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Saturday night Julia sat staring at a candle. It was after eight. She needed to eat.
She hadn't felt tired yet. She'd had a perfect pregnancy—no rashes, no fat feet, working full time, doing it all. A cartoonist couldn't have drawn a more adorable creature: rosy cheeks, pudgy nose, lime-green pregnancy pants drawn up over her stomach, white maternity smock.
Erica buzzed the front door with bags from the kebab place, and they set the coffee table and ate on the floor, with their backs against two ottomans. Erica wore fish-net stockings and a cotton cardigan that let her cleavage fall out, and told Julia about the sex she was having with her outlaw boyfriend, Malcolm—who couldn't commit, said he needed to "live monastically," then showed up at her house every night so riddled with guilt that she ended up comforting him on the rug in her foyer as he ripped her clothes off.
Julia ate too fast, choking on hummus, and accidentally drank what was left of Erica's wine. It tasted like cough syrup. She finished her kebab and rubbed a food stain off her shirt. Erica stared across the table at Julia as though she were trying to unscrew her own head.
Julia was embarrassed. It was mid-April. She was due June 17th. You were supposed to slip naturally into the new shape; you were supposed to love it. But she'd popped out hugely, and felt like a bear sipping tea. She was going to be a terrible mother.
After dinner, Malcolm arrived. He was tall and reddish, with a windburned face—he built houses for a living. He towered over them, touching them both, and invited Julia to join him and Erica at a party in the Palisades. Julia said she was too tired, and noticed him staring at her breasts and her belly, like a moron. When she kissed him good night, her face got hot. It was the wine, or hormones out of whack.
She got into bed but couldn't fall asleep. On TV, Brad Pitt was dressed in a black leather miniskirt, playing a warrior from ancient times who slept nude in animal skins. Lying there, she thought about Malcolm and his doglike stare. She used her vibrator, in an attempt to wear herself out, and accidentally broke her water. But she was two months shy of her due date and whatever came out, this little puddle, meant nothing to her. She wondered instead whether she'd finally hit her G-spot.
Sunday morning, she woke up with a warm physical pressure, almost like sadness, bearing down on her vagina. She was bleeding a little, but then it went away. By noon the pressure had shifted, and was sitting in her pelvis, where her bowels were. She left a message for Kevin at his hotel in Hartford, then another, until he called back. She ate some chicken, and then walked a mile and a half down Wisconsin Avenue to her gym, swam for an hour, and walked home. At four that afternoon, she tried to nap, but her belly hurt. She gave up on napping and waited for Kevin to come home.
Kevin spent the weekend shooting video of people speaking at a journalism conference—a Nixon-era geezer, a dopey mountaineer whose only training before typing up his best-seller had been a job painting boats. Nobody stuck to the subject, or laid out the fundamentals of writing Kevin needed for the video he had to put together. Famous people—Joyce Linden Fogg—whispered in a huge auditorium off the main lobby; Branson Kheils, a public-radio icon, rambled on about his first show in Minnesota (a pig slept in the yard behind the station) and brought down the house.
By Sunday afternoon, Kevin stood sagging under the weight of his twelve-pound camera; his overheating spotlight burned the side of his head as Dustin Christensen addressed the full session of two thousand to close the conference. Nothing about his latest project had been difficult, Christensen said, not the research or the writing. He'd infiltrated Afghani terrorists, slept beneath flying bullets. He'd used the proceeds from his blockbuster to build schools and roads in the mountains that once bred killers. Every word, every twitch transfixed the packed ballroom. It was the publicity tour that almost killed him, he said, and the Hollywood movie, and the luggage he'd lost on his way here. When the author finally took questions, Kevin slumped against the wall with the kind of exhausted relief you get from throwing up.
At last, back in his hotel room, Kevin wandered around in such a stupor that he packed too slowly and missed his plane. Waiting on standby at the airport, gazing at magazines at the newsstand as evening descended, he thought of all the things he'd never be, speeches he'd never give. He couldn't afford to buy a magazine because he was still waiting for the money from his last job, a heartwarming fund-raising film he'd shot for a fancy private high school. He felt so rotten he almost phoned Julia, but their last conversation warded him off.
"Sorry," he'd said when he finally reached her during the lunch break.
"Oh, God, Kevin," she'd said.
"What's wrong?"
"I just dropped a piece of chicken down my bra."
"I only have a second."
"Now I'm all covered with slime and grease on me. It's disgusting."
"It's O.K.," he'd said, because she was alone, and apparently bleeding, and seemed to be having some kind of problem. "I'm sorry you don't feel well."
"I drank wine last night by mistake," she said. "She's probably dead."
"My session is starting."
"Somebody get this thing out of me. Cut it out of me now."
Kevin had been out of college for two years when he got his first real job, writing press releases for an American gas company. He'd been living in cheap countries as an experiment, travelling to avoid working, but ended up in Japan, where people worked so hard they dropped dead on the sidewalk. It made the expat thing a little pointless. Back home, he spent nine years doing video production at a P.R. agency before starting his own business.
Nobody in his family had ever made a living in an imaginative career, and Kevin had no great store of talent, but, while at the agency, he began quietly working on his own film, a documentary. He'd read about this kid in the paper, a five-foot-six-inch basketball phenom named Durrell, who'd been beaten and starved as a child, and now played at a nearby college. Kevin politely stalked Durrell, and began making trips to his dorm room to tape these mind-blowing stories of life in the Montclair, New Jersey, projects. Durrell's mom was a "roller," and his dad had gone to jail for hitting someone with a sledgehammer. He had a stoic way of speaking that made him look, onscreen, like he was falling asleep. But so what. Kevin met the foster family, and filmed their evening meals, and flew to road games at his own expense, and shot hundreds of hours of footage—of coaches on leafy strolls, of Durrell playing XBox and doing his raps. After almost three years, with no end in sight, he finally gained the trust of Durrell's twin sister, a single mother on welfare, who was killed sometime later in a random act of violence.
Durrell blew his knee out at the end of his junior year, and then flopped in a pro league in Europe, and stopped returning Kevin's calls. At about the same time, a film with an identical theme appeared in theatres, to huge acclaim, and Kevin sort of fell apart. Since then, he'd started a few other projects—documentaries, conceptual video art, screenplays, children's books—but had quit them all. Though he still dreamed of finishing the film, or at least editing a promo, or whatever you call it, or at least watching some of the footage, he felt that the time for his own dreams had ended, or would soon, because he'd be a father, and he'd have to stand aside for the next generation—while also remaining upright, embalmed, rotting, for eternity.
On the flight home, he sat in a broken seat by the toilet and stared out the window as the engine wobbled beneath the wing. If it fell off now, the plane would smash into the Jersey shore. Maybe, if he lived, he could make a documentary about that. He'd interview the survivors, teasing out his own story, then slowly turn the camera on himself to reveal the hideous burns all over his disfigured head! Or he could write some kind of magazine article about it, or a book, or novelize it, or try it as a feature-film script. . . . It would be easier just to die.
At five, Julia thought she had to poop. She tried to call Kevin and took half a Midol. At seven, it came in waves; it bent her in half. I'm just wound up, she thought. I'm hungover. Because she was seven months pregnant, she got out the midwife's card and called, apologizing for bothering her on a Sunday evening. The midwife said, "If you go to the emergency room, they'll give you stuff to calm your cramps."
"The emergency room?"
"We can't do anything for you here." The pamphlet from the midwife's office described warm baths, lavender butter smeared on your forehead. What the hell was the point if at the first sign of anything they sent you to the hospital?
"All I eat is chicken. Do you think I have food poisoning?"
"It's possible."
"If I did, would it hurt the baby?" The woman didn't know. Jesus.
By the time Julia got downstairs, she was walking like her Grandma Gertie before Gertie had both hips replaced. She breathed heavily, leaning on a stack of magazines by the front door. She had a little trouble deciding on her next move and panicked and called 911. When a voice answered, she apologized and walked outside to her car. She felt like she was being whacked with a two-by-four.
Kevin landed at around seven and went straight to his office and dumped the footage onto his computer. The office was in a basement and his cell phone didn't ring down there; he ignored the regular phone, because the sequence of the sixty-eight speeches had to be tagged correctly.
At nine o'clock, he called home and to his relief got the machine. He left a message saying that he still had more work to do and that Julia should go to sleep without him. Please, God, he thought. And now he had to go find somewhere to eat. He hated eating alone. He just wanted five minutes with somebody other than Julia—who was grossly pregnant and uncomfortable, and kept the fan turned on so high in the bedroom that he had to build a wall of pillows to keep from being blown onto the floor.
Times were hard, and bound to get harder. The sound of a key in the lock—anything triggered Julia's insomnia. She woke up if a bird flew past the window. Last week, a chunk of her hair fell out. She lost her wallet in the lining of her coat, and, when she found it, she closed the bathroom door and cried. Her belly was immense and her boobs were veiny and her nipples were brown. She smelled different—like cooked custard. And she had an attitude now: "Stand back, here I come." She passed many sleepless nights eating nuts in bed, crunching with a squirrel's vigor. It altered their private business. Kevin loved sex, normally, anytime, anywhere. But now the sex was weird, because what exactly was going on down there? When he stared at that lump under the blanket, he felt self-conscious; he sensed an audience of skepticism and disapproval.
If he tried to talk to his sister or his mom about it, they got angry. If he said a word to his friends, the single guys acted horrified that a person could smell like custard, and the guys who had kids didn't care.
He and Julia got married three years ago, and right away they began trying. When nothing happened, he figured God was punishing him for something. They'd been together for almost a year before the wedding, and their early days had been filled, for him, with the excitement of loving her so much better than Roberta, his terrible last girlfriend, who'd slept on a horsehair mattress she inherited from her grandmother. Julia was by far the most beautiful woman Kevin had ever touched, and the most decent—passionate to the point of hysteria about a five-year plan for public charter schools. She was slight and wore the same T-shirt to bed every night and had a pretense of helplessness, which applied mainly to lifting the five-gallon water jug, but it made loving a skinny girl romantic, and he'd loved her in greater quantity than he'd ever loved anyone. He was in love; she was easy to love. He'd walk through the door every night and be, like, "I'm living with someone and I'm going to marry her."
