Of Kettles, London Below, and Romantic Poets

I finally have a new electric kettle. It looks like a big teapot. I know, this is very exciting news to you, I am sure. I am so excited because I use my kettle at least twice a day during the week, and probably four times a day on the weekend when I am at home more. My old kettle was a cheap, plastic contraption that left much to be desired. It was a long overdue new investment, and I love it. So, would you like to come over for tea? I can boil the water in a fancy looking kettle. I also bought some teas from Twinings in England, because they have such fun flavoured teas that you simply cannot buy here. That just means more tea is steeping around here.

Much of this weekend was spent catching up. I don't like the feeling of being behind in anything. Be it work or personal stuff. Once I caught up on the essential items, I was able to fit in a lot of good reading.

I finished reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I rarely read modern novels but this one caught my eye because it was imaginative and about London. It was kind of like a satirical and sinister Alice in Wonderland, where the character Richard falls into the cracks to London Below, an alternate world amidst modern London, with creepy characters and an engrossing adventure through some strange places, like the London sewers and a floating market at Harrod's. He helps a girl named Door, who is on a quest to avenge the murder of her family. I enjoyed the imaginative creations of things from the funny London names (Knightsbridge, Earl's Court), the wit, kooky characters, and how it was fun to read. I certainly won't look at the London Tube the same again, and next time I go to London, I will imagine the crazy characters at the stations (like the British Museum station that doesn't exist).

I also went to the library (of course) and bought an English Literature book on the romantic poets that I have been reading one whole afternoon, so you might be getting some doses of Blake, Wordsworth, Keats,and  Coleridge. so, prepare yourself. You may feel like you are in English class again; that's just what I like.