Becca Jane St Clair

I know, I know. Finish writing about London, THEN post about this past weekend, but I just got up these videos and wanted to share them.

We really packed a lot into day two, without actually planning on it. We wound up going to the Tower Bridge, the HMS Belfast, Big Ben/Parliament, seeing Oliver! in the West End, and Piccadilly Circus! Thanks to our daypasses for the Underground, we didn’t have to do a whole lot of walking, either.

The first thing we wanted to do was to see about getting theatre tickets for Oliver!, the production Burn Gorman is currently appearing in. Fortunately, there was a discount ticket booth right in the Covent Gardens tube station, and thanks to the person behind the counter calling the theatre, we scored high balcony seats for that evening’s performance. With tickets safely tucked into my camera case, we headed back onto the Tube to start our day.

Our day started with the trip to the Tower Bridge. I had discovered the Tower Bridge has a tour where you can walk along the top of it, and I really wanted to do it…and somehow I convinced Tim to go along with me! It was really neat learning about how the Tower Bridge was built and why, and then getting to walk across both sides of the upper bridge to take photos and video of London. We had a great time doing this, and fortunately, the Tower Bridge was a short walk away from our next stop. We decided against the Tower of London, since we both had already been there and I knew when I come back this fall with my mom, I’d be taking her there.

Just a short walk away from the Tower Bridge is the HMS Belfast. Again, I don’t know or remember much about it other than it is a 1930s warship. They were testing out a new route for their tour, so we got a little confused walking around and I kept feeling like we were places we shouldn’t be since there was no organized tour like with the HMS Victory. We did a lot of climbing up and down ladders, which I wasn’t a fan of, and had to squeeze past a lot of really tight locations to see it all. We learned all about how the sailors lived on the ship, as well as how the ship itself worked. We also stopped to eat on the HMS Belfast, and we purchased cups of tea to go along with the sandwiches we had packed.

From the HMS Belfast, it was another short walk to the London Bridge tube stop. When I saw we were going to be near Westminster, I asked Tim if we could stop to take photos of Big Ben and Parliament. I have photos from my first trip back in 1997, but there’s something about going to London and taking photos of all the important landmarks that appealed to me, so we stopped and after shooting short videos and taking photos, headed back onto the Tube to go back to our hotel to change for the play!

We stopped for dinner at a chippy around the corner from the hotel. I can’t rave about the food, because I really didn’t enjoy it all that much and ordered a hot drink when I wanted a cold drink, but it didn’t matter – we were off to Oliver!

Sadly, we didn’t get to see Jodie Prenger perform and saw Tamsin instead. I was disappointed, as I was really looking forward to seeing Jodie after watching I’d Do Anything. Tamsin didn’t impress me much. Her chemistry with Burn Gorman, who plays Bill Sikes, seemed non-existent to me. But Burn was amazing as Bill, and Rowan Atkinson gave a very hilarious performance as Fagin. Burn even managed to sing a bit of “My Name”. The character is so dark and cynical and I think Burn pulls it off well. The music cues when Bill comes on stage are sinister and dark, but it also takes a good actor to be able to take those music cues and actually make the audience fearful of him. Amazing performance, I loved it.

But perhaps the best part came after the show. I ran around the corner to the Stage Door, and got to catch Burn long enough to shake his hand and tell him who I was. It really made my evening! He was in a hurry to get home, but he still took the time to respond to my “Excuse me, Mr Gorman” and came over to say hello.

Needless to say, I was flying high after this and convinced Tim we should stop at Piccadilly Circus to take some photos before we headed back to the hotel for bed. We returned to the hotel, exhausted, but still flying high (at least for me!) after the performance.

Previously posted video logs can be found here:
http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/2009/01/more-vlogs-from-london/
http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/2009/01/more-vlogs/

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I was waiting to post about our London trip until I had copies of Tim’s photos to post with mine, but he’s been busy with his workshop and other stuff, and I thought I’d get up at least the first post before we head out traveling this weekend. I’ll post photos later, when I have Tim’s.

We were looking for something to do over a long weekend, and after rejecting a trip to the Lakes District (nothing was open, and it would be too cold), as well as the Norfolk Broads (same reason), we settled on going down to London and spending a few days there. I previously visited London back in November, but we did a theatre trip with Tim’s siblings and met up with one of my friends, so we didn’t do as much touristy things as I’d have liked, so we decided to do a real tourist weekend in London!

