Texans in London

Hello everyone, In all the excitement of the Mendez family being in London, and moving home soon, I haven't had much time to post anything. Work has also been hectic since I will be leaving soon and Alex is finding lots of last minute things for me to do.... (This is a picture of Alex's Girlfriend's visa application that I have finished putting together--120 documents!!)

Birthdays have come and gone, we had a lovely quiet time. We went to the Greenwich Astronomy Museum where they have just opened a cool planetarium.

So it was a nice romantic afternoon spent looking at the stars and drinking expensive coffees!

And Greenwich is a really nice area, lots of expensive houses and other things to envy, so it was a wonderful day. And now the rest of the time will be spent reminiscing about fun times in London and seeing our favorite places for the last time.

Today we went walking with our flatmate Diego, he is a teacher, so he has been at home with Tommy this whole summer. They have been having fun talking politics and watching great British TV shows. So I'm glad I got to join them on one of their walks finally.

We went to a ship called the HMS Belfast that is famous (for something that I need to discover), but it was expensive--as usual--so we kept walking instead. We walked to Monument, the statue commemorating Ground Zero of the Great Fire of London, started in 1666 by a baker called Thomas.

Coincidence? Hmm...

Then we went to St. Paul's

and then across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern, then to the lovely Thames Beach,

and home to meet the new flatmates.

I've got two more weeks at work,

and then I'm looking forward to having at least 2 weeks off before we have to start the arduous task of FINDING A NEW JOB.... (Da Da Duuuummmm....) We're excited about Mexican food and Kerbey Lane, and parties with family, and seeing all our friends, and finding out what Austin has in store for us now! So keep up to date, and we'll find a time to get together soon!

Trust me, watch the whole thing, it's so cool!

This is a variety show where comedians are placed in a "punishment" school, where they are punished if they laugh at their co-star who has very bad English lessons!

A late-night program.

**All these videos are courtsey of my lovely Japanese friends. We want to go there soon!**

Yeah, it looks like summer has come and gone. My flatmate said today that there is going to be one more day of summer in the whole year. I think that might be a little bit of an overstatement, but it certainly feels that way. We were planning on having a 4th of July bar-b-que, but we didn't really think it through, and it was raining anyway, so we sat around in our pajamas watching bad movies and ordering ridiculously large amounts of Indian take aways. Seriously, they gave us enough food for 3 days--for all 4 of us! Needless to say, I'm good on Indian for the month.

Because of all the rain, I'm dubious about the vegetable garden. I keep waiting for everything to just die, but all the plants that normally need a lot of sun seem to be fine. Although our lovely next door neighbor Dorothy thinks that they might bite the dust eventually.

Obviously, I'm worried, because this garden is my current only hobby. Painting my room SHOULD be up there on the list, but really, I can't be bothered. Tommy and I did have a nice rainy day out today, looking at books. He's officially finished school, and is just waiting on his certificates! We have our first Mendez college graduate! Way to go, Tommy! Today we looked at food science books, which might be something he'd like to pursue more someday. Maybe he'll be on his way to the first Dr. Mendez in the family... As for me, work has me tied up completely at the moment, but the silver lining is that we put air conditioning in the shop this week! I feel too American, being excited about air conditioning, but there it is.

So here's some pictures (mostly of the garden of course).

Tommy and the zucchini plant. Yes, it really is that big.

The tomatoes. Before and After!

My favorite flowers!

Jonathan being strange, as usual, excited about his new jacket for working with Gordon Ramsey!!

Our usual picture. We're in love, can't you tell?

**P.S. Click on the thumbnails for the high-res picture!**

Our garden is looking wonderful after I attacked the weeds, why is it that they always grow faster than the ones you planted?!?! We're looking forward to lots of yummy veggies, although I'm trying not to get my hopes up just in case.

London is funny in the summer, people actually start smiling. That's a big change from the usual. And the UK really loves its music festivals. Everyone wonders if it's cold over here in the summer, but both Tommy and I agree that last summer was the hottest one either of us had experienced. It's really only for about a month, but the temperatures reach near to Austin levels, with the same humidity, except that NOTHING is equipped with "air con" as they call it here. It's still a something they advertise as a novelty. But this year Alex is finally breaking down and getting it for the shop, which is no cheap endeavour, believe me! Anyway, I complain too much. It's really not that bad, and it means I'll have a nice garden. Here's the latest pictures!

The garden, finally with grass! Tommy is in the corner trying to kill flies with the bamboo stick. Don't ask....

This is one of the wonderful tree/bushes that grows here on it's own. I'm obsessed with the flowers (obviously since they are pink)!

My roses, just budding. The bush was buried behind a bunch of nettles, we had no idea that it was still alive! Interesting that they are yellow roses-Texas follows me wherever I go!