She had a puffy little moonface, and Kevin loved to kiss the soft belly of each cheek, but within five minutes something always happened to ruin the moment. At first, he took the awkwardness between them for lack of experience, but that wasn't the problem. They just didn't like to talk to each other. She'd start a story in the middle, and if he asked a question she'd say, "What? Huh?," as if she needed a hearing aid. Any time they spent alone together, whenever one of them asked the question "How are you?" it was like writing a thank-you note to a grandparent in a nursing home. By the time those moments ended, Kevin was a wreck. But then he'd been in relationships with good conversations, too. Understanding killed attraction just as quickly. Here at least the mystery kept things primitive and charged.
Their conversations improved with practice, but when he couldn't knock her up the awkwardness returned. At some point, he decided to shut up more, so she shut up more, too, but that just made them strangers to each other. After a year, they found a clinic and she began making frequent trips to the doctor and they went ahead with it, not talking.
There was the Hawaiian porno tape he jerked off to at the clinic, the menstrual cycle on the refrigerator, the shots he gave her—big injections in her ass, little ones in her stomach. The pills she shoved in her pussy to make the lining more hospitable. The brave declarations they made as they faced the debate—donor egg versus flying to China.
Months passed, and it all became this tricky thing, like a blur in a photograph. She was blurring, smudging, not herself. Then there were the phone calls from the clinic—"Do it now"—the requisite screwing, the livestock feeling of it, the injunction against fiddling with himself, the creeping sensation that they were using up the last few drops he had, crawling toward the end.
She was ashamed. She starved herself on popcorn and soda and got too thin. He did everything he could to get away, staying late at work, eating dinner in a restaurant alone. A distance opened up between them. It was his failure, his weakness, but he couldn't tell anyone about it. He'd stopped loving Julia when he couldn't get her pregnant, but then, after two years of a humiliating and expensive twenty-nine-thousand-dollar fertility process, they'd succeeded, and now that she was pregnant he wished she was dead.
There'd been a case on television of a man who'd killed his pregnant wife, spawning special news reports. Tooling around the Internet, Kevin had learned that one in five pregnant women who died was murdered. A quarter of men who killed their wives killed them when they were pregnant. Women were strangled, bludgeoned, choked, drowned, burned alive, shot on the way home from a birthing class. Why didn't the guys just leave? Now he knew. He couldn't imagine actually strangling anyone, but the existence of the trend lofted him up on a dizzy little puff of curiosity. Watching Julia's belly grow, seeing her change, altered his world like a snowfall quieting everything. And yet he was nuts. He felt like he'd sawed off the top of his head. Instead of wondering how to fix it, he gave himself a gift: despair without shame. Freedom from the necessary revulsion with himself. Like some miserable Goth kid, his thoughts went straight to hell and made him stronger.
A paramedic took Julia up to the sixth floor in a wheelchair and one nurse put a bracelet on her wrist while another drew five vials of her blood. She liked all the attention. She got the feeling that they'd seen cramps like these before, which reassured her. Another nurse entered with papers to sign, and a fourth asked concerned, insightful questions. Two of the nurses were blond and wore diamond engagement rings, and another was worn out and motherly. The prettiest one put Julia in stirrups.
As a teen-ager, she'd spent some time in a hospital for bulimia and suicidal behavior, and she'd always looked back on it as the regimen that put order in her life, helped her collect herself and recover. The friends she'd made there, bound to her by their secret shame, remained the most important ones she had, to this day. Anyway, if she hadn't been locked up in that place she'd be dead.
Tonight she lay in the maternity ward of a teaching hospital, and the young doctor on call, a third-year resident, stepped into the examining room a little bleary, feeling his way around the room, blinking at her as though he'd come from somewhere dark. One side of his face was wrinkled where it appeared he'd been sleeping on it.
"You're having some pain," he said, and gloved up. "You need to maintain your fluids." He sat on a stool, and set a sealed plastic bag of metal instruments on top of her big bare stomach, and then began looking around, spinning on the stool. And then everyone had to laugh, because he was looking for the very bag that was right in front of him! He opened the bag and took out a speculum, which he stuck crookedly into her, accidentally cutting her. Her spasming innards rocketed into a worse state. She panicked. He twisted it around inside her.
"Yuh—you're in labor," he said loudly, "three centimetres," and his voice broke when he said it. "You're breech." He called for a sonogram and sent for the attending. When he withdrew the speculum, it had candy-apple-red blood on the end. There was blood on his glove, and he slid it off into the garbage as though it were covered with worms. He stared down at the floor and smiled apologetically, and the nurses rolled the sonogram machine into place and squirted gloop on Julia's belly.
The attending was a woman in her fifties with copper highlights in her hair. She held Julia's hand and spoke softly as she moved the sonogram thing around. She asked the young doctor what he saw on the screen. He studied the ghostly image. She turned to Julia and said, "Is there a possibility your water broke at some point in the last day or two?"
"My water?"
"Because there doesn't seem to be too much in there."
Julia remembered the stuff coming out the night before. "How much is missing?"
The attending wiggled the thing more. The contractions were seven minutes apart. Stopping them would be tricky, she said. Bringing the baby out now would be worse. More nurses came into the room. One asked if there was a family member Julia could call. She'd left messages for Kevin in three places. She gave them Erica's number.
They wheeled her into a room with a view of the plaza, and the attending put a clear bag of viscous-looking fluid called magnesium sulfate into the I.V. machine, assuring Julia that it was safe. "Some people don't love this drug," she explained. "But it helps the muscles to relax, to stop your contractions. We need to stop your contractions," she said, and left.
It hit her head first. Almost immediately, Julia went cross-eyed and half dead.
He called his buddy Ethan. He wanted to meet him at Schwann's, an old wood-panelled restaurant in Georgetown where Khrushchev had once sat with Nixon for a photo op, where the waiters were old men who wore smocks and kept their faces frozen while you ordered. Ethan understood what Kevin was going through; he was married, with three kids. But Ethan had a gigantic book contract that was killing him—he had to get some work done—so he told Kevin to stop by the house instead.
Ethan lived in this fucking mansion on P Street, a National Historic Landmark, according to the plate by the door. The doorknob was brass, and the size of a grapefruit. Trips to Ethan's house left Kevin feeling worthless and desperate, although Ethan's family had enough problems, the older girl with two-per-cent listening comprehension, the younger one shoplifting from stores on M Street, the three-year-old boy refusing to speak except in the broken English of the Guatemalan nanny. Ethan had written two decent books on politics and almost finished a third; and he had a good job talking on a cable news show. But he'd married Carrie, who was worth whatever the stock market did to the third of a billion dollars she'd inherited in 1990, and her wealth made it hard for him to keep his balls.
As Kevin came in, he could hear Ethan's girls screaming up the wide staircase, or maybe down in the ballroom they'd had painted like a jungle and filled with trampolines. If someone were being flayed alive it might have sounded the same way, that screaming, but Ethan just sighed and clucked his tongue, leading the way past fresh-cut flowers and oil paintings, until they entered the white-tiled kitchen with its endless counters, where a fat Rottweiler looked up to see what they were doing. Kevin could hear Carrie, somewhere, calling Ethan's name.
In the refrigerator were sodas and open wine bottles, a tray of wilted vegetables from a caterer, and part of a cake. They stood smearing butter on pieces of focaccia, listening to the screams. When a lull hit, Ethan yawned. Over the weekend, he and Carrie had hosted three parties: one for Carrie's grandmother, one for a nine-year-old, and one for Eliot Spitzer.
"I'm not gonna make it," he said, meaning the deadline for his book.
"You'll make it." There was a bottle of Scotch on the counter and they each had a shot. It tasted like gym socks soaked in gasoline. They had another. Soon the kitchen started to feel more like Schwann's.
"How was your thing in Hartford?"
"Julia O.K.? You ready? To become a father, a dad? You psyched?"
Kevin said yes.
"You're having a little girl."
"I know," Kevin said. "Here's to the greatest adventure a man can know."
"Aye, muchacho," Ethan said.
It sounded like furniture was being dragged across the floor upstairs. "Carrie!" Ethan yelled toward the dining room. "Honey, is everything O.K.?" They waited. "You'll be fine," he said to Kevin.
Carrie appeared in the back of the kitchen, having materialized from somewhere, like a ninja. She said hi to Kevin, but her lips were tight. "You're on for the rest of the night," she told Ethan, and filled a glass with water. "You haven't done a fucking thing all weekend." She walked out.
"Heh-heh," Ethan said. He walked to the foyer. "Don't leave."
"I should get going."
"I'm just gonna check on things."
"I'd better go."
Ethan called back. "Don't move."
"I'll see you later." Kevin let himself out as Ethan walked up the stairs.
An hour later, the young doctor threw the door open carrying a big yellow coffee mug with a smiley face on it and sort of skipped into the room as though he were kicking through rain puddles. "Doin' all right?" he asked, taking a drink from his mug. "How's the mag working out for ya?" He walked around, making notes on her chart. "Sometimes magnesium makes people irritable. It causes the heart to beat irregularly."
"Is this active labor?" She was shouting. "Is it stopping? Am I going to work tomorrow?" Her tongue tasted like aluminum.
"What do you mean by active labor?"
"My doctors told me to call if there was news. My midwife."
"We called them." He tapped her knees, her wrists, and her elbows, then her ankles and feet. No reflexes. The computer by Julia's head indicated that her contractions were getting stronger. "Let us know if you have any double vision," he said.
Julia said, "Yes, I do."
He made a note and turned the lights off and let the door bang shut.