I scored us super cheap accommodations at a Bed & Breakfast (Belgravia Hotel) near Victoria Station. Because it was the off-season, the B&B was charging £100 for the 3 nights (less than £35/night for two people!), when their usual rate for the room we had (a deluxe double) was £80/night. I can’t remember which website I found it on, I just remember googling “inexpensive hotels London” and google spit back a few sites and we had them all open in tabs to compare the places. There was one other place that was cheaper for the three nights at £85 for all three, but that location did not serve breakfast, and had a kitchenette instead. While we could have stayed there and paid £15 less, I think our included continental breakfasts were worth the £2.50/each per day…and we’d have spent more on breakfast probably if we had been cooking it ourselves. (Plus who wants to cook when they’re staying in a hotel?)

We decided to take the train down from Lincoln, and while it was a crowded train, it was a pleasant journey. We had to switch in Newark from the local train to a National Express train, but we were lucky to only have to wait about 5 minutes. The National Express train even had wifi! I didn’t pull out my laptop, but I used the wifi on my iPod. We had packed some sandwiches for the trip, but wound up saving them for the next day.

We had to switch to the Underground at King’s Cross. A single fare cost me over £4! Insanity when the day pass is only £7, but since we only needed it for one trip, the daypass was pointless. Our hotel was located about 3/4 of a mile away from Victoria Station….which wasn’t bad, but it felt like a mighty long walk carrying luggage!

It was coming up on dinnertime, so we checked into our B&B, got ourselves settled and discovered both the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen (even smaller than the bathroom on the cruise ship I was on!), as well as a mini fridge to keep our snacks cool, and headed out in search of dinner.

We wound up at the mini mall connected to Victoria Station and had a great dinner in one of the restaurants. After dinner, we returned to the hotel, grabbed our cameras, and walked down to Buckingham Palace (about a mile from where we were staying), and shot some photo and video in the dark. The evening wasn’t cold at all, but we were getting tired, so we retired back to the hotel around 10. We knew we wanted to get up and out early the following day (plus didn’t want to miss breakfast!), but my stomach had other plans for me. We still got out on time in the morning, but for about half the day my stomach was churning.

I fixed my photo posting, so you can now click on images again to get a larger pic.

If you want to watch the video logs from the first night again, you can find them here: http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/2009/01/two-vlogs-from-london/

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I took one of those silly online quizzes:

I travel like Tony Wheeler !
You are someone who others will come to rely on for their best travel advice and information. With any luck at all, you’ll eventually get bought out by the BBC, so you can retire, and then keep traveling anyway.
What type of traveler are you? Take BootsnAll’s Travel Quiz to find out.

Ah, I only wish the BBC would want me to be a correspondent!

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I found this recipe for Chicken a la King in toast cups on one of the food blogs I read regularly and had decided it was something I might want to try to make for Tim someday…but the toast cups looked like they’d be something I’d fail at. My friend Falnfenix IMed me one day and told me she had made the recipe with success and the toast cups weren’t that hard to make, so I decided to try my hand at it…of course, I needed to use ingredients we had on hand and my end result while similar to the Culinary in the Desert post, really only shares the toast cups in common!

So – start with her toast cup directions. I used a silicone muffin tray though and discovered I needed to toast them for twice as long before they started to look toasty…and even then, they didn’t get that golden brown toast colour.

Then, I took a look at her recipe and at what I had in the kitchen and did the following:

*Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a saucepan
*add 1/4 cup flour after butter has melted, stir.
*add 2 cups chicken broth
*add 1 cup diced carrots, 1 cup diced celary, and 2 cups peas
*add 1 tsp white wine and 2 tsp white vinegar
*sprinkle with parsley, sage, pepper (from a 4-colour grinder), paprika, and salt
*add 1 Tbsp corn starch if it’s not thick
*add 4 cooked chicken breasts, cubed

Then it was simply pour into the toast cups. Tim said this was delicious, and he had the leftovers at work the following day without the toast cups.

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[Note added 9/12/12: This post gets a lot of traffic because there isn’t a lot of information out there about this subject. Please note that this post was written in 2009. Information may have changed, so please check the links provided or ask at a local GP practice.]

