MissElaineous
London

POSTCARDS FROM LONDON: SUMMER EDITION

POSTCARDS FROM LONDON: SUMMER EDITION
I first visited Europe when I was fourteen. This was well before digital cameras were common and full eons before I could even imagine having a camera, phone, and computer combo that fit in my pocket. I borrowed my father’s basic 35mm camera for the trip and, for those who don’t remember a time before digital, that meant I was… View Post

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London

A POSTCARD FROM LONDON: SOHO TO MAYFAIR

A POSTCARD FROM LONDON: SOHO TO MAYFAIR
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” This much beloved, much overused quote by Samuel Johnson is just as true now as it was two centuries ago. No matter how many times I visit London (and trust me, I visit a lot), I always find something new to see. A recent excursion was no exception.… View Post

Bristol Bound and London Memories

Bristol Bound and London Memories
[ As Seen on Social Media: I’m afraid there’s no new MissElaineous blog post this week, but I have put together a collection of photos based on the daily photographs from Facebook and Instagram. However, if you’re interested in reducing your waistline as well as your “wasteline“, check out the new Off the Ground blog post about how I lost… View Post

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London Accompaniment

London Accompaniment
Our inside joke started way back in the distant year of 2010, when MrElaineous was still known as Jon and I was just about to embark on the phase of my PhD euphemistically known as “writing up” (reality: “academic hell”). I had a paper accepted to an archaeology conference in Granada, Spain and Jon was interested in going as well;… View Post

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Opening Doors in London

Opening Doors in London
Imagine a house you’ve lived in for years. You can navigate to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on a light or stubbing your toe. You know those spots of scuffed paint or the peeling wallpaper you keep meaning to fix. You are familiar with every step, every floorboard creak, every quirk of architecture or design.… View Post

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OF LONGLEAT, LONDON, AND LIGHT

OF LONGLEAT, LONDON, AND LIGHT
If Christmas did not exist, I think modern Britons would have invented their own winter holiday. After all, the ancients had their own festivals to ensure the rebirth of the sun, and as the weather turns colder and days shorter, there needs to be something to look forward to and add a splash of warmth into the very heart of the dark… View Post

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London Walkabout

London Walkabout
We started off our Sunday in London by going to church … the Greek Orthodox St. Sophia’s Cathedral to be precise. While putting together the surprise trip for my birthday/anniversary, my husband stumbled across this five-star gem on Trip Advisor. As it is only open one day a week, he made sure to plan activities in the area accordingly, so we soaked up the… View Post

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London. Eventually.

London. Eventually.
While the weather gods may have smiled on us at Shaftesbury and Longleat, we apparently neglected the appropriate offerings to the spirits of the railway. We arrived at Chippenham Station just in time to hear that our train was cancelled. A quick check of the First Great Western app showed that problems were to be expected for the next hour. That was okay, no… View Post

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London Town: Part 3

London Town: Part 3
The final surprise during our recent trip to London was on the last day: my husband had squeezed in a booking to a photography exhibition for the morning before we were to head back to Chippenham. It seemed very straightforward: leave our hotel, hop on the Circle Line to Barbican, enjoy the exhibit, back on the Circle Line to Paddington. Simple. Except that the Circle… View Post

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London Town: Part 2

London Town: Part 2
The second day of my surprise London adventure was just as grey as the first, so I’m afraid there are very few photos from our explorations.  There are plenty of words, however, and I hope that will suffice for the time being. A few years ago, my lovely mother-in-law got me membership to the British Museum as a Christmas gift, and this has become… View Post

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London Town: Part 1

London Town: Part 1
Those of you reading this who know me, probably also know that I like to be in control. I like to know what’s going on, have things planned, and be aware of every last detail whenever possible. So it may come as a slight shock that I recently went on a surprise trip to London that my lovely husband had put together. The only thing I… View Post

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The ABCs of Planning

The ABCs of Planning
Believe it or not, teaching academics how to plan their work is a big part of the training programmes I’ve been running over the past several months. There’s the importance of breaking a big project like writing a grant proposal into smaller steps and then using backwards planning to assign deadlines to each small task so that everything gets done… View Post

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Pootling around Paddington and Piccadilly

Pootling around Paddington and Piccadilly
Pootle. It’s a British word that should not be confused with a French canine, and it is a term I was introduced to via a German friend who picked it up during her decades of living in the UK. The definition is similar to the construction of the sentence above. It means to travel without any particular aim or hurry.… View Post

Crocodiles in the Cotwolds

Crocodiles in the Cotwolds
If I asked someone to describe the Cotswolds, they might talk about thatched cottages and buildings constructed from the eponymous honey-coloured stone. Adjectives like “charming” and “quaint” would likely be used to refer to the villages and hamlets that dot the region, which is itself an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. They would perhaps mention that the Cotswolds has… View Post

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Lions and Tigers and Dragons, Oh My!

Lions and Tigers and Dragons, Oh My!
Despite living in the UK for nearly 20 years, there are still large swathes of the country I haven’t seen. I’ve been up to the Orkney Islands at the tip of Scotland but have never properly visited Cornwall. I attended a wedding in Norwich once, but much of the east coast—Essex, Kent, Sussex—remains an absolute mystery. Trips to London must… View Post

Sacre Bleu!

Sacre Bleu!
This French expression of surprise or dismay seemed fitting when I realised it has been well over a year since I last shared a new blog post. It’s not due to a lack of travelling or a lack of desire: I have half-written articles and random paragraphs stashed all over my hard drive, as well as a mega-outline for last… View Post

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Christmas Calling

Christmas Calling
Along with black cabs, bowler hats, and cups of tea*, the traditional red British telephone box has become a symbol of the UK as well as a design icon. Its history begins nearly one hundred years ago, when a competition was held to choose the design of a telephone kiosk for London. It was won by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott;… View Post

How to Travel Safely in a Pandemic

How to Travel Safely in a Pandemic
I’m not going to lie to you—I miss travelling. Whether it’s a day spent exploring a National Trust property or a city break in London or a long weekend getting away from it all in the beautiful countryside, I miss experiencing new sights and sounds. Everything else that’s mentioned in my tagline? I’ve managed to find ways of catering to… View Post
Cotswold Sculpture Park

MissElaineous and the Very Proper Adventure

MissElaineous and the Very Proper Adventure
The M4 is a British motorway that snakes its way across the south of the country, starting in London and passing near a number of major towns and cities before petering out just past Swansea. Chippenham is one of those towns in the middle, located just a few miles south of this main artery that ferries people east and west… View Post

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MissElaineous Travel Blog: Escape, Explore, Discover, Enjoy