On his way up Connecticut Avenue, Kevin stopped in Woodley Park, in front of the building where a woman named Cynthia lived. She was the ex-girlfriend of a guy named Artie, who'd made films for the Discovery Channel and had a shelf full of Emmys. She'd taken Artie's old job and brought Kevin in to help her with a two-hundred-page script she'd inherited on the birth of Islam. Together, they'd cut it down to four and a half scintillating minutes, to be aired one day on the channel's Web site. Over the last three months, they'd met half a dozen times in a tiny editing suite, a cockpit with carpeted walls, and in that warm, hushed darkness they'd chatted and commiserated and drunk soda and confessed.
They'd discovered that they were both dying to move to New York City to jump-start their careers. They'd both pitched the same guy at Showtime, with the same result. Cynthia had been a dancer in her youth, and had débuted at New York City Ballet at nineteen; two weeks later, she'd dislocated her hip—had to be lifted and hauled off-stage. Kevin completely understood, because of his own unfulfilled promise. She couldn't explain to anybody how it made her feel, but Kevin knew that an awful, unfixable thing would never stay buried.
She was a tall, thin woman with broad shoulders and a skinny neck and a scrunched-up little mouse face. She had huge brown eyes, and this heavy bosom, and she'd lean over and put her boobs on the table between them in the editing suite and scream back at Kevin about their sketchy luck and stare into his eyes like a maniac. He liked that.
It was late. He probably should've called first. She was the only woman he could think of within eighty miles who was single and answered her phone after nine o'clock at night.
He didn't want to go home yet. It was spring, and a velvety breeze touched his arms, and tender little green buds hung softly under the streetlights. There was only now, and that made living exquisite. And, anyway, he'd be dead someday and none of it would matter. Also, if he came in and woke Julia up she'd lie there, devastated, for the next six hours, sighing her ass off, and would blame him, and he'd take the blame, and feel terrible.
The only light in the room came from the monitor by her head, hooked to her belly, a sickly orange glow. The only sound came from the baby's pounding rhythm, amplified through the machine, like a little air compressor blasting away. Choo-choo. Julia turned her face to the wall when the pain came, and wrapped her hand around the rubber-coated railing on the bed, dug her nails into the rubber, squeezed her eyes shut, and opened her mouth wide, but there was no sound. Something flipped inside. During the gaps in the flipping, she let go. Her body had been built according to certain rules, but those rules had now been broken. If it got any worse, she would have to kill herself. She could crawl to the window and slide out. She dug into the rubber. When Kevin showed up, he would call everyone. She felt hopeless, lonely.
A soft, round, coffee-colored orb appeared near Julia's head. It was a face, powdery smooth, with trustworthy lines, and it spoke with an accent from somewhere—the Caribbean, maybe—partly reading in a breezy rhythm, from notes, ". . . serious complications, of course, the risks in bringing a baby out of the womb prematurely are known . . . cerebral palsy, neurologic disorders, developmental delays."
There was white stuff caked around the edge of Julia's mouth. Her gums were bleeding and she moved her tongue to try to find out where.
"Higher risks of retardation, asthma, and congenital aortic deformities . . . It's not uncommon for preemies to undergo a number of surgeries."
Then it was quiet, thank God, and the woman asked if Julia had any questions. Ha, yeah. When Julia shook her head, it thudded, and fell into thudding rhythm with the choo-choo of the heart monitor, and the two of them sailed off on a glassy blue bay. The woman wrote something with what looked like a turkey thermometer. Julia turned her face to the wall when the pain came.
Scanning the face of the building for Cynthia's glowing windows, Kevin took a minute to think about what he'd say, then called from the street and told her how the man who ran publicity at the journalism conference had made him shoot the floral arrangements in the lobby, offering cinematic insights. " 'Howzabout,' " Kevin said in a goofy voice, " 'we drop that sunset over the Sheraton sign?' "
"You're kidding me!" Cynthia yelled. "Shut up!"
"I'm thinking about becoming a wedding videographer."
"Jesus, shut up!" she said.
"Hey, I have your lens," he said. "I didn't want to leave it in the office where somebody could swipe it. I'll drop it off on my way home."
He waited by his car on the corner, and a few minutes later Cynthia brought her dog, Jasper, downstairs. She wore a cute navy-blue miniskirt and a spangly T-shirt that said "Ciao Roma." They walked around the block and then back to the entrance to her building. In his mind, he was reporting these actions to someone. The dog, a white Yorkie with Milk Dud eyes, looked up at Kevin, and he took the leash from Cynthia's hand and ran his fingers over the dog's head.
Back in March, after a long night at the editing suite, Kevin had driven Cynthia home, but when he pulled up in front of her building she wouldn't get out. They'd been yakking all night. He hadn't had so much fun with anybody in five years. He'd wanted to do something. He shivered a little, and leaned over to say good night. She made an oh sound that caught in her throat, a garbage truck scared them, and they had a big laugh and she jumped out. Then, a few weeks later, they'd done the routine again, first talking exhaustively in the editing suite, getting that glow, then sitting in the car until he shivered. But there'd been no makeout session the second time, either, and that was it.
Cynthia had been seeing a guy in New York, and as they stood at the door she told Kevin that, since the last time she saw him, she'd been floored by the realization that the guy was a drunk. "I'm not afraid to be alone," she said. "And I'm not afraid I'll never find love."
"Of course," Kevin said. "You're thirty-two years old."
"I don't need any fuckhead boyfriend. I do what I want. I go out almost every night."
"You're living your life."
"You know what I made for dinner tonight?"
"An egg-white omelette. With scallions. You know when I ate it? Nine o'clock."
"I envy your freedom."
Her skirt had a big plastic zipper on the front, and sat loosely on her hips, and as she talked he noticed that the skirt had slid around and now the zipper was on the side. During her glory days she'd taught ballet to Madonna, and dated a guy in the N.B.A. Kevin thought about those N.B.A. hands on her. He reached forward to give the leash back, and as she took it from him he tipped his head toward hers but she turned away, smiling.
He tried to explain. "I wanted to touch you in the car that night."
"I always love talking to you," she said.
"Me, too," he said.
She looked down. "Am I being too harsh?"
"What is this, ninth grade?" He took the lens out of his bag and handed it to her.
"You're a total freak," she said, smiling at him again and taking the lens. Then she got confused and stepped in and jangled him with a long soft hug, jamming herself against him.
He felt even more stupid now. "You sure you don't want to get one drink?"
"No, God, it's after eleven. I'm finished."
"Do you want to smoke a cigarette?"
"Don't give me all the power, Kevin. What do you think?"
"I think we should go upstairs."
"Don't look at me that way," she said. "I don't want to be the bad guy."
"You're just gonna go to sleep?"
"Go home to your pregnant wife."
Kevin stared at Cynthia. He had to hate her now. Maybe if he strangled somebody other than Julia he'd feel better. He blinked back tears and crumbled. "She ate three rotisserie chickens this week."
"That's good," Cynthia said sadly. "Fatten her up."
"She's fat enough. She looks like Tweedledee, with her preggo stretch pants pulled up to her armpits."
"That's cute."
"I'm gonna kill her in her sleep."
"What about the baby?"
"You think that would hurt the baby?"
"It might."
"See, that's the rub."
"It sounds like you don't like your wife."
"She has flaws."
"Well, God."
"Too many to name."
"Then she'll make an excellent mother."
It was almost midnight when Kevin got home. Julia's car was gone, the lights were on, and the front door was unlocked. What a fucking idiot. For a second he couldn't figure it out. But her book group met some Sundays and usually ran late. He wanted to slap her across the face with a brick.
He wanted her to go somewhere and never come back. He was so sick of this crap. If he left now . . . but that would be impossible. He had to find a way to get rid of her without getting rid of the baby. How could you do that?
He loved her, but he never wanted to see her again.
Kevin walked into the kitchen and without thinking began placing a stack of clean dishtowels into a drawer in color-coördinated piles.
Her face to the wall, her hand wrapped around the bedrail, she began to pant. Her eyes were fluttering behind her eyelids. Her cheeks puffed, her chin quivered. Then she gasped and her body stiffened. The nurse pushed her chair away from the bed and leaned over and placed her hand on Julia's forehead. The gesture startled Julia and big tears rolled down her face.
The young doctor stood at the foot of the bed. He clicked his penlight a few times and stared out the window at the plaza, at patients smoking cigarettes, trailing their I.V. poles. Against the weatherman's prediction, it had started to rain.
When the contraction ended, the nurse put Julia's bed down flat.
The young doctor said, "Heh-heh. I've just gotta, uh—" And he moved to his place between Julia's legs. An old goat from the obstetrics department strode in with military purpose and introduced himself to Julia. The young doctor very carefully inserted his fingers. "Please stop moving," he said. He thought he was feeling the skull, but then realized that it was still the hip. "Still three," he said.
"Talk to her," the old goat barked.
"You're still three centimetres dilated."
The old goat bent over and stuck his hand into Julia as though reaching for car keys that had fallen down the drain, and then cleared some phlegm from his throat. "Show me three." The young doctor held his index fingers about three centimetres apart. The old goat said, "That's five," and pulled the young doctor's hands apart. "That's eight. Slide over. Get out of the way."
Kevin carried his luggage upstairs and got undressed, glancing out the window for Julia's car. He thought back to his one big breakup after college, a relationship that had ended fairly well after five years, and he pictured that late-afternoon goodbye—he and Lisa had packed up the car, the car they'd bought together, and sat on the steps and split up the pictures in the photo album, then stood and hugged. Then she'd said something he never forgot, "Hey, you were good to me," and he said that she'd been good to him, too, and she drove away. And even now, after all this time, he missed her so much it ached to think about that day. He still talked to her every once in a while, and it was so easy to talk, easier than it had ever been with Julia. After she left, he'd gone upstairs to the empty apartment where they'd both been crying for weeks, and ordered Chinese food and turned on the TV and felt total relief. For a few months, he'd gone crazy, stayed out late, dated a cyclist named Jade, visited Cuba, and worked weekends. But he didn't establish anything with anyone, and he lived alone for a few years. There was the feeling of having been burned. By what, though? And now he had that feeling again, that lonely feeling, with Julia—he'd been burned by all of this, by his own hopes, and by his inability to do anything about the situation, to change the bad parts. Look at the mess, look at what he'd done. He was the only guy he knew who liked his wife and still tried to cheat on her every chance he got. That wasn't progress. It was nothing he'd recommend.
