Pancake Day

So, the other day we stumbled on yet another bit of British culture. We'd never heard of this one before, but we've decided we like it.

Shrove Tuesday (it was the 24th of Feb this year) is the day before Lent begins. Instead of throwing a huge crazy carnival to celebrate, the British would use up all of the rich food they had - eggs, sugar, butter, flour - and make pancakes. They're actually more like French crepes, just a little thicker.

It's the UK version of Mardi Gras, really. Anyway, we had a delicious Nutella & fruit crepe, sort of like the one you see here in this generic Internet photo:



We think that any holiday which encourages the eating of pancakes should be observed. So - get yourself some ingredients and whip up a batch of sugary pancakes and call it your Shrove Day pancake feast. Yum!

Groundhog Day 2009

On Groundhog Day, for the first time in 18 years, London had an actual snowstorm. Here's the view from our front room:

Chiswick pretending to be Salt Lake

It was really fun to get a "snow day." Heather searched for Christmas music on the internet, school and work were canceled, and the whole of greater London was more or less shut down completely. In fact, the red double-decker buses didn't run at all - that's never happened before, ever! Most people made the best of it, with lots of people having snowball fights, making snow angels, etc. Clearly, though, little British kids have a thing or two to learn about making a proper snowman:

Yes, it's a headless snowman. Those are potatoes for the buttons...

Behind me is our local pub, the Duke of York.

Finally, the Globe, covered in snow:

It might have snowed at the original Globe in the 1600s, but who knows?

Also - another Month-in-a-Minute video is done. For December, it's our trip to sunny Brighton. It's a pretty random, but we hope entertaining, look at a bit of the city, including: the Royal Pavillion (outside only), the local art/history museum (featuring a puppet show and a piece of Salvador Dali artwork), and a trip to the Brighton Pier, Britain's version of Coney Island (strangely abandoned in the wintertime). Enjoy!