It’s bound to happen to you – you’re traveling and didn’t calculate how much birth control you needed to bring with you, or you decide to extend your stay past the amount you’ve brought with you. The idea of making an overseas phone call to your doctor to get a prescription filled, then calling and begging a friend or relative to pick it up, pay for it, and ship it over to you just doesn’t sit well with you, either. So, what can you do, other than going off your birth control for a few weeks or months?

The UK-Yankee website and board is a fabulous place to start for information about anything regarding visiting/living in the UK as an American. Several of the ladies on the message board advised in the past that visitors have access to free birth control through the NHS. This some-what contradicts the big stamp in my passport that says “no recourse to public funds”, so I was a little skeptical.

I first researched family planning clinics in the area near Tim’s house. I found one in Grimsby that also had a website and e-mail address, and I contacted them with my questions. The woman who wrote back told me I would need to pay for the visit but the pills would be free, and gave me the number of a clinic closer to here. I didn’t call them.

Then, I did some more research online, and found the Marie Stopes organization. Marie Stopes provides birth control to low-income women throughout the world, and their main office is in London. I sent off an email inquiring if they had a location closer to here, and what the costs would be as a foreign visitor. Marie Stopes calculates their fees on a sliding scale (similar to Planned Parenthood), but did not tell me what fees would be charged to a foreign visitor. Unfortunately, their closest clinic to me was in Leeds, which isn’t all that close!

Several ladies on UKY mentioned Dr. Thom Dr Thom offers online birth control pill ordering – no exam or need to see a doctor. Dr. Thom charges £29.99 for a three-month supply. The only catch is that you have to already be on birth control and you must be on one of the pills Dr. Thom provides. Unfortunately, my brand of pill was not on the list. The only “American” brands I noticed were Yaz and Ortho-Tri-Cyclen. I emailed Dr. Thom and asked about ordering a similar pill, but was told they could not provide a pill I wasn’t already prescribed. Dr. Thom also requires the person placing the order to have a credit card in their name and a UK address associated with the card, so you would also need to add your UK address to your credit card before using their services.

It was beginning to become clear to me that I would need to try to see a doctor here, and I was a bit worried about the cost. There’s a family clinic (not family planning, just family clinic) in the next village over, so when Tim and I happened to be in that area, I stopped in with my old prescription.

I was told that if the dispensary supplied my brand, they would just give it to me, but since I was on a brand they were unfamiliar with, I needed to make an appointment to have a doctor give the prescription. I was told that as a visitor, I might need to pay £12 for the office visit, but they were not sure and would let me know when I had my appointment if that was alright with me. Well, £12 certainly didn’t seem like too much money to me, so I said that was fine.

My appointment took all of 10 minutes. The doctor weighed me, took my blood pressure, and asked me medical history questions. Then she looked up the chemical make-up of my pill and prescribed me a similar pill. I was expecting a month’s supply, but she prescribed me with a 3 month supply, and I was told to get it filled next door at the co-op. They did not mention paying a fee for the visit to me, but I assumed I would have to pay for my pills. I went next door, and to my surprise I was handed a 3-month pack of pills after a very short wait. I asked if I needed to pay for them, and was told no, they were covered under the NHS.

So, my advice to any of you ladies traveling to the UK who find yourself needing birth control (or the morning after pill, apparently), find a local family clinic or a family planning clinic…but don’t wait until the last minute. I started looking into things with 2 weeks left in my current pill pack, and by the time I saw the doctor and got a new prescription, I was less than a week away from running out!

For more information about what visitors are entitled to, please see: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/Entitlementsandcharges/OverseasVisitors/Browsable/DH_074379

A few weeks ago, Tim and I were invited over to his Aunt W’s house for dinner. W lives in Lincoln off of Steep Hill (and ironically, the day I walked Steep Hill I went to the newsstand across the street from her house!), so we parked over by the castle/cathedral. The fog was absolutely beautiful, so I took this video:

Tim will probably have to add a comment and talk about this some more  as I don’t know much about it and he’s currently at work, but I really want to get to blogging about London and I need to blog this first!

