You Want to Get Ahead? Get a Hat!

(This blog is a combination of thoughts from Ja'Nae' and Beth. However, Ja'Nae' didn't care for how Beth was writing and took over.)

After living here for 3 weeks, we finally met one of our neighbors; an elderly fella (73) who is a war vet that used to live with his mother. He was quick to give us a brief history of Fulham (where we live). He was born in Fulham, but raised in Wales. He told us about how the language between northern and souther Britain is quite different! He had trouble understanding one while he was living in the other! He told us how our building was born the same year he was and it used to be a meat locker. It was shut down because they were providing meat that was from animals already dead instead of slaughtered - not good. After that shut down, they turned it into a dairy. Obviously that shut down at some point, but under our building is a ton of broken glass from the dairy bottles. For that reason, the rats stay away from our building. Um, excuse me, did he say rats?! I guess London is full of rats - from what we've heard - so it's a good thing we live on top of broken glass. Not to mention the two cats we've got living in the neighborhood. There is a black one and another orange tabby - our neighbor calls him Garfield since that's what it looks like. The cat has obviously been eating like Garfield too. That bad boy is big.

Our neighbor also likes plants and flowers, but due to the credit crunch, he wasn't able to buy flowers for the planters. Next weekend we plan on buying him some flowers. Our walkway needs some color and he (Phil) seems to enjoy it. Phil had a row of Daffodils, but they dried out and died. It's possible that we may try to find a florist and fill our patio area with some color.

Another great fact that our neighbor shared with us is that we have a tree that is 400 years old. I don't remember if he mentioned the type of tree, but it's pretty cool that we have a 400 year old tree in our 'hood. The weird thing is that it doesn't look to be that old at all. Luckily, Phil had a reason for that. Sometime ago, the tree was cut down to the stump. Since then, the stump grew back into the tree that it once was. Cute story, huh?

Later that day, we decided that we should check out the St. George's Day festivities. Advertisements stated that bands were performing at Trafalgar Square, but it was designed for those that were 25 and under. So, I (Ja'Nae') thought it would be pretty cool to check out a few no name bands. As soon as we get off the tube station, we can see a mob of people and two man band. The band included an acoustic guitarist with a drummer. But the great thing about this band is that the drummer appeared to be playing a kiddie drum set. And the bass drum was made out of a box. I have no idea how they made this happen, but they were rocking it. We head up towards to street towards Trafalgar and hear a group of singers singing what sounds like show tunes. I am thinking to myself, this is NOT the reason why we came up here. Beth seems to be enjoying it, so we stay a little bit longer. This event is standing room only, but we are determined to find a seat. The park is not as packed as I thought it would be, but sometimes that is better. A bunch of sweaty people in a confined area is not always the most comfortable. Once we find our seat, a song is being sung that sounds familiar - "Daisy, Daisy..." and that's all I know. While this song is being played, the entire crowd is singing along. That was pretty neat. I have a video of this on my Facebook page. The crowd proceeded to do this with a few other songs too.

We were supposed to watch the London Marathon, but the combination of the rain and cold temperature made us stay in. Okay, we actually slept in a little longer than we wanted and didn't get started on the day until 3. Even though we didn't watch the marathon, we had our own. We walked for 5.25 miles today along the Thames River to Hammersmith. It was a pretty nice walk and didn't feel like 5 miles until my body started to get sore. It was then that we decided to highlight in an atlas all the streets in London that we have visited. We are hoping to at least cover the City of London, and I think we are pretty close to that.

It's 11:10 p.m. and I'm tired. I have nothing else to say, but this....Good Night!

Ok, so I posted this and realized that we hadn't explained the title. Phil, the neighbor, told us about a toll bridge that existed at the current Putney Bridge location. It cost 25p to cross the bridge. However, if you didn't have the money to pay for it, people would give their hat as payment. So, as the saying goes, " if you can't get ahead, get a hat!"

Thank you and good nite!