The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

Friday night I went to Ronnie Scott’s, which is a famous Jazz club here in London. I really don’t know much about Jazz, but I find it entertaining enough and Ronnie Scott’s is a cool club to people-watch. It was just Anne and I since sitting in a club listening to music isn’t really Lorie’s thing. 

The guy in the first photo was the main act for the night. He is Pat Martino on guitar with Tony Monaco on keyboard and Lois Tsamous on drums. Pat told a story of hanging out in New York and learning from Les Paul, who basically invented the electric guitar.

The club is in Soho and is packed in with all the other clubs and theatres in the area. It has been there since 1959, which would be considered a long time in the US, but the nearby Dog & Duck pub is 275 years old.  

The only thing these two photos have in common are the time of year. The time that England goes crazy for any form or chocolate egg and tulips daffodils bloom. I eat the chocolate and Milo pees on the flowers, so we’re both happy.

(yes Mom, I knew those weren’t tulips, but forgot that when I typed this up)

The chocolate egg craze is in full swing with Easter coming this weekend. They are usually hallow and everyone makes one: regular candy bar types, specialty chocolate shops, and even TV shows. This one is for Top Gear and the guy on the box is called The Stig.

This was a very cool birthday gift that involved me putting on a jump suit and getting into a huge wind turbine and learning to freefall for two minutes, twice. I was home yesterday with a bad head cold, so I was concerned I would miss it (been planning it for a while), but I wasn’t dead this morning, so I went for it. Lorie and I took the train to AirKix in Milton Keys (north of London). Lorie attempted to take pictures through the scratched up plexiglass, but the photo here is one we paid for that the AirKix people took. For some reason, Lorie had no interest in flying with me.

My first flight was a little shaky as I tried to figure out how to hold my arms, hands, head, and legs. I had no problem relaxing and letting my body arc, but figuring out what to do with my legs was the weird part – how much should you bend your knees when free falling anyway?

My second flight was quite a bit more fun though. I was able to hold myself in position so I could then raise and lower myself or spin circles. You only have to make very minor adjustments to move around like this.

This is the perfect training for skydiving, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever do that. Being in the wind tunnel and just screwing off is fun enough and has no real risk to it.

Yes, milk is still delivered to your doorstep if you want it. There is even a site to nominate a Milkman Of The Year, but I doubt the milkman who was caught selling pot would win it.

I took this picture in Fulham at around 6:30am when walking Milo. It is of their electric truck/van that is open on all 3 sides for easy delivery.

Cadbury has been making chocolate eggs for 134 years. Tonight at Sainsbury’s (yes, Friday night at a grocery store!) we saw quite a few pallets of chocolate Cadbury eggs. They really are that popular, but even I thought this was an excessive amount of chocolate.  

Lorie just wrote up something I found hilarious: Devil Roadkill  

It made my day, hopefully yours too.

I have no idea why these snowmen are standing at a corner in Helsinki,  but here they are, having a normal life. Maybe they are commuters that got frozen one day, I’m just not sure.

Other than this, Helsinki looked normal this evening. Normal in that Russian+Scandinavian sort of way that is Helsinki.

I will let you know how we feel after we eat all of it. Hopefully we won’t really eat all of it – that’s what friends are for. 

Even though I had been sick at home all day, I wasn’t about to miss this. Michael Palin was giving a talk about his new book that revisits his “Around the World in 80 days” show he did in 1989 for the BBC. He focused his story on a part of that trip where they took a dhow (boat) from Dubai to Bombay (now called Mumbai) and then, 20 years later, met up with the crew of that boat.

The talk was at Daunt Books in Marylebone (part of London), so it was a rather intimate setting and we (7 friends) were among 50 or so other people there. Afterwards, we were able to chat to him too. He’s a very friendly and approachable guy who admits that living in London provides so many opportunities that he doesn’t really need to travel as much as he does.

Since staring in Monty Python shows and movies, he’s been writing various travel stories and shows. See http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/ for more info. It looks like a great career!

View Full Album

No, I do not bake or cook and have no desire to start. However, today 7 of us spent a few hours together learning how to make macarons, brownies, pastry puffs, and sponge cake. I have no desire to repeat any of this at home, but it was fun to do when someone else does all the prep work and cleanup. The macaroons were the best after baking them, but the brownie mix was the best before baking them, .

Lorie appreciated the macaroons for Valentine’s day when I got home. We didn’t even share them with Milo.