Tim took me to the open day at Stockholes Farm Miniature Railway.  This railway was very different from what Tim has in his garden, as these trains were large enough to ride on and they run on actual coal! The railway is pretty complicated and loops around the property, including overpasses and underpasses!  They even have a small snack window and a ticket booth outfitted to mimic a real railway ticket booth.

A lot of Tim’s friends from the 16mm group were there, and the man who organized Frostbite was there with his engine, and told Tim and I we could take a look around the shed.  The shed was filled with engines that weren’t being used that day and engines that were being built/repaired.

We even got to ride on one of the trains!

I had a great time, and it was the perfect way to celebrate the new year.

For more photos see: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/stockholes-farm/ (Yes, I know it’s 2009 now, but it’s easier for me to keep all the photos in the same folder)

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I promise a real entry soon!

Tim’s 16mm Garden Railway  group holds an annual get together on the Sunday after Christmas, and I was invited to tag along…after being warned that this was an outdoor event and I’d want lots of layers!

By the end of the day, I was wearing seven layers including two pairs of leg warmers, 2 pairs of pants, and a big blanket wrapped around my body….but it was loads of fun!  I posted the videos shortly after we got back, but I haven’t had a chance to share my photos other than on facebook.

We went with M, a young boy who got into garden railways after helping Tim work on his, and M’s mum, H.  It was a tight squeeze to get everyone plus trains into her car, but we managed!  The drive over to D’s house took about a half an hour, but we were still the first to arrive.  Tim actually had his train up and running and his was the first train to make a circuit (and also the last!).  D’s wife always cooks soup for Lunch, so we got to warm up for a little bit inside partway through the day. D told me if I felt cold, I could go inside, but I enjoyed watching all the trains, and I just added on a layer if I started to feel the chill.

Tim even let me “drive” his train towards the end of the day, after most people had packed up!  (Tim’s corrected me that he asked me if I wanted to earlier on in the day, but I passed the controls back as I was afraid of bumping other people’s trains.)

We had loads of fun, and I want to play with Tim’s railway in the yard 😉

Tim’s train, Dark Horse

This locomotive was hand-built by Rae Grive and won the 2007 model of the year trophy at the 16mm AGM Convention!

For more pictures: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/frostbite

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Due to work and family illnesses, Tim’s mum invited us over for breakfast on Christmas Day, and dinner on Boxing Day, leaving us on our own for most of Christmas.

We purchased Christmas Crackers (poppers) and I made us a turkey with all the trimmings. A few days before we found fresh cranberries at ASDA, so I made up a batch of cranberry sauce for us to share with his family.

At home, I usually woke up around the time that Mom would get up to put the turkey in the oven – sometimes as early as 6. Surprisingly, even though we weren’t having our turkey until the evening, I was awake bright and early on Christmas and had to wait for Tim to get up!

A few weeks before Christmas, I decorated a stocking for Tim (with a train on the front!) and filled it with candy, (US) railroad pins, and a pair of novelty boxer shorts. Tim took his cue from me, and I had a stocking filled with candy (he filled anything “hollow” like a coffee mug and a make-up bag with chocolate!) and other small items. Tim also gave me a few books, but the best present of all came in a little tiny box from H Samuel. Tim gave me a beautiful ring with a butterfly on it! Apparently he almost didn’t have the ring to give me. He had to have it sized and was told to pick it up on Christmas Eve. He went into town before work to pick it up, and the store was all locked up with the gates down! Fortunately, they took pity on Tim and let him in since he had already picked it up, or he would have been pretty upset on Christmas!

After we exchanged gifts, we headed over to his parent’s house for breakfast and to bring over the gifts we had for them. To my surprise, I had a small pile of gifts to open! Tim’s parents gave me bedroom slippers, a pair of pajamas, and some bath products. His grandparents gave me a purple handbag (that I LOVE!), and I also received chocolate, some Doctor Who related items, and a Pashmina from his other family members. I really appreciated everything they did to make me feel a part of things.

Later in the evening, Tim and I opened a box of wine and popped our crackers. We sat in front of the fireplace and watched the Christmas Doctor Who special, the Wallace and Gromit special, and a few movies before heading to bed.

My new ring!

For more Christmas photos: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/christmas-2008

I wanted to go to Blackpool. It’s famous for being “The Atlantic City of Britain” and is pretty touristy, so I really wanted to go. What cinched it for us was finding out there was a Doctor Who Exhibit featuring Classic Doctor Who….only, the exhibit wasn’t open :(.

