The legalities of cleaning your sidewalk and driveway in the U.K.

The policy is.. there is NO policy.. and you are encouraged NOT to do it! I think this is a very old policy that has been in place when the UK would get minimal or no snow year to year. Times they are a-changing (earliest snowfall in 17 years this week and it is currently still snowing as I write this).. and so should the policy, if you ask me.
Click here for a VERY interesting article by the BBC. titled 'Is it your civic duty to clear snow?'.

SNOW!

This is exciting! Although we have no clue how to understand the weather reports for Scotland (as they report the weather for the whole country) - we heard rumblings that there was snow. I wasn't worried because the reports were for snow in the east of Scotland and northern England.  Earliest snowfall in 17 years.. more here. However, Friday night.. volia! Snow dumping down from the rooftops. 
We went for a walk to enjoy the snow yesterday and had a leisuriely pub lunch.

We then came across this character below (apologies for the technical difficulties as I realize I cannot edit this video clip) - it's still funny.

and.. we woke up Sunday morning to more snow! 
It is a strange culture here.  No one owns shovels, cars do not have snow tires (which puts the city at a standstill).. a lot of simple transportation delays (buses and trains).. everyone just sits in, relaxes and waits for the snow to stop.. kind of nice actually?

Can you see in the photo from our windowthat it is still snowing?

Book Party for a friend

Last week we attended a book party for our friend Diane, who wrote a book!
Her book is titled 'Sex, Drag and Male Roles' and describes her life journey as a performance artist.   The opening was at Aye, Aye Books which is the bookshop in the Centre for Contemporary Arts (in the Center of town about 20 minutes walk, 5 minute bus from our flat). 
Everyone had to wear a mustache to celebrate Diane's popular 'Drag King' workshops.
We had a fantastic time listening to Diane read from her book and do a bit of performance. We even brought along our friends Michelle and Ben (from Brent's program).

Learn more about Diane here Or if her book interests you, you can purchase it on amazon.com. I encourage it for anyone interested in feminism and performance art... besides that, Diane simply a wonderful person.

Something to warm you up...

Cold days in Scotland. Northern England and eastern Scotland (we live in the west) has been hit with snow. There has been a chill in the air over the past few days. We have been cozy at home nights while Brent has been busy at school during the days... I thought to warm up, I'll post some photos from Barcelona 2 weeks ago. Stay warm everyone!

 and.. ofcourse, the reason why I had my visit was beyond visiting the beach and seeing the sights.. I visited my best friend Kika, her boyfriend Tomas (both recently relocated from London) and even had an opportunity to get together with a very old friend from high school Michelle. Excellent quality friend time. 

Kika and me

Michelle and I on the beach 

Myself and Tomas enjoying a morning coffee on the beach

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

These are the people in your neighborhood.

Apologies everyone for not updating in a while.. Brent has been busy in his artist studio at school over the past week and as soon as we returned from Amsterdam, I jetted to Barcelona - photos to come very soon! In Barcelona, I joined my lovely friend Kika who was the maid of honor at our wedding in September.  Her place is on the beach and I had an amazingly relaxing time - beach walks, coffees outdoors, tasty food - Barcelona is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and to be so lucky to have visited there twice within two years is just mind boggling. On a funny note, Brent and I bought our wedding bands in Barcelona and they have needed to be resized for quite a while, I brought our bands with me on this trip and got them resized at the designer's boutique. The designer thought it was very interesting for me to travel all the way from NYC to have a ring resized. :)

I visited with a very friendly and supportive midwife yesterday for my 28 week appointment. All is well in the baby department. I feel great and actually am quite happy with my growing size in the middle.  Still swimming 3x a week and feeling more movement every day.

This week it was our friend Diane's birthday so we all enjoyed a meal in Merchant City. Merchant City is a fantastic section of Glasgow with a variety of great restaurants.  This afternoon, I joined Michelle (the other preggie in my prior blog post) for a Play with a Pint at the Oran Mor - Oran Mor is a massive old church that has been transformed into a performance space, restaurant and bar.  The play was a very cute comedy and it was astonishingly crowded and popular for the middle of the afternoon.

On a final note, I have had many meetings with a variety of professional marketing/media people in Glasgow. People have been really SO welcoming. It is super refreshing! Fingers crossed it will lead to an opportunity in the future..

Weekend on its way.. looking forward to another Ikea trip! This time for a mattress pad to make sleeping more confy - as it is getting tough people!

Halloween 'Babymoon' in Amsterdam

Just returned from our long weekend ('Babymoon' - couples time before baby) in Amsterdam - only an hour and ten minute direct flight from Glasgow.
We had a wonderful time. Our bed and breakfast was adorable - a trendy area with shops, cafes and close to the museums. Only 4 rooms in the place and the innkeeper was so friendly and nice. We had a tasty breakfast in our room every day.  The weather was crisp and fall-like. It was peak leaves season and every canal was covered and showered with yellow leaves.

For touristy things... we visited the Rijks museum, Van Gogh Museum, went on a walking tour of the Red Light District and an evening canal cruise (which was lovely - we sat in the back of the boat outdoors - it also was a great way to look into the nice canal boats).

On our tour of the red light district, we discovered something very funny. TONS of swans swimming in the canal! -- I took a video of a few however, there were even more than that!

Overall a perfect relaxing weekend away...