He felt, in the shower, as if he were washing off all the failures of the weekend. When he got out, she still wasn't home. The house was small and there was no other place for it, so one corner of the bedroom was being turned into a nursery. It had a stuffed penguin on the floor and a cardboard box of old baby clothes from his brother. The crib would be there in a month. Without unpacking his bag, Kevin got into bed and listened for Julia's car, but it had been a long day and he passed out.
The old goat hung his face at Julia and said, "We're getting a room ready. We're taking you in."
She felt herself going cold. The anesthesiologist pushed a painkilling narcotic into the I.V. and inserted the epidural. Nurses in masks flowed about her. They dropped the bedrail, slid her onto a gurney, and suddenly she lay there, on the cold plate, chatty as hell, her euphoria ballooning.
"I'm not going to work tomorrow, that's for sure. I'm on maternity leave now, that's for sure."
People busied themselves around her. Finally, the young doctor said, "That's right."
"I'm a mom now. I will be in a minute," she said. The young doctor grabbed her I.V. as they turned her. She caught his stare and held it and said, "I already love her so much."
Bin Laden got her. Kevin should've known. She'd been buried, and he looked everywhere and found her, at last, in Georgetown, in the middle of the street, probably dead and covered with pavement, except for her face, and he looked down and saw that cute little face of hers. Who'd done this? Bin Laden. He had to get her out. There were alarms going, ringing out loud, the police. They'd come from headquarters and were going door to door, banging on the houses along M Street. And you could hear the boom-boom of construction crews down on Thirty-fifth, trying to break up the street to save her, but they weren't here yet and he didn't know who else they had to save and he would just have to wait and it was awful, terrible—they were calling Kevin's name.
Then, in the fuzzy air between dreaming and consciousness, he heard Julia screaming his name, whapping on the door, and he stood dizzily and was moving downstairs in his underwear. From the other side of the door, she screamed for him. She didn't have her keys, she must have lost her keys. No wonder he'd had to marry her—she was so stupid.
But it was Erica, Julia's friend from the nutso ward, looking weird. Kevin said, "Julia's not here."
"You have to come to the hospital."
"You're having a daughter."
"You what?"
"She's at the hospital." It went on like that for another ten seconds before he got it.
Julia said, "I was lying on the couch at seven o'clock tonight and I thought I had food poisoning."
"Uh-huh," the young doctor said. They were moving quickly, rolling her down the hall.
"I had the worst pain in my life and then it went away and five minutes later it came back. It never entered my mind I was in labor."
They stopped under the surgical lights inside the operating room. She could feel something cool, like ice water, across her belly.
"Can we wait a minute?" Julia asked. "He'll be here soon, I hope." The young doctor pulled his mask down and looked at the clock.
"I have to tell you," Julia said. "You're a doctor, so you'll know."
"I'm in medical school. I graduate in June."
"They had this movie on TV with Brad Pitt." She started to cry.
"It's O.K."
"I did something."
"All right."
"I wanted her out. I kept saying that, 'Get her out.' "
The young doctor waited another second. "You didn't mean it."
"I'm sorry."
"We're not machines," he said.
Erica pulled up to the hospital entrance and Kevin ran down the long corridor to the B-Wing elevator. Up on the sixth floor a nurse led him, shaking, into Labor and Delivery. It wasn't a heart attack so much as he'd strained the muscles that surrounded his heart. She gave him a paper suit and he shook as though he were freezing to death, putting each stitch of his own clothes in a plastic bag that she took from him, leading him into the operating room, where he squinted into the light, smiling at everyone, grinning madly.
"Look who we found," the nurse said, squeezing his arm. "It's Dad."
Julia's feet were toward the door. There were a dozen people around her. By her head, one guy fiddled with knobs on a bank of machines that Kevin, in his sleepy state, mistook for a film-editing system. Her legs were strapped down by two black seat belts. She'd been shaved. The skin above her stomach, painted a strange brown, was coated in some kind of wax paper. From her hip bones to her chest, the whole of her torso had been pulled open, a gaping bloody maw, pooling and flooding, stretched. A single band of gauze was tied, on one end, to a hook on the wall and on the other end to a small metal plate stuck in her skin that yanked her open, like something a sailor would rig up to hold a hatch in place. Naked of flesh, brimming with blood, her parts gushing, the pieces of her torso jiggled like gelatine. It looked like a torpedo had crashed through the roof and torn her in half.
Something like adrenaline moved him to the stool beside her head, where he sat behind a sheet that had been raised to hide the surgery from her, and took her hand and kissed it, and kissed her face.
"I feel so bad," he said, strangling off tears.
"Don't worry," she said. "Everything is O.K." She was gone, stoned, and so pale beneath her blueberry bonnet.
"Did you see anything?" she asked hopefully.
Kevin leaned over her disembodied head. He stroked her cheek. "Nothing. You're fine." He tried not to fall apart. His own stomach swam.
They had a little laugh then, in a bubbly, forced way, about the timing of it, how he would've been in Hartford if it had happened a night earlier. And laughed about the name they hadn't picked yet—Adina, Astrid, Chipewee, Jasmine. The people on the other side of the sheet clinked metal tools and mumbled and moved with urgent, clipped streams of nonsense. The old goat grunted epithets. The group fell into a rhythm.
Julia stopped mid-sentence, wincing, and Kevin lifted a bean-shaped plastic trough to her lips and she vomited into it. He glanced over the curtain and went a little cross-eyed at the sight of her. It was too much.
Two nurses placed their little bloody sponges on a tray and counted them in unison like children singing a nursery rhyme: one, two, three, touching each one, four, five, six, to twenty-five. Then they did it again, and then again.
When the baby came, screaming, Julia and Kevin stared at each other and froze, smiling dumbly. Finally the old goat said, "Dad, you can look," and Kevin glanced over the sheet and saw the young doctor holding the baby girl in his gloved hands. She was entirely fishlike and more purple than Kevin had feared, her tiny private parts swollen, her eyes sealed shut, and they wiped her face off as she tried to grab and hug the air in front of her. The doctor held the soft part of his pinkie to the roof of her mouth as the nurse rinsed her face. Then they whisked her away. Kevin kissed Julia and cried.
Without fanfare, Kevin was led to the baby, one room over, curled in a plastic tray under a heat lamp, writhing and screeching dryly and kicking her legs in the air. He examined her ears and lips and mottled purple skin. Oh, God, he thought as she screamed. Now there are two of them.
A tall, angular, dark-haired nurse strolled over, using the new familiar "Dad," and lifted the baby's foot. She needed blood and pricked it, and the baby screamed in a different way, and screamed and screamed, as the nurse calmly worked to bring blood to the glass tube, squeezing the little foot like a lemon, one drop, then another, bending the toes back against the shin, the little earthworm leg held up in the air. It appeared that, in her exuberance, the nurse had pinched off the blood flow to the foot by holding it this way, and Kevin felt sweat run down his back, as the white-hot rage of a thousand burning suns stoked his belly. He imagined himself kicking her, like Bruce Lee, in the head, until she finally released the foot. Because the baby had been in the breech position, her feet sprang up around her ears, and when the nurse pulled them down again they sprang back up and the nurse laughed as the baby screamed. She went to the other heel for blood, and then to a finger. In the end the baby was screaming so hard no sound came out.
Kevin sighed, covered in sweat, and smiled weakly at the nurse, who placed a tiny washcloth in his hand and suggested that he wash his baby. He put a hand on her chest and felt her soft kitten belly, her ribs like pasta. She looked a little like George Costanza.
It was sometime after three in the morning, on the fourteenth of April. Everything about this night reminded Kevin of powerful psychedelic drugs: his endless need to burn energy, his ultra-aware calmness, the sense of solace he found in his own oblivion, the way he moved among normal people, a changed human, unseen, and the feeling that he'd held back from learning all this until now. A torrent of new insights refused to recede. He checked in on Julia, then went back to the baby. He patrolled the sixth floor. He'd shifted his consciousness into a cosmic framework that no one on earth had experienced before. The lights were down in the neonatal I.C.U. The baby had two I.V.s and five wires connected to her, four on her chest, one on her ankle. The monitors glared above her. One was heart rate, one was respiration, one was oxygen level in the blood. He watched the beats. He watched and watched. He had nothing else in the world to do, and felt more peaceful and alert than he could ever remember. Beside him, in the dark room, a mother sat bleakly rocking in front of her glass case. Inside the case was a very tiny baby with a thin tube taped to its face, staring into space, dwarfed by its diapers, with a sock on its head, and huge, scary bug-out eyes. When he looked back, he realized that his baby was no bigger.
He watched his daughter's chest rising, a little hamster movement. He noticed that the tape holding the I.V. to the back of her ridiculous little hand was bloody. She slept peacefully, and her face shifted, and as it did she looked a little like his grandfather, then Jack Welch, and then Charlie Brown, snoozing by the window on a rainy afternoon.
He went back and sat at Julia's side. The lights were off there, too. He checked her chest, rising and falling, watched her breathe. She also wore a diaper. The temperature in the hospital was frigid. On her hand, he noticed a bloody piece of tape holding her I.V. in place and his heart ached for her and his throat burned. It came over him in a rush, in a moment, and he got rid of it just as quickly. She'd gone through it alone, and now she needed everything; she needed rest, she had to sleep. When she woke up, he'd be in this chair, with his two eyes open. A new motor inside him was running on high. ♦


text:
Open the Wallet app on your iPhone
. You can also use Search to find it.
