Ruskington Drive

A few weeks back we moved from our old apartment on the outskirts of the University of Leicester campus to our new home in Wigston. Wigston is a little borough just outside of Leicester city. I think we are definitely making a positive move. Take, for example, the motto of Leicester (Always the Same) compared with that of Wigston (Obtain Wisdom). I've had just about enough of things always the same, thank you very much. Virtual tour of our new place as follows:

Getting the keys day. Time to drop off our first carload of stuff.

Home sweet home!

Living Room

Vogue

...vogue. 

Kitchen.

Dining room. The dining room is a bit of a Goldilocks situation right now with the kitchen table, which we're hoping to sort out when we get back in August. Our old table was way too big for the space, so we're temporarily using a desk as a table, which is a bit too small. Bright side: it makes for a very intimate setting for each and every meal!

The conservatory is one big sun spot. Pete's smiling.

Presto! Pete turned into Maya. She's also smiling.

Pete in the conservatory with the candlestick. Wait, scratch that last part - I'm thinking of Clue.

Our back yard and the top of the conservatory. If you look down through the glass you can see Pete sitting on the top of the couch (his favorite spot in the new place), patrolling our air space so that no unauthorized magpies try for a landing.

The view out of our bedroom window. It's especially beautiful at this time of the year because the sun sets just around bedtime. We can sit on the bed and watch the dusk settling over the fields behind the house. 

The clean side of the bedroom. The other side is a work in progress.

Sleek bathroom with working toilet (yay!). There's a little duck family on the edge of the tub there. Kid stuff - it's everywhere!

Our neighborhood.
It has a bit more of the Harry-Potter's-muggle-world atmosphere than our last place, and that's nice.

The landing and the office

Maya's new room.

Lick, lick.

A little game of ball at Knighton Park - now just next door to our house.
Pete can run for ever and ever here = dog heaven.

Maya is keeping a close eye on Pete at the park.

Birthday Extravaganza Weekend

This weekend Maya and I both had milestone birthdays. It just so happened to be totally AMAZING weather here too. Here are a few pictures of our fun times:

Birthday girls "selfie" picture in our new bathroom.

Here's the cake that Craig baked for me. It looks pretty great but it tasted like heaven. 

We took Maya to the Twicross Zoo today for her birthday. 

Craig and Maya having snacks in front of the snow leopard enclosure.

This gibbon was watching Maya eat raisins. I think maybe it was hoping that she'd share.

Hanging out.

Maya loved these llamas.

Prairie dogs - North American, just like we are!

Lemurs.

This lemur had a little baby crawling on her. In this picture the baby is grabbing for a little green bean snack. So cute!

More babies. Meerkat doggy pile.

English people love meerkats. This may be why. Just look at that face.

One of my hobbies is taking "whoops, you caught me in the outhouse" pictures.  Maya is working on her eye roll. 

Dead tortoise. Craig says that it just looked dead, but they move soooooo slowly.

Munch.

Maya posing next to a cut-out of a one-year old elephant. 

Flamingos!

The ride home from the zoo took us through lots of windy country roads. I love the English village names - the top village name I saw today was "Sheepy Magna"! 

The rapeseed crop is in bloom right now and it looks like someone took a huge highlighter and ran it over the hillsides. It's eerie and beautiful and really hard to capture in a photograph. Here are my best attempts.

Last but not least, here are a couple of pictures of Maya's first birthday cake: Homemade scones with strawberries and cream!

Yum!