Happy Thanksgiving!! .... belatedly

Yeah, yeah I know... it's the second week of December and I'm just now getting around to writing about my English Thanksgiving. I get it.. I'm a little behind on the times but I'm making every effort (or almost) to catch up. So let's begin -

The Monday after Mary and I had our little shopping trip we went out to have a goodbye dinner thing for her. We found this cool pub that's on a moored ship on the Thames. They have pretty good food at not disastrous prices plus the cool atmosphere of the rocking ship. Mary then left on Wednesday to return home in time for the holidays. I spent the rest of the week working - no time off here for such crazy pilgrim holidays celebrating the successful migration away from the Motherland.

Anyways, the planned celebration of a few American ex-pats (aka my friends) was to take place on Saturday, beginning by playing American football in Regent's park then moving to where Ryan, Richard, Whitney and Autumn live (each pair share a flat in the same building) to have dinner. My only duty was to bring cranberry sauce, wine and possibly a dessert. So I take my time, enjoying a relaxing Saturday morning. Go to the upscale grocery store (which they seem to have a lot of here) and buy the sauce, a nice apple pastry tort/pie and two bottles of wine, a red and a white. I then make my way to the tube station where I board the train with my goods and proceed to meet up with everyone at the park. By this time I'm actually running a little late, having taken my own sweet time picking out my fare and am rushing. I have to transfer twice to get to where I need to be and along the way have the terrible misfortune of breaking the wine on the platform!! While attempting to readjust my grip on the bags I drop the bag that contained both bottles. They smashed together and starting spouting out of the bag! A kind British gentleman behind me felt inclined to inform of the wine pouring from the pores of the plastic sack, as if I hadn't seen, heard or felt the bottles breaking at my feet. After informing a tube attendant of the spillage I hopped on the first train, luckily it was not far off, and escaped the shame and anguish of wasting good wine. When I finally arrived at the park I got a text message that they had given up on football (that's how late I was) and was told to meet up at their place. So I get back on the tube and happen to get on the same carriage as they were on. We all make our way to their flats and beginning the painful process of heating up several dishes with only the aid of two Yorkshire terrier sized microwaves that produced less heat than if we tried rubbing two twigs together to create fire.. of course I exaggerate.. it produced about the same amount of heat as two twigs rubbed together. Finally the meal was cooked/warmed/at least brought to room temperature or thereabouts and we dig in (for more particulars on the feast and fun had see my picture gallery on ofoto.com). I had to leave early to go to an all night Lord of the Rings session at the Imax in the city.

So at about 6pm, after only an hour of dining, I head off to watch all three Lord of the Rings films in a row on a gigantic Imax screen. Call me Ishmael, call me a dork, geek.. FREAK, alls I got to say is it was Good Times!! The Fellowship of the Ring started at 8pm, we had a half hour intermission between films and tea, coffee and concessions throughout the night. The amazing times ended at 7am.. yes, that's right 7am.. the next morning. I then hopped on the tube, the very first one of the morning and headed home where I proceeded to sleep through the day. Woke up about 4pm, made some dinner and putzed around until bedtime again and then went to work the next morning. All in all it was a wonderful weekend, not to be forgotten.