I joined the uni gym in January and was super proud of myself for going swimming, and started going to water aerobics.

We watched a lot of Bones!

We spent a day at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC.

The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl!

N & I celebrated our four-year anniversary by going out for sushi.

My sister started planning her trip to the USA.

I finally had my first paper accepted!

We watched some roller derby.

I went to the massive American Craft Center show at the Convention Centre.

All summered out!

I guess I totally failed at keeping you all updated over the summer then? Oh well! I saw a lot of you a couple of weeks ago anyway, so you're all caught up! For the rest of you, I don't think you missed much. Although my reasoning for not blogging much is that we were busy. So, erm, here's your summer update : Baltimore got hot, then it got hotter, and then it got more hot again. We played outside, until it was too hot, then we came indoors. N baked a lot, I ate a lot. We both had birthdays, they were fun. Then I went to the UK for a whirlwind two weeks, and the Netherlands for a relaxed couple of days. I came home for a week during which time two of N's friends came to stay, and then after a week N went to Europe for two weeks. Yes, good timing there! Now he is home and all is right with the world.

So here's the exciting bit: I became a Girl Scout troop leader on Thursday! And like, not just an assistant leader, but actually in charge! Which wasn't supposed to happen, but did... So there we are, now I have to learn how Girl Scouts works. Specifically Cadettes (7th grade, 12-13 yrs old). If anyone out there would like to help me out with that I would greatly appreciate it! I'm excited! We get to start selling cookies soon, so we're probably going to start out doing some badges related to business plans and marketing, which is more fun than it sounds!

In other recent news I did some baking this weekend, before N could come home to start once again doing so much baking that there's already too much food to eat so I can't bake anything. This afternoon I made these tasty cheese scones which we had warm for lunch/afternoon tea:

And yesterday I made these biscuits, which are essentially jammie dodgers, but waaayyy better, if I do say so myself! :D

And for dinner just now I made toad-in-the-hole with butternut squash chips, which I didn't take photos of but was sooooo yummy!

So I think you're all caught up! If you want a more detailed post/photos on any of the above please get in touch in the comments and let me know! In fact, if you're reading this, please leave me a comment to say hi and let me know how you're doing. The reason I write this blog is to keep everyone back home in the UK updated as to what we're up to out here in Baltimore without having to tell the same story over and over again. Which is maybe incredibly selfish and lazy of me, but it doesn't mean I don't want to hear how you are and what you're up to too! It's no secret that while I'm happy and making the best of life here, I'm also homesick and lonely and I miss my family and friends all the time so, please, just take a moment to say hello! And that includes anyone reading this who I don't know already, I'm always up for making new friends!

So there, rant over! I'm off to make a cup of tea and prepare myself for another fun week in the lab!

Meanwhile, back in Baltimore...

...it seems that summer has started, and with it festivals, BBQs and heat galore!

We checked out the Charles Village festival with some of N's colleagues

Attended a leaving do BBQ for one of N's colleagues at Rocks State Park which was a pretty cool day. I got to do some driving, from which I'd been having withdrawal symptoms after the road trip! And of course it was awesome to spend a day in nature for a change, climbing rocks (yes, the park is imaginatively named) and going on a hike before enjoying some awesome food.

One Saturday after getting some food from the Let's Eat Charles Street festival, which closed off the block right by our apartment, we stuck around in Mount Vernon to watch the Pride Parade. Needless to say that was a fun experience!

We went out for crabs with N's colleagues:

We played in the fountains in the Inner Harbour (shame you need to be with a child to get away with that!)

And then yesterday we booked a car and went to the H-mart for Asian food, mainly because our grocery store stopped selling noodles, but also because of all this other awesome stuff! Topped off by finally trying out the incredible Vietnamese place around the corner from us!

And we took advantage of being near Patapsco Valley State Park to go for a very hot hike. Been exhausted from all that sunshine for the rest of the weekend!

Other happenings since coming home from my trip have involved meeting N for lunch at the B&O Brasserie on a work day (in itself a novel experience) to go for a soft shell crab BLT, essentially a whole, fried crab in a sandwich!

Lots of Farmer's Market trips, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat strawberries from the supermarket again!

Had an English ladys' night at an Irish pub eating fish + chips with our new friend that we met in the park :) and met said new friend for a walk with her dog in Harbour East.

Celebrated our minus one year wedding anniversary with a meal at a lovely Italian restaurant, Sotto Sopra in Mount Vernon. I had incredible lobster ravioli!

Tried to make marshmallows, didn't turn out so well...

Re-watched the final episode of series 2 of Doctor Who, still makes me weep apparently.

Had an interesting evening when water started coming through our A/C!

And drinks on the terrace of an Irish pub for a Friday.

So actually lots going on here!