With Wallet, you can use passes on your iPhone to check in for flights, get and redeem rewards, get in to movies, or redeem coupons. Passes can include useful information like the balance on your coffee card, your coupon's expiration date, your seat number for a concert, and more. At some schools in the United States you might be able to use your student ID cards on iPhone and Apple Watch.
If you want to add payment cards to Wallet, learn how to set up Apple Pay.
Add passes
You can add passes to Wallet in several ways:
- Using Wallet-enabled apps (Scroll down in Wallet, tap Edit Passes, and tap Find Apps for Wallet.)
- Scanning a barcode or QR code (Scroll down in Wallet, tap Edit Passes, tap Scan Code, and use your iPhone camera to scan.)
- Tapping a Wallet notification that you got after paying with Apple Pay at a supported merchant
- With Mail or Messages
- Through a web browser
- Sharing through AirDrop
- From your Mac
- Creating an iTunes Pass
- For student ID cards, using the eAccounts app
If you don't see the option to add a card, ticket, or other service to Wallet, contact the merchant to make sure that they support Wallet passes.
You may need to tap Add to Apple Wallet and then tap Add in the upper right corner of the pass. Or you may see a popup with an Add button you can tap to add your pass to Wallet.
Remove passes
To remove a pass:
- Scroll down in Wallet, then tap Edit Passes.
- Tap the arrow button.
- Tap Delete.
Or tap the pass that you want to remove, tap , scroll down, and tap Remove Pass.
To remove multiple passes at once:
- Scroll down in Wallet, then tap Edit Passes.
- Tap next to the pass that you want to Delete.
- Tap Delete.
Use your passes
Some passes automatically appear at the right time or place because they include information based on time or location. For example, when you arrive at the airport, your boarding pass should appear. If your pass has a contactless symbol on it, you may be able to use it at card readers and point of sale terminals that display this symbol.
You may need to slide to unlock your device to display and scan your pass.
With iOS 9 and later and your iPhone 6 or later,1 there are two quick ways to use a pass:
- If you have a credit, debit, prepaid, or store card in Wallet, or a rewards card that works with Apple Pay, open Wallet from the Lock Screen by double-clicking the Home button or by double-clicking the Side button on iPhone X and later.
- If you turned on Automatic Selection for a rewards card, store credit card, or ticket, use that pass by tapping a pass notification or tapping the pass in Wallet. Then hold your iPhone near the contactless reader. You may need to authenticate with Touch ID or Face ID.
If you want notifications for things like flight updates or coupons and sales for nearby stores, follow these steps:2
- In Wallet, tap your pass.
- Tap .
- Tap the Notifications button to turn notifications on or off.
To turn on notifications for all your passes, go to Settings > Notifications > Wallet, turn on Allow Notifications, and turn on the alerts that you want.
Change pass settings
Tap a pass, then tap on the pass to see settings and more information. Here's what you can do from the info screen:
- Delete the pass.
- Share the pass. Not all passes can be shared.
- Update the pass by pulling down to refresh.
- Open or install the app related to that pass.
- Turn on or off Automatic Updates.
- Turn on or off Suggest on Lock Screen.
- Turn on or off Automatic Selection for contactless passes.
The info screen can also show other helpful information about your pass, such as merchant contact information.
To reorder your passes, tap and hold a pass, then drag it to a new place. Your change will update across all of your devices.
To make a card the default for Apple Pay, drag the card to the front of your credit, debit, and prepaid cards in Wallet.
Get help
If your pass doesn't appear on the Lock screen when you think it should, you can open Wallet and select the pass to scan it. A pass won't appear for these reasons:
- Location Services is off.
- The Suggest on Lock Screen feature is turned off for that pass.
- The merchant doesn't support this feature.
1. To use Apple Pay for purchases in stores in Japan, you need an iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus or later. Or you can use an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus that was purchased in Japan. Learn how to tell whether your device was purchased in Japan.
2. Some merchants may not allow notifications.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
KeyRing Stainless Steel Key Chain Ring - PERSONALISED Initial White Marble Y01505
- This Product includes a Black Gift Box.
- It has a Stainless Steel construction & designed with a strong stainless loop ring to make sure your Keys will never fall off.
- The Image is Digital High Definition that will not Rub, Fade or Crack.
- Designed to securely clip your Keys & is manufactured by us Daily. Measurement : (the rectangle measures 4cm by 2.5cm)


text:
CarePartners of Connecticut is a new not-for-profit Medicare insurance company, formed by two established and respected organizations – Hartford HealthCare and Tufts Health Plan. Together, we believe that people with Medicare would be better served if health care providers and insurance companies worked as one with you, the patient at the center.
Learn more
All Locations & Partners
Classes & Events
One State Street, Suite 19, Hartford, CT 06103 Contact Us
© Copyright 2019 Hartford HealthCare
Design by Julia Balfour, LLC


text:
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The state of Texas was due to execute a man on Thursday for killing his former girlfriend in 1994 by dousing her with gasoline and setting her on fire.
Carl Henry Blue, 48, was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday night unless a court intervened to grant a stay of his execution.
Blue was convicted of killing ex-girlfriend Carmen Richards-Sanders, 38, in her apartment in Bryan, Texas, on the morning of August 19, 1994, as she was getting ready to leave for work.
His execution would be the first carried out in Texas this year and the second in the United States.
A separate execution that had been scheduled for Thursday in Georgia has been put on hold by that state's Court of Appeals.
According to court records in the Texas case, Blue threw open the door to Richards-Sanders' apartment, tossed gasoline on her and another man who was in the home at the time and set the two of them ablaze with a lighter.
"I told you I was gonna get you," Blue said to Richards-Sanders, according to a court summary of the case.
The male victim survived his injuries, but Richards-Sanders died 19 days later due to organ failure caused by burns over 40 percent of her body.
After turning himself in to police, Blue claimed the incident was a prank and said he did not intend to kill his ex-girlfriend, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
But prosecutors said Blue had exhibited violent behavior towards other women, including a sexual assault of one former girlfriend and a beating of another when she was eight months pregnant.
In Georgia, attorneys for death row inmate Andrew Allen Cook, 38, sought to block his execution by arguing the state's method of lethal injection violated state and federal law.
Cook was convicted of fatally shooting two Mercer University college students in 1995. A state appellate court granted him a stay of execution on Tuesday.
Additional reporting by David Beasley in Atlanta; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Pravin Char


text:
Generous Interfaces at NDF 2011 (video)10 comments Posted by Unknown at 2:40 pm
Labels: generousinterfaces, presentation, video
Labels: generousinterfaces, presentation, video
for Mac | Win | Linux (1Mb)
Series Browser
Mac | Win | Linux (5Mb)
A1 Explorer
Mac | Win | Linux (2Mb)
These are Java executables, made with Processing. NB the A1 Explorer requires a network connection to load document images, and may not work behind a firewall or proxy.
Template based on Cutline port by Blogcrowds


text:
Now showing items 1-2 of 2
A training model for "typesetting operator" profession in the publishing industry (design-implementation-evaluation)
(Elsevier, 2013)
Nowadays the main problem that faced by people is adapted to rapidly the conditions of life by the effect of technology. The field that that technological alteration is felt mostly is undoubtedly the experience of individual ...
Survey of Observing Printing and Publishing Technologies Program Graduates at Vocational School of Higher Education in Turkey (State - Foundation University)
(Elsevier, 2013)
Tracking and observing graduates is a study field which has not been studied enough to meet the expectations in Turkey. Any type of data gathered are considered to be very significant in terms of both reorganization of ...


text:
Follows the properties list selected by keywords:
Teilen Sie Ihre Erfahrungen auch anderen Besuchern mit und geben Sie den besten Campingplatz bekannt, den Sie entdeckt haben!
Every detail of campingplätze are in the property file, it is also possible to find furter information (updated prices ecc.) in the web site of the campingplätze (if it is available) simply with a click on the web link.
You can also see the recommendation on the best campingplätze from those who have already stayed there, you can also recommend the campingplätze where you had an unforgettable stay.
It is present the list of campingplätze in the italy region veneto.
For each campingplätze list is possible to see the five stars, four stars, three stars, one star property.
It is possible also to see farms holidays, fun fairs parks (cheap, low price),
We will speack about farm holidays and relaxing naturalistic holidays in campingplätze (related to region veneto).
You can find furter information, for example if in the campingplätze there is a swimming pool, if there are special saving for children, if pets are allowed (dogs, cats ecc.), if the campingplätze are near the thermal or with sauna.
It is possible to find information on half board full board, and everyting is needed to find campingplätze and special offer and last minute offer in the region veneto.
It allows you to make a request for further information or booking, to plan an unforgettable naturalistic holidays in campingplätze.


text:
Celebrating a birthday or a special occasion?
Join us for happy hour! Monday thru Fridays
View times
We are proud to serve only 100% Blue Agave tequila!
Read more
Perfect for any ocasion. Select location
Join our Fiesta Club and receive special promotions and offers and be the first to know about our special events.
Join now
Serving fine Mexican food in the Bay Area since 1984.


text:
Property values are rising at their fastest rate for three years and first-time buyers are at a six-year high, new figures reveal, creating a "virtuous circle" which has given banks and building societies more freedom to lend at the current historically low interest rates.
The result is a "contagious" confidence in the housing market, which will have a knock-on effect for the wider economy, according to industry experts.
The latest evidence of Britain's economic recovery comes days after forecasts for the country's annual economic growth were doubled from 0.8 to 1.5 per cent.
The Halifax's latest monthly index recorded an annual rise of 5.4 per cent, taking the price of the average home up from £160,292 to £170,231, the fastest rate of growth since 2010.
