Spider Explosion

I read in the paper at the weekend that there's been a big increase in the numbers of spiders this year, due to the temperate weather in the UK since last winter. This isn't too surprising for me - it feels like I've been finding them everywhere this year - even in the bed at my parents' house (shiver) - but it's reassuring to know that it's not just me.

While I'm not a huge fan of spiders (or of huge spiders, for that matter) but apparently this is good news, as spider numbers are an indicator of the health of the ecosystem. It's also good news for their predators (I'm not counting Kyle in that statement, in spite of the fact that she also hunts down and squishes any that she finds in her house - being more squeamish, I prefer to trap and release).

You can read more about the explosion in spider numbers here (warning: this article has pictures of spiders!). I know that a lot of people don't like spiders, but they do a lot of good controlling other insects - and after all the worries about bees and other wildlife species, it makes a nice change to hear something positive about the state of the environment literally in our own backyards. So viva la spider! (as long as it's not in my bed!)

On the run again

Thanks to the wonders of jetlag I was awake at 4am this morning, which is kind of annoying but did at least mean that I could get to the gym by 7am for a run and a swim. It's pretty quiet then - really I don't know why I don't go at that time more often, haha.

While I was in New Jersey with Kyle I did some running around her neighbourhood, which was good exercise and also useful as a way of finding my way around the local area. Running outdoors is quite a different proposition to running on a treadmill, and it was interesting to compare the two this morning.

Probably the biggest difference for me was the lack of immediate feedback - the machines tell you your speed, distance, gradient, time and calories burned, whereas outside you have to rely on your subjective impressions, which I found out can actually be quite faulty. I think I run further and quicker outside (don't get excited though, it wasn't that far/fast, and I certainly won't be running any marathons in record time). And after a few runs I was starting to learn how to listen more closely to my body, to know when I needed to slow down or pick up my pace.

Aside from that, running outdoors is more varied and I suspect more stimulating mentally. It was also good to see a few other runners on the street and do the runner's equivalent of the Masonic handshake as we passed. So I missed that a bit this morning - maybe I'll start running around my own neighbourhood in the next few weeks.

Afterwards in the pool I was practising my front crawl exercises again, after a six week hiatus. It's coming together but I still have problems with breathing, especially on the right side. However I do have a lesson tomorrow which will hopefully put me back on track. I have some other vague swimming plans but I think they'll have to wait until things settle down a little, in the meantime I'll just keep on running.

Back in the UK

I feel like the world's worst blogger, I'm back in the UK and I feel like I hardly blogged while I was out in New Jersey. I guess I was having too much fun with Kyle! and now I'm here without her again I'm missing my Jersey Girl. (I'm also missing her fast internet connection, but I won't mention that in case I sound unromantic. Oops!)

We got a lot done while I was in the US though - as well as our vacation in Myrtle Beach, we did a lot of wedding planning. We looked at a number of different possible wedding venues trying to find somewhere that worked for us, and although at times it felt like a real struggle in the end I think we came up trumps. So our ceremony venue will be the Huisman gazebo in Belmar, which is right next to the beach, and the reception will be at the Waterview Pavilion about a mile away. The town is close to Kyle's parents and looks like a great place for my UK visitors (with a rail link to New York for those who prefer the big city).

We also did a lot of work on various ideas for invitations and other graphics, and came up with some cool stuff. In the process I've also learned a lot more about the image manipulation program Gimp, and a little about other software such as Scribus, which has been fun, and I also learned that Kyle is a real whizz at making rocking miniature laptops. (Kyle has been collecting all our wedding idea stuff together in a set on Flickr, if you want to take a look.)

We're tentatively setting the wedding date for mid-May, but we're going to wait until my visa application has come through before sending out invitations, and now I'm back in the UK I'm getting together the final documents to complete the application. The process seems long and involved but I know that the end result will be worth it - and I'm inspired by the fortune cookie message that I got at PF Changs last Friday:

Sounds like great advice to me!

An Englishman in New Jersey

Kyle and I are back in New Jersey after a week's vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (all sea, sand, miniature golf and good Southern food - a great time was had by all). Coming back was a little bittersweet, even more so since while we were away it seems like summer has turned to autumn back here. Perhaps that was to be expected since Monday was Labor Day, a national holiday here in the US which - like the Late Summer Bank Holiday last week in the UK - unofficially marks the end of the summer.

Our Labor Day was spent getting reorganised after our holiday, but we also made a trip to the Menlo Park mall to pick up my wedding ring from the jewellers (so now we have both rings), followed by a visit to the big Barnes & Noble store next door. Kyle was looking for books on stretching and back pain while I was looking at magazines (and manfully resisting the urge to buy more books on software).

There were two cashiers at the checkout: an American woman giving Kyle the hard sell about how much money she would have saved on her purchases if she'd had a B&N membership, and a rather dapper and well-spoken middle-aged Englishman who rang up my mags. It still surprises me to hear another English accent here, and while I was paying I wondered whether I should acknowledge the fact that we were both Englishmen in a foreign country.

But all I could think of saying was something along the lines of, "So, you're English too?", and that seemed pretty lame, or "You're not from round here, are you?", which seemed even more lame. So I just let it pass (as did he), and afterwards I felt a little bemused - I'm sure there isn't any proper protocol for this kind of situation, but somehow I felt like there should be.

Anyway: since then we've been getting back on track with our wedding planning and are homing in on venues for the ceremony and reception. It's been intense but hopefully we'll be able to pull things together in the next week or so - stay posted (and in the meantime check out my slender selection of pictures from Myrtle Beach, and Kyle's more substantial collection).