A Third of a Century

First of all - happy sort of birthday to me. Today I am 33⅓ - a third of a century!

The week after we got back from Arizona was Thanksgiving, which meant a day off work and a national celebration. On Thanksgiving eve I got off work early and we all went to the "Macy's Inflation Celebration". On Thanksgiving there is a huge parade, paid for by the department store Macy's, which has lots of huge balloons of cartoon characters, which are controlled like puppets from below. The day before they fence off a few roads to blow the balloons up. It was extremely overcrowded, but there was a real buzz in the air, and people had traveled for miles to see the inflation and then the parade the next day.

On Thanksgiving itself we got up and watched the parade on television. Paul came round and I made some pumpkin pie and we ate that with hot apple cider (non-alcoholic), which I had heated up with cinnamon, cloves, orange peel and rum for the adults. Yum. After the parade we watched the (American) football, another thanksgiving tradition, and played with the kids. Paul headed off, and in the evening we went round to the parents of one of Sam's friends from pre-school. We had been hoping for a Thanksgiving invite and were really pleased when it arrived two days before the day. We ate lots of food and drunk lots of wine and had a really nice evening.

This weekend we had Anna & Phillip to stay, which was really nice. On Friday we put the boys into the childcare at my work and Lyn, Anna & Phillip spent the day going round art galleries in the Village, getting their hair cut and eating and drinking. It sounds like they had a lovely day. On Saturday we lazed around in the morning and then went to the Christmas market in Union Square, but the weather was horrible, so we found ourselves a nice pub and had a great dinner, washed down with Pumpkin beer. After lunch we went to Grand Central station, where there is another Xmas market, and then walked to the Rockefeller Centre. By now the rain and turned to snow, and it was beautiful seeing the huge Christmas tree in the snow, while people ice skated below. We then headed back to the subway via Times Square, which is always crazy but the snow gave it something extra.

By Sunday the clouds had gone and it was a beautiful cold crisp sunny day. We walked along the river down to the bottom of Manhattan and had a lovely Italian lunch, before getting the ferry across to Liberty Island to look up at the statue. The ride on the boat was nice, but the most special thing was looking back at New York from the island. We can see the statue from our apartment, and to look back and see our tower as part of the Manhattan skyline was great. Have a look at the photo here. It's the smaller one right in the middle that has a square on top. That is one that we need to crop, enlarge and frame. It's amazing to think that the Statue of Liberty was taller than any of the buildings in New York when it arrived here. Now there's not many shorter....

Anna and Phillip left yesterday and Calv and Isa arrive tomorrow, so we have another fun packed weekend coming up. Christmas is fast approaching and we need to buy a tree and some lights soon. Hope you are all well and looking forward to the festivities.

Best wishes,

Tom x