Meanwhile figures compiled by LSL Property Services' First Time Buyer Monitor showed 26,100 first-time buyers took out loans in July, the highest number for six years and a 45 per cent rise on the same month last year.
David Newnes, director at LSL, said: "Mortgages are much more affordable for first-time buyers compared to last year, which has opened the door to thousands of would-be buyers who were shut out of the market.
"Economic confidence is returning, nudging many more buyers in the direction of property, and nudging lenders to offer more loans to buyers with smaller deposits. The uptick in confidence, beneficial to both parties, is contagious."
The recovery in the property market has also eroded negative equity, giving banks greater confidence to lend. Analysis conducted for The Daily Telegraph shows the value of bad mortgages, where borrowers were unable to keep up with repayments, has fallen 40 per cent since the peak of the financial crisis in 2009.
Accountants UHY Hacker Young, which analysed Bank of England data, found the value of mortgages written off for the year to March was £543m, compared with a peak of £902m five years ago.
Mark Giddens, head of private client services at the firm, said this could help create a "virtuous circle". He said: "This improvement in the market has meant more homeowners struggling with their mortgages have been able to sell up without having to worry about negative equity. In cases where the worst has happened and homes have been repossessed, an improvement in the housing market means banks are able to achieve better prices on repossessions sales."
The Government's efforts to support the property market include last year's Funding for Lending scheme, which made £80 billion available to banks for loans, the vast majority of which has gone to mortgage lending.
In April ministers launched the Help to Buy scheme, lending 20 per cent of a new-build property's price, interest-free for five years, for those with only a five per cent deposit.
The scheme will be widened beyond new-build properties in January and will also be available to people moving up the property ladder.
There are, however, critics of the scheme, including the International Monetary Fund, which has warned it could create a new house price bubble.
Buyers have also been warned not to over-stretch themselves, as house prices remain high against average wages and interest rates will eventually rise.
Mr Giddens said: "New borrowers need to ensure that they can afford interest rate rises as current low interest rates won't be around forever. It is important that the new optimism about the housing market doesn't lead to a return to the reckless lending of the past."
- What next for house prices? Predictions are included in our weekly email
Watch: Telegraph guide on how to buy and sell a home


text:
I think Michael Arrington at Techcrunch is partially correct in his assertion that the convergence of TV across all devices (traditional TV, PCs, and mobile devices) is the real win in the IPTV race. But I think he is missing the bigger story.
We believe the promise of IPTV is not to create a more convenient television experience, it is to completely redefine what television is. IPTV can finally "democratize the airwaves" by leveling the play-field between the established media networks and user-generated channels.
Services like SplashCast will enable anyone to build their own media channel, broadcasting content they've either created or aggregated. As I stated in a previous post, you will be able to flip between NBC Nightly News, the Techcrunch channel (to watch their daily vodcast), the Justin Timberlake channel (to get footage of him eating breakfast at IHOP — paid for by IHOP), the Barack Obama channel (to get the latest scoop on his presidential ambitions), and your brother's channel (where your 4-year-old nephew is the star).


text:
Luck Bobblehead
"There's only one way to give 110%." -- Luck +1
The Luck Bobblehead can be procured by visiting the vast, shady area known as the Arlington Cemetery North. This place is located on the western bank of the Potomac across from the ever-dangerous downtown region of Washington D.C. Wilhelm's Wharf is located due north of the cemetery, and Grayditch, where you'll likely slay some killer ants in a side quest known as Those! are nearby markers. Chances are you've already added this location to your map while wandering around the Wasteland, however, especially if you've hugged the Potomac on either coast.
But the Bobblehead isn't located in the cemetery itself. In fact, if you instantly teleport to the area via the Pip-Boy, which we recommend, you'll find yourself on the northern outskirts of the cemetery. Head forward and climb the road upward until you reach the graveyard which is Arlington's distinction. Heading forward with your back facing the point in which you teleported from, you'll want to keep an eye on a colonial-style home on a hill to your right. This is the house where the Bobblehead is located. Head into the house, search its extensive interior for goods, sleep off any injuries, and then head into the basement of the house. The shelf right in front of the stairs contains the Luck Bobblehead you're in search of.
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text:
Monticello High School wrestling team just completed another successful season, placing second in the 1A team championship to Altamont as they grabbed three individual state championships and two seconds.
The three titlists, Cole Eldredge, Brian Robinson, and Austin Wilcox, became the 76th, 77th, and 78th state champions for MHS. Monticello has long been a wrestling hot bed, starting with the first state champion in 1959, Ralph Pellacio, followed by two more in 1960 by David Patrick and Jim Pearson.
Mike Bailey was the first two time state champion when he won in 1961 and 1962. Ozzie Trujillo was the first three time state champion and Aaron Butler the only Buckaroo four timer. In fact, MHS has had a state champion wrestler in 32 of the last 44 years, including 11 of the last 12 years. But this isn't so much about state champions, it's about character.
Exactly two weeks ago, five young men respectfully walked into my third grade classroom at Monticello Elementary School with state champion wrestling medals dangling from their necks. They were the above mentioned, freshly crowned Cole, Brian and Austin along with Shandon Bradford and Zach Musselman, who both also recently won state wrestling titles at the junior high level.
These young men came with an unpretentious but significant message for the students of MES, that if one is willing to work hard, one can be successful. They left a message with the students that working hard in school and sports will help you achieve in life.
One of the spokesmen for the group was Wilcox, who encouraged the students to be anxious to do the difficult things, because you'll be successful at them if you work hard. He indicated that working at school was even more important than sports.
He didn't quote Collin Powell, but I thought of a Collin Powell quote as he spoke, "A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work," and another, "Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price," which is something Vince Lombardi said.
I was impressed with these young men and their demeanor, no bravado or self aggrandizing, just a "work hard in school guys, and good things can happen" kind of attitude. Little did we know that one of these young men would be called upon to put those words into practice real soon.
Six days after those classroom visits, Wilcox, sans seatbelt, was riding in the back of a red 2002 Honda Accord that his buddy, Shane Christensen had just bought as his first car.
Christensen was driving at, what he will readily admit, was a too high rate of speed on a paved country road just a mile east of Monticello. Jake Giles was also in the car in the front seat.
The boys, all members of the Monticello baseball team were out fundraising for the team. As the car approached a curve in the road, it wasn't able to negotiate the corner and flew into the air flipping and rolling perhaps three times, coming to rest right side up facing in the opposite direction.
Christensen and Giles, both wearing seat belts, were relatively unhurt, though badly shaken and bruised, but quickly realized to their horror that Wilcox was not in the car. Terrorized, they quickly found him lying on the side of the road, badly injured after being ejected and flying 50 feet in the air before landing on his head on the road.
Miraculously, state highway patrol trooper Sanford Randall, who lives near the scene, happened upon the accident within 30 seconds of the accident, along with two other nearby residents, Bryan Bowring and Jymi Adams and EMTs were on the scene quickly.
Wilcox was transported to the hospital and then life-flighted to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction with severe injuries, a broken neck, severe head wounds, a concussion, lacerations on his head and road rash all over his body, all requiring plastic surgery, including 60-70 stitches in his head and intense hospital care.
He was in extreme pain and basically beat to a pulp. Amazingly, however, Wilcox, though in great pain, suffered no lasting injuries and doctors said he will make a full recovery, including his broken neck.
The doctors mentioned Wilcox' excellent physical condition, a result of his hard work during the wrestling season, as one reason for his having survived.
Having had the kind of trauma the doctors said is fatal for 99 percent of people who suffer such, a miraculous four days after being life-flighted to the hospital, Wilcox gingerly left the hospital to begin his own recovery at home. It will take time and great effort, but Wilcox is determined to fully recover. He even said so in his church meeting Sunday that he remarkably attended; quoting Tim Tebow who said after his team had lost a game in college, "I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season."
For their part, Christensen and Giles returned to school the morning after the accident and are recovering nicely too, physically and emotionally.
Shane, Jake and Austin are all grateful to be alive and determined to see as much good as can be come from this scary episode. I'd put a medal around the necks of all three as well as all those who worked so selflessly to help.