Carrots, zucchinis, tomatoes

And here's my favourite dog that lives in the neighborhood. He's so cute!

So that's summer so far in London. It was rainy and cold last week, but maybe this week it will finally stay warm! So lots of love, and bye for now!!

Here's a picture of us at the shop on Naoko's birthday recently. Only Mami(Japanese girl) and Alex(the boss) are missing.

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I thought I'd like to wait until we had some news, which (somewhat) explains my absence. It's been a cold winter, but spring--and almost summer--arrived early this year. It's pretty warm already, so we're looking forward to some hot weather this summer. Alex is finally looking into getting air conditioning for the shop, which is a very welcome idea!! In light of this fortunate weather, we at home have decided to take advantage and do some gardening. It's been great so far, and we're growing lots of vegetables for good summer meals. The vegetables are inspired by Jonathan, who has lots of big plans for meals! And now that the garden is weed-free and a bit less buzzing with flies, we'll be able to have some bar-b-ques.

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I know I'm in trouble. Mostly because we've had a few rather momentous things happen, and I haven't posted anything about them. Worse still, I have very few pictures! *Gasp!* So I'm sorry, but in my defence, I've been enjoying life too much here to take any pictures!

We started off the year great, with our friends Jonathan and Ami from Austin moving into our house. They've been planning to come to London for a while, and as luck would have it, the other couple in our house decided not to renew their contract right when Jon and Ami needed a room! Great! (Although we do really miss Nuria and Victor...) They landed in London on New Year's Eve, at 8:30pm--just enough time to get a taxi and have dinner before the clock hit midnight. Then we spent the 1st lounging on the sofa, enjoying the utter closed-ness of London on major holidays.

And then, of course, on the 2nd, Sylvia and Risa landed, I picked them up from the airport and tried to keep them awake in order to defeat their jetlag. They were so mad at me! That Tuesday was pretty much spent just running around and getting familiarized with London.

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So after all the excitement of Madeira, things have calmed down into the Christmas rush at work! Ack! Actually, it's not so bad, just a lot of nice big numbers at the end of the day.

But things are going well, Tommy finishes work on the 22, and is totally free until Jan 3, and I'm excited about having a few days holiday soon. We're going to have a group of friends over to have a lovely dinner and spend the night since London closes down on Christmas Day. Then on New Year's Eve, our friends Jonathan and Ami will be joining us in London, exhausted from their whirlwind honeymoon in Europe and (hopefully) ready to relax in their comfortable new home! Then 2 days later, Risa and Sylvia are coming over for a week! This is all great news for January, which is a really hard month in London, when Christmas is over, everyone is broke, and it's stinking cold outside. Hopefully this year winter won't last until MAY!! like last year....

I don't have much news other than that, just anticipation of things to come. We are going to buy loads of phone cards so we can call everyone for a long chat over the holidays--so stay by those phones! No, really, don't hold your breath, but we'll definitely call everyone! In the meantime, enjoy the holidays, and stay nice and warm in your toasty little southern state...(grr...) ;)

Merry Christmas!

(Here's a lovely photo from when Byron was here!)

It's strangely bright outside right now, even though the sun set at 4:30 this afternoon. It seems as if dawn is just around the corner. Tommy and I wondered if nocturnal animals like cats can lose their dark sight from living in a city like London, and would those animals be at a loss if they were transplanted to the country where there are no lights for miles? As I was flying in from Madeira last weekend on my 6-hour-delayed flight, I was reminded how strange London is at night. There's no mistaking it, with it's dome of light--probably only New York or Las Vegas comes close.

Madeira was a success, in every form. We had great models, I did great colour for great haircuts, and all in the difficult conditions of a hair show hosted in a luxury, retiree hotel! For the five different groups of hairdressers attending (with 6 or so models to each group), the company gave us one small conference room to do all the colour and all the cuts. But our group pulled through, even if we retreated to the hallways to do the cuts, and we had six models instead of the four we originally planned. The models were fantastic, most of them spoke English (or understood Alex's particular brand of Portu-Ital-Spanglish), they all loved (and suited) their hairstyles, and they picked up my intricate choreography in under one hour!

Here's all our gorgeous models: Carla (Domenico's onstage cut), Catarina, Laura, Maura, Petra, and Sara(Alex's onstage cut).

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I've been Googling for inspiration at work, looking for places to find interesting colours. Somehow I have to transfer these sources of inspiration into hair colour, but that's the hard part. Right now, it's the fun design stage, and I'm enjoying the freedom of working on models and not worrying about the longevity of the colour (or if the subject likes the idea of wearing copper and green hair!!) And in the end, the really difficult thing is how to manage these colours on dark Portugese hair! Oh well, I enjoy a challenge...

Alex mentioned copper and green, a patina.

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