Ealing

Late last week I took a long walk out to Ealing, a region of western London about five miles from our apartment. I wasn't sure what I'd find out there, but I wanted to take a look, so I set out on the Uxbridge Road through Shepherd's Bush and pretty much walked in a straight line all the way to Ealing Broadway.

It was a nice day -- beautiful sunny weather and relatively cool. I bought a cheap egg salad sandwich at Tesco and ate it in Ealing Common, where I took the photo above. As you can see, fall is coming! The horse chestnut trees are always the first to lose their leaves, it seems.


The neighborhoods around Ealing become more suburban, with freestanding homes or small apartment houses separated by gardens. In Ealing I popped into a charity shop and bought a couple of used books for cheap reading. Then I got on the tube and came home. It was a fun day! The map above traces my path.

In other odds and ends:

-- We had a busy weekend of socializing. I've already written about my walk with Liz and Sally. On Friday, we went to the home of the chairman of the music department at the school where Dave works. (This is the same guy, Gordon, we had over for dinner a week or two ago. We like him and his wife, Donna.) Then, on Saturday, we had a progressive dinner with a couple of Dave's coworkers, Pete and Keith, going first to their apartments for appetizer and soup and then to ours for the main course. Dave made boeuf bourguignon, and I made banoffee pie, which I keep hearing about on "Come Dine With Me." It's basically a banana-and-toffee pie that's assembled cold. I thought it was a British thing, but when I mentioned it to Sally and Liz, they weren't so sure.

-- I've started applying for a few jobs here and there. No luck yet, but I am aware that I can't remain unemployed forever!

-- There's a lot of construction going on in our apartment complex at the moment. Someone is renovating a downstairs apartment, and the local government is excavating part of our courtyard for some mysterious improvements that seem to relate to wastewater. The result is lots of drilling and jackhammering during the day. More incentive for me to walk!

-- Two days until the dogs arrive! I went out and found them a big bag of good-quality dry food (at the shocking price of £62, or about $95!) plus a few special cans of wet food as a treat. Hopefully we'll find a less expensive supply route for dog food in the future. It's surprisingly hard to find large bags of food in the city. The dogs will be picked up today in New Jersey, kenneled overnight after their final vet appointment, and then flown out late tomorrow for arrival here on Friday. Stay tuned!