text:
Which would require a hearing....so the fee would be £255.00
When providing a copy of an executed agreement in response to a request under section 78(1) of the Act: a. must a creditor provide a photocopy (or other form of complete copy) of the original agreement that was signed by the debtor or at least provide a copy which is derived directly from the original agreement or complete copy thereof? or b. can a creditor provide a document which is a reconstitution of the original agreement which may be from sources other than the actual signed agreement itself? It was held that a creditor can satisfy its duty under section 78 by providing a reconstituted version of the executed agreement which may be from sources other than the actual signed agreement itself. The judge accepted that as a matter of law, section 78 does not itself require any particular explanation as to how the copy was made. However, as a matter of good practice and so as not to mislead the debtor, it is desirable that the creditor should explain that it is providing a reconstituted as opposed to a physical copy of the executed agreement. This will also explain why the copy might otherwise look a little odd. The creditor can also explain in the letter that this procedure is satisfactory under the Act. The judge also provided that the following information needs to be included in the reconstituted copy agreement (assuming of course that it was present in the original): 1. Heading: Credit Agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 2. Name and address of the debtor 3. Name and address of the creditor 4. Cancellation clause applicable to the executed agreement. All of the above may be provided on a sheet which is separate from the full statement of terms and conditions which also forms part of the reconstituted agreement. The creditor may, however, decide to reconstitute the agreement in a different way so that, for example, the information above is populated electronically onto the same sheet as that which sets out the terms and conditions, or some of them. The judge stated that he did not intend to prescribe the precise form of the reconstituted agreement. The key point is what information it should contain, subject to the point that its format should not be such as to mislead the debtor as to what he agreed to. The judge also considered whether a statement like the one appearing in the reconstructed application form in Carey referring to the agreement to the terms and conditions "attached" needs to be included in the reconstituted copy. Alternatively if the application form had said "I agree to the terms overleaf", should that statement be included. The judge held that this aspect of the form is not necessary for the purpose of the section 78 copy, although there is nothing to stop a bank from putting it in or indeed from furnishing a copy of the type of application form or signature page that the debtor would have signed, as some banks have done. The statement referring to terms and conditions is not itself prescribed information and the supply of the terms and conditions which were applicable at the time will tell the debtor what he needs to know in terms of the content of what he signed up to, including the presence (or otherwise) of the prescribed terms. In practical terms what this is likely to mean is that if the creditor chooses to use as the section 78 copy the section 63 copy, which would have been provided to that particular debtor at the time following execution of the agreement, this will be sufficient provided that the information referred to above is supplied. This exercise is not a mere formality. The creditor will need to check carefully that the details of the debtor at the time are correct and that those are the particular terms (including prescribed terms) that he/she agreed to. This is to ensure that it is an honest and accurate copy. Must a creditor provide a document which would comply (if signed) with the requirements of the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 1983 (Regulations) as to form, as at the date the agreement was made in order to comply with section 78? A creditor need not, in complying with section 78, provide a document which would comply (if signed) with the requirements of the Regulations as to form, as at the date the agreement was made. Must the copy provided under section 78 include the debtor's name and address as at the date when the agreement was made, and if so in what form? The section 78 copy must contain the name and address of the debtor as it was at the time of the execution of the agreement. But the creditor can provide the name and address from whatever source it has of those details. It does not have to take them from the executed agreement itself. If an agreement has been varied by the creditor under a unilateral power of variation, is a copy of the executed agreement as varied, a sufficient copy for the purposes of section 78(1), or must the creditor provide a copy of the original agreement as well? If an agreement has been varied by the creditor under a unilateral power of variation, the creditor must still provide a copy of the original agreement, as well as the varied terms. As your agreement is post April 2007 Section 61(1)(a) and 127(3) Consumer Credit Act 1974 would not apply. Andy
well start a new thread for the court claim. as for this one i'd await the letter of claim
Useful information... And.... https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part55
nice and ofcourse totally unlawful. £349.50 is the usual sum RLP try and fleece out of people under some silly civil threats none of goes to the store it all goes in RLP's pocket for their next staff holiday paid for by mugs that fall for their twaddle ignore!!
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InnovationCentre necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 74 diseños de 25 diseñadores freelance.
Rotterdam Innovation Centre (RIC)
We are an organization in the harbor of Rotterdam that helps new ventures, start-ups and young companies in the field of clean technology with their growth. We do this by giving them access to office space, plug and play business processes, business networks and venture capital.
Our Promise:
Facilitating CleanTech Ventures in Growth
The BViT innovation network and lotsov* will take the lead in the development of a program focused on helping CleanTech start-ups with scaling-up sales, production, processes and thus facilitating growth.
Our solutions:
• CleanTech Business Club
• Growth Support Package (plug & play processes: crm, finance, sales, webshops…)
• Seed & Growth Program (venture capital & hands-on growth management)
• Office Space & Showrooms
• International roll-out service
The target market
Companies that will settle in the Rotterdam Innovation Centre will be the innovative 'CleanTech' Entrepreneurs, such as:
• Experienced entrepreneurial start-ups,
• Innovative SME's on the verge of a market breakthrough,
• spin-outs of larger firms,
• foreign start-ups aiming to expand into Europe,
• firms that can add value to this specific market.
Sector Focus:
• Energy Storage
• Energy Infrastructure
• Energy Efficiency
• Transportation
• Air & Environment
• Recycling & Waste2Energy
• Water & Waste water
Colours: Blue and Green
The logo should have the name "Rotterdam Innovation Centre" in it and feel free to use the abreviation 'RIC'.
The designer should deliver both a colour as well as a black & white version of the design.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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MARET Family Tree and MARET Genealogy Records
Last updated: 1970-01-01 | Researchers: 2 | Journals: 0
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LOS ANGELES — The sprawling and bloodthirsty saga "Game of Thrones," defying the Emmy Awards' grudging respect for such fantasy fare, emerged as the leader in the nominations announced Thursday with 19 bids, including best drama series.
Other top nominees included a pair of ambitious miniseries, "Fargo," with 18 bids, and "American Horror Story: Coven," with 17. The AIDS drama "The Normal Heart" received 16 nominations, including best TV movie. The meth kingpin tale "Breaking Bad" got 16 bids for its final season, including best drama and a best actor nod for star Bryan Cranston.
The 66th prime-time Emmy Awards ceremony will have big-screen star power to spare. This year's Academy Awards best-actor winner Matthew McConaughey ("Dallas Buyers Club") and nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor ("12 Years a Slave") are both nominees for TV projects, as is past Oscar winner Julia Roberts.
In the competitive best-drama series category, "Game of Thrones" will compete with "Breaking Bad," ''Downton Abbey," ''House of Cards," ''Mad Men" and "True Detective."
Whether HBO's "Game of Thrones" can take home the top trophy is another question: Only one fantasy or sci-fi series, "Lost," has ever captured it, according to Tom O'Neil, author of "The Emmys" and organizer of the Gold Derby awards site.
Snubbed in the category was "The Good Wife," despite a season that was both critically acclaimed and gasp-inducing for the sudden, violent death of character Will Gardner (Josh Charles).
Netflix's "House of Cards" which made a breakthrough last year as the first online series nominated for a major award, has the chance again to grab Emmy gold.
"Orange is the New Black," also from Netflix, leaped that barrier on the flip side this time around with a bid for best comedy series, along with a nod for star Taylor Schilling.
Also competing for best comedy honors are "The Big Bang Theory," ''Louie," ''Silicon Valley," ''Veep," and "Modern Family," a four-time winner that has the chance to tie "Frasier" as the all-time winning sitcom with one more award.
"Orange is the New Black," a prison-set hybrid "dramedy," could have been entered in either the drama or comedy category, and the decision to go for the latter paid off. Not so for "Shameless," a onetime drama contender that tried for better luck on the comedy side but failed to get a top bid.
Another category-buster is "True Detective," the dark-hearted Southern drama that starred McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. It was entered in the series category although it had a close-ended story and its stars have indicated they don't plan on returning for the show's second season.
But the crime anthology qualifies as a series because of the "created by" credit given to Nic Pizzolatto by the Writers Guild of America, said John Leverence, the TV academy's senior vice president for awards. That credit serves as a "marker" to help determine a program's first-year Emmy categorization, which can be ambiguous, Leverence said.
McConaughey and Harrelson both will vie for best drama actor honors, along with four-time winner Cranston for "Breaking Bad," Jon Hamm for "Mad Men," Kevin Spacey for "House of Cards," and Jeff Daniels for "The Newsroom," who won the Emmy last year.
Nominees in the lead actress drama category are last year's winner, "Homeland" star Claire Danes along with Lizzy Caplan for "Masters of Sex," Michelle Dockery for "Downton Abbey," Julianna Margulies for "The Good Wife," Kerry Washington for "Scandal" and Robin Wright for "House of Cards."
"I'm crazy grateful that the TV Academy has acknowledged our show in these ways," Washington said in a statement, giving a shoutout to fellow "Scandal" nominees Joe Morton and Kate Burton. They were recognized in the guest actor and actress categories.
For comedy series, the lead actor nods went to Don Cheadle for "House of Lies," Louis C.K. for "Louie," Ricky Gervais for "Derek," Matt LeBlanc for "Episodes," William H. Macy for "Shameless" and Jim Parsons for "The Big Bang Theory." Parsons won the Emmy last year.
Best actress comedy nominees besides Schilling were Lena Dunham for "Girls," Edie Falco for "Nurse Jackie," Melissa McCarthy for "Mike & Molly," Amy Poehler for "Parks and Recreation" and last year's winner, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for "Veep."
"This list of nominees would also be the list for the best dinner party in history," ''Girls" creator and star Dunham said in a statement, dubbing them "fierce and funny women."
With a resurgence of so-called long-form drama, the TV academy separated the best movie and miniseries categories that had been combined for several years because of scant entries. The acting categories, however, remain a mix of the two.
In the miniseries category, "American Horror Story: Coven" and "Fargo," a riff on the 1996 movie of the same name, will compete with "Bonnie & Clyde," ''Luther," ''Treme" and "The White Queen."
Along with "The Normal Heart," the TV movie nominees are "Killing Kennedy," ''Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight," ''Sherlock: His Last Vow (Masterpiece)" and "The Trip to Bountiful."
Roberts is a supporting actress nominee for "The Normal Heart." Ejiofor earned a bid for the miniseries "Dancing on the Edge."
The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards will air Monday, Aug. 25, on NBC, with emcee Seth Meyers, the former "Saturday Night Live" player and new NBC late-night host. The ceremony, traditionally held on Sunday, was moved to avoid a conflict with NBC's "Sunday Night Football" and with MTV's Video Music Awards.
HBO received a leading 99 nominations, followed by CBS with 47; NBC, 46; FX Networks, 45; ABC, 37; PBS, 34; Showtime, 24, and Fox, 18.
Nominees in major categories for the 2014 Emmy Awards announced Thursday by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences:
Drama Series: "Breaking Bad," AMC; "Downton Abbey," PBS; "Game of Thrones," HBO; "House of Cards," Netflix; "Mad Men," AMC; "True Detective," HBO.
Comedy Series: "The Big Bang Theory," CBS; "Louie," FX Networks; "Modern Family," ABC; "Orange Is the New Black," Netflix; "Silicon Valley," HBO; "Veep," HBO.
Miniseries: "American Horror Story: Coven," FX Networks; "Bonnie & Clyde," Lifetime; "Fargo," FX Networks; "Luther," BBC America; "Treme," HBO; "The White Queen," Starz.
Actor, Drama Series: Bryan Cranston, "Breaking Bad," AMC; Kevin Spacey, "House of Cards," Netflix; Jon Hamm, "Mad Men," AMC; Jeff Daniels, "The Newsroom," HBO; Woody Harrelson, "True Detective," HBO; Matthew McConaughey, "True Detective, " HBO.
