Day 170

I received this photo of my sister Olivia today...I almost cried when I saw it, she's changed so much since the last time I saw her in December. Judging by the photo, I think she's a full out teenager now (phone in hand DURING SCIENCE CLASS, hair band around her head in that way that I've never been able to pull off, the long hair). It actually seems like yesterday we were small little children running around without a care in the world....how sad.

Day 167

This weekend I went to Lincolnshire to visit my grandparents. They live in a beautiful village surrounded by rolling green hills.

Their backyard looks out to this…

We ventured out to the fields where my grandfather showed me where he keeps his beehives (he keeps bees in the summer):

and then relaxed in the summer home at the bottom of their garden. We talked for a long time about the past-I had this strong desire to ask them all the questions I could about their parents, sisters, the jobs they had, stories from when they were my age, stories of my mum when she was younger. It's funny how growing up has instilled me with this need to know about the past, to ask questions I didn't think twice about asking them before.

On Saturday we went to Stamford, a Medieval town just outside their village. They still have the gallows across the entrance to the town, once used to hang people.

It was a beautiful beautiful town filled with so much history. It is so well preserved which is why I think it felt like I was walking around in a different era. It was filled with lots of intricate and historical architecture and small alley ways.

Stamford is home to the oldest newspaper in England which was founded in 1695:

We took a visit to St. George’s Square which was where scenes from the film Pride and Prejudice were shot:

We then went into Tobi Norris, a restaurant/pub which building dates back to the 13th Century! It had the most amazing bathroom:

Sunday morning we went to a small pub near my grandparent’s house. It was so British! Everyone knew one another, there was a roaring fire going and I was served a huge cup of tea.

After that we went to see the Yew tress in Clipsham-a long path filled with these 200 year old trees that have been trimmed into shapes that represented England (there was one commemorating the Queen’s 80th birthday, another one inscripted with “BBC”). I felt like I was in a scene from Alice and Wonderland...

On our way back from the trees, we stopped at a local convenient store run by a 94 year old woman named Mrs. Bee (that name makes me so happy!) It was SUCH an original old British shop, filled with cans of baked beans and one pence candies.

We then headed off to the Nornanton Reservoir, the largest man made lake in England. The village of Normanton was flooded in the 1970s to build the lake, though St. Mathews Church was saved and is now a museum.

We ended up at the Burghley House, built for Queen Elizabeth I in 1555. The house is surrounded by acres and acres of land and there are deer wandering around the front…

The house itself is huge and the architecture is so beautiful.

We had a lovely weekend! I love British countryside so much- fields just make me happy.

(and so do beautiful trees)

Day 162

Ava went back to school after the holidays in her summer uniform. I love the knee high socks and when I declared that I wanted a pair, she told me that I could borrow hers.....


It's Earth Day today! The things that I do to reduce my environmental impact:
-I hardly ever say yes to plastic bags in stores (the other day I was walking back to Samantha's house with a bag of onions in my hand...got a few strange looks).
-I RECYCLE! I recycle everything that I can (unfortunately in London what you can/can't recycle is very different than in Toronto...this saddens me).
-I turn off the tap whenever I'm not using it (even turning it off while you're brushing your teeth makes a difference!)
-I bike ride/walk/take the subway wherever I can (not that I have a car or anything/can even fully drive yet...)
-I unplug my phone charger as soon as my phone is done charging.
-I try to avoid buying bottled water at all costs (I've been rubbish at this during my time in London but in Toronto I have a re-usable water bottle that I take with me everywhere).
-I turn off lights when they don't need to be on (my mother continuously telling me to turn off my bedroom light is the reason I switch off lights wherever I go).

There are definitely so many more things I could be doing: taking shorter showers, putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat, bringing my own mug to Starbucks, hanging my clothes up instead of using the dryer...I'm working on it.

South Bank, Day 158

When I visited the Bankside area a few years back with my family, I fell in love with it and exclaimed that I would be living there while attending university in London after high school (my parents laughed at me, oh the big dreams I had...). I went back today and my feelings for the area haven't changed one bit! Shame that housing costs around a million pounds........

Bankside is on the edge of the River Thames filled with chic restaurants, cafes, markets and cobblestoned streets (I mean just look at this Starbucks...pretending for a moment of course that they don't serve rubbish coffee).


Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (a reconstruction of the theatre made by Shakespeare's company on the same site) is right along the river's edge. Walking along the river and watching all the boats pass is just beautiful. You can even see St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance.





Since the weather has been absolutely wonderful (I want to say it's summer here but don't want to jinx it) it felt like the whole of London was outdoors!

Day 157

All the way back in November, I became a photography volunteer for an organization- I was meant to take photos of certain events taking place in my area to be used in magazines and such. I thought this would be a good way to start getting my work out there but nothing really came of it until they asked a bunch of us to apply for a workshop. I was excited to be accepted but was a bit unclear as to what it was all about. Turns out that we are now the official photographers for the organization (too bad I'm leaving England in just over a month...) and the photos we took today are going to be displayed at a show hosted by the organization in May.

Documentary photographer Bryce Bennett led the eight of us through what it means to be a documentary photographer, what to look for and how to tell a story through our work. I have never been one to get into people's faces on the street with my camera so when we were sent out to practice what we had learned that morning, it was a bit nerve racking. But since we only had half an hour to get three photos which we then had to share with the rest of the group, I had to get over this pronto. Ah!

We walked around beautiful Covent Garden and I ended up with these:








I'm so not familiar with documentary photography so I kind of failed at the "telling of a story" aspect of it but I do feel more comfortable approaching people on the street with my camera.

We then went out again, this time over the Waterloo Bridge.

This man was quite excited to pose for me:

while this woman clearly was not:

Not sure I have my heart set out on becoming a documentary photographer any time soon, but all in all I learned a lot!