Our train trip was pretty confusing with all the delays and canceled trains, but we made it to Blackpool South and dashed over to the tram stop to get to the tourist section. Everything seemed to be deserted, which really wasn’t surprising considering we were going not only mid-week, but in the middle of Winter! I’ve been to Atlantic City in the winter though, and because of all the casinos there’s always something going on….I’m not sure if all the people were inside the game places or if it was just empty, but we crossed the street and headed towards the Doctor Who exhibit.

We got waylaid by a bloke running a dart game, and he somehow convinced Tim to play to “win his lady a stuffed animal”. £10 later and we quit after Tim won me a small stuffed Pterodactyl I’ve named Myfanwy.

The gates were down at the Doctor Who exhibit, but the Sea Life aquarium next door was open, so we thought maybe there was a way into the exhibit through there since they seemed to be attached, but no luck. We decided not to waste the trip to Blackpool, and visited the aquarium…where I think we were the only people in it for quite a while! We had a good time with the fish, but it wasn’t nearly as thrilling as it would have been if the Doctor Who thing had been open. Ah, well.

We decided to ride the tram all the way to the end of the line, and we were glad we did, because on the way back we got to ride on one of the few surviving double decker trams! We stopped at the same fish and chip chain we ate at in Cardiff because we recognized the name and it was one of the few places still open…and I tried spotted dick for the first time ever. It really wasn’t as bad as some people say it is, but it’s really sweet. I only could eat half of it!

We were just a short walk back to the Blackpool North train station, so we headed over and took the train back to Rainhill once again.

For more photos: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/blackpool/

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We took the train from Rainhill to Liverpool, and then through Liverpool on the light rail until we got over towards the waterfront. At our hotel, we saw brochures for a doctor who exhibition called from Script to Screen, and we decided to check that out. The exhibit was part of the Spaceport on the other side of the Mersey River, and we found a combination ticket for the Spaceport and the ferry tour of the river, so we picked up tickets for that and we were right in time to catch the next ferry!

Over at the Spaceport we walked through exhibits about the solar system and watched a planetarium-style movie about space’s affect on astronauts. Then, we headed up to the Doctor Who exhibit. One thing we noticed was that a lot of the items were similar to items we saw at Earl’s Court, but we still saw loads of costumes, props, and monster masks we hadn’t seen before. This exhibit had several items from the classic/old series, too, whereas the exhibit in London focused on the recent series only.

After a quick snack in the ferry terminal, we headed back onto the ferry which took us on a small tour of the waterfront before dropping us off back on the other side where we originally borded. (see my video log previously posted for boat-stuff).

The other “must do” item on our list for Liverpool was going to The Beatles Story. The Beatles Story was located in Albert Docks, a place we had visited on our first trip to meet up with my friends, but we didn’t have time to do any of the attractions. Fortunately, we arrived with plenty of time to go through the exhibit at our own pace, and at any given time there was only one or two other people in each section with Tim and I! We had really started psyching ourselves up for our trip to the Beatles Story. In the car on the way we listened exclusively to the Beatles songs I had on my iPod, and then as I mentioned earlier, his uncle played some original 45s for us when we visited him, so both Tim and I were really excited for the exhibit.

Some of the stuff we already were familiar with from other documentaries and stories about the band, but I still found it fascinating. At the end of the exhibit they have a section where they show what each member did post-Beatles, and we were quite surprised at some of the projects former-Beatles had been involved with that we hadn’t been aware of before!

Of course, you get dumped out into a gift shop, and Tim purchased a few CDs he didn’t have before we needed to think about dinner.

When we went out with my friends, we met up at the Pump House. Since we liked the food and atmosphere (and it was close by!) we headed over there for a meal, where once again we were one of the few tables occupied. The food and cider was good, and after spending some time relaxing and warming up, we headed back out into the cold to get back to the station and took the train back to Rainhill, then walked the half mile or so back to our hotel, where we promptly made some tea, changed into pajamas, and relaxed for the rest of the evening watching the DVDs of Eureka I brought with me on my laptop.

Reflections on the Water

(previously posted Liverpool vlog)

For more photos: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/liverpool/

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