Actress, Drama Series: Michelle Dockery, "Downton Abbey," PBS; Julianna Margulies, "The Good Wife," CBS; Claire Danes, "Homeland," Showtime; Robin Wright, "House of Cards," Netflix; Lizzy Caplan, "Masters of Sex," Showtime; Kerry Washington, "Scandal," ABC.
Supporting Actor, Drama Series: Aaron Paul, "Breaking Bad," AMC; Jim Carter, "Downton Abbey," PBS; Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones," HBO; Josh Charles, "The Good Wife," CBS; Mandy Patinkin, "Homeland," Showtime; Jon Voight, "Ray Donovan," Showtime.
Supporting Actress, Drama Series: Anna Gunn, "Breaking Bad," AMC; Maggie Smith, "Downton Abbey," PBS; Joanne Froggatt, "Downton Abbey," PBS; Lena Headey, "Game of Thrones," HBO; Christine Baranski, "The Good Wife," CBS; Christina Hendricks, "Mad Men," AMC.
Actor, Comedy Series: Jim Parsons, "The Big Bang Theory," CBS; Ricky Gervais, "Derek," Netflix; Matt LeBlanc, "Episodes," Showtime; Don Cheadle, "House of Lies," Showtime; Louis C.K., "Louie," FX Networks; William H. Macy, "Shameless," Showtime.
Actress, Comedy Series: Lena Dunham, "Girls," HBO; Melissa McCarthy, "Mike & Molly," CBS; Edie Falco, "Nurse Jackie," Showtime; Taylor Schilling, "Orange Is the New Black," Netflix; Amy Poehler, "Parks and Recreation," NBC; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, "Veep," HBO.
Supporting Actor, Comedy Series: Andre Braugher, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," Fox; Adam Driver, "Girls," HBO; Jesse Tyler Ferguson, "Modern Family," ABC; Ty Burrell, "Modern Family," ABC; Fred Armisen, "Portlandia," IFC; Tony Hale, "Veep," HBO.
Supporting Actress, Comedy Series: Mayim Bialik, "The Big Bang Theory," CBS; Julie Bowen, "Modern Family," ABC; Allison Janney, "Mom," CBS; Kate Mulgrew, "Orange Is the New


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- 2 bedroom Flat
- Glenavon Court, Sneyd Park, Bristol, BS9 1RH
Friendly, professional and award winning. Our services help thousands of people move every year.
A business with a unique heritage, we combine the resources of a large organisation with the personal touch of an independent business so that you can enjoy the best possible experience.
This property has no virtual tour details.
Are you considering buying or renting a property in the Clifton area?
Clifton is a suburb of Bristol and is surrounded by independent shops, cafes and restaurants, as well as being a stones-throw away from Brunel's famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Durdham Downs and many other historic buildings from the city's past.
So, could Clifton be the perfect place for you? Read on to find out more about living in the area.
Clifton is only around 1.5 miles from central Bristol, so the area is well served by public transport. From the top of Park Street, there are a number of services which run to both Bristol Temple Meads railway station and Cribbs Causeway shopping centre.
There is also Clifton Down railway station, along Whiteladies Road, from which you can catch services to other parts of the city, such as Montpellier and Stapleton Road, which is the closest railway station to IKEA Bristol.
You are spoilt for choice when it comes to restaurants, bars and cafés in the Clifton area. For example, Rosemarino, just 1.7 miles from our Clifton Andrews branch, has won multiple awards for its superb Italian food, including the Bristol Good Food Award.
Alternatively, River Cottage Canteen serves local organic and wild food, in keeping with the popular Channel Four series. The restaurant is situated on Whiteladies Road, in a converted 19th Century chapel, and is a great place to relax and grab a spot of lunch.
The Cowshed, which is also on Whiteladies Road, brings a taste of the countryside to the city, with its ties to local farmers and relaxed family atmosphere. Steaks are a speciality; however there are a number of vegetarian options and desserts on offer too.
Bristol Lido is situated in Clifton Village and has a spa, restaurant and swimming pool. Here you can book yourself in for a massage, use the steam room and enjoy a meal and drinks from the bar/restaurant, before kicking back in the outdoor pool.
There is also the Nuffield Health Centre on Queens Road, which has a fitness and wellbeing gym, as well as health experts on hand to help you meet your health and fitness goals.
On a sunny day, you can visit the Suspension Bridge in Clifton Village and admire the spectacular views. There is also the Avon Gorge Hotel, which boasts an outside terrace looking out over the gorge and bridge.
Residents can also choose from a number of picturesque open spaces, including Clifton Downs Park, which has views of the Avon Gorge, Leigh Woods and the Severn Estuary – the perfect spot for a picnic, dog walking or exercise.
There is also access to the Durdham Downs, a picturesque open space, which hosts visiting circuses, the Flower Show, the Classic Car Show and more.
On the other side of the Suspension Bridge, you'll find Ashton Court – an area of parkland, which hosts several national events, including the largest Balloon Festival in Europe, the annual Music Festival and international Kite Festival.
There is also, of course, Bristol Zoo, which houses an impressive range of animals, including lions, seals, penguins and a newly refurbished gorilla house. The zoo also hosts a range of special events for adults and children.
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery on Queens Road runs art, history and cultural exhibitions throughout the year, so there is a good chance of catching something new and interesting with every visit. Entry to the museum is free; however, you will have to pay to enter some of the temporary exhibitions.
A little further along Queens Road, heading onto Whiteladies Road, there is the Royal West of England Academy of Arts (RWA), which holds art and cultural exhibitions throughout the entire year. It also has its own drawing school, which is open to all, and regular art workshops for children.
The area is blessed by being at the heart of Bristol's history, with attractions including the Regency village of Clifton, the Cabot Tower and Victoria Rooms, which is now used for concerts and functions. There are also a number of notable churches, such as Clifton Cathedral and the parish church of Christchurch.
Clifton's central location means that the area is well-served by food and retail stores. On Queen's Road, there is a Waitrose supermarket, as well as a Sainsbury's Local, on the other side of the street. There is also a Tesco Express on Whiteladies Road and another in the Clifton Village area, on Regent Street.
Clifton Village is packed with independent stores, where you can find vintage and one-of-a-kind clothing, furniture, gifts, artworks and more. For some serious retail therapy, head to Cabot Circus in Bristol city centre, where you'll find all of the major high-street chains. Buses also run directly from Clifton to Cribbs Causeway shopping centre.
In Bristol city centre, close to the bottom of Park Street, you'll find the Bristol Hippodrome theatre. Here you can see musicals, plays, stand-up shows and much more.
In Clifton itself, there's the Anson Rooms in the University of Bristol Students' Union building, which hosts a mixture of live music, stand-up and events. There's also the Illusions Magic Bar, close to the Clifton Triangle in Byron Place.
For film lovers, Bristol city centre has a number of cinemas, including a Showcase Cinema in Cabot Circus and an Odeon Cinema on Union Street in the town centre. There's also the Watershed Cinema, which shows independent films and can be found on Cannon Street, along Bristol's famous harbour.
Clifton Library on Princess Victoria Street offers fiction and non-fiction books for all ages, a children's area with a range of picture books and free use of computers with email and internet access.
There are also a number of surgeries and health centres in Clifton, including Pembroke Road Surgery and Litfield House Medical Centre, a private health centre in Liftfield Place .The Bristol Royal Infirmary is on Upper Maudlin Street, only around 1.4 miles from Clifton Village.
There is a pay and display car park on Trenchard Street, as well as a car park at Clifton Down station, on Whiteladies Road. There is also some free, on-street parking in Clifton, as well as resident's parking in some areas.
Clifton has the great advantage of being within the Cotham School catchment, which is arguably the best state secondary school in Bristol. Cotham School has always been oversubscribed, and recently, the long-awaited Redland School has been improved. Families are therefore eagerly seeking property within the area.
There are a number of primary schools in the Clifton area. On Worrall Road, there is St John's Primary School, a voluntary controlled Church of England school. There is also Westbury Park, Clifton Primary, the Catholic St Peters and St Pauls, and Christ Church School in Royal Park, which is fee paying.
Secondary schools include Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, a boy's secondary school in Berkley Place. On Guthrie Road, close to Bristol Zoo, you'll find the imposing Clifton College, which is both an upper and a preparatory school.
Other acclaimed private schools in the area include Clifton High, Redland High, Badminton, Bristol Grammar and the Bristol Cathedral School.
If you would like to find out more about renting or buying property in Clifton, call or drop by our Clifton area branch.
Sea Mills
Clifton Down
Bristol Gardens
Clifton Observatory & Camera Obscura
Westbury College Gatehouse
Blaise Hamlet
Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
St Ursulas High School Brecon Road, Bristol BS9 4DT
St Ursula's High School Brecon Road, Bristol BS9 4DT
Clifton High School College Road, Bristol BS8 3JD
Redland Green Redland Court Road, Bristol BS6 7EH
Redland Green 16 19 Redland Court Road, Bristol BS6 7EF
Stoke Bishop Church of England Primary School Cedar Park, Bristol BS9 1BW
Sea Mills Primary School Hallen Drive, Bristol BS9 2NT
Elmlea Infant School Elmlea Avenue, Bristol BS9 3UU
Elmlea Junior School The Dell, Bristol BS9 3UF
Badminton Junior School Westbury Road, Bristol BS9 3BA
St Marys Church Pre School Church Rooms, Bristol BS9 1QJ
Stoke Bishop Nursery Playgroup The Village Hall, Bristol BS9 1BP
Pilning Playgroup Trinity Hall, Bristol BS9 1JP
Trinity College Day Nursery Trinity College, Bristol BS9 1JP
Little Monsters Pre School Bluebell Close, Bristol BS9 2LQ
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