June in London

The Met Office is warning homeowners to brace themselves as the deluge, which began in earnest about 6pm last night, is expected to continue all day bringing three inches of rain by tea-time.


Although apparently the hosepipe ban still stands.  Anyhow, this quote just about sums up the last three months.  The Diamond Jubilee was subject to atrocious weather - mad props to the Queen for standing up for something like four straight hours as she made her way down the Thames.  We are back from France and everything is really busy.  Also, I dropped my beloved camera into the sea so there will be no pictures for awhile.  I do have some of France but they're on a memory card - eventually I'll be able to post some.  For now, gotta run.  Before the floods get me or something.

Central London

Sometimes I forget just how close we are to Central London. We lucked out finding this area back in 2007... short commute time to Victoria, yet removed enough from the hustle and bustle to feel like a tranquil place.

Yesterday we decided to meet up with B's brother and children in Hyde Park. There's a great playground we'd heard of - the Princess Diana Memorial one - with a gigantic pirate ship and other play structures inspired by Peter Pan and Neverland. So we met up, the journey in not being too bad (mainline train one stop, Tube in to Bayswater) and spent a few hours in the sun with the kids.

E really enjoyed himself. C did too. Although she was too young to really appreciate all the little nooks and crannies of the playground, she was still able to hug totem poles...

...and toddle around the wigwams.


The tunnel, however, did not yield to her force of will, and she would not stoop to crawl through it, so they were at an impasse for a little while, until she wandered somewhere else.


Meanwhile, E enjoyed chasing (and being chased by) his cousin. S is younger than E by about 18 months but is starting to be able to keep up/engage more and E loves having company at playgrounds. He was none too happy when they had to leave, but all the cool extras at the playground soon cheered him up. There was a pirate telescope at the top of a little hill... actually a kaleidoscope... that he liked quite a bit.

Checking out the treasure chest....

Walking the plank...

Sitting on a chair on the "sensory trail" which was a winding stone path incorporating things like instruments and other neat little features.

Like this wooden xylophone-type thing.

And this deceptively spinny thing.

Also, a chiming trampoline!



C fell asleep in the stroller, so while B and E played and explored, I sat and enjoyed the sun (and wished I'd brought my notebook and pen... I am behind on my word count and really want to get this first draft finished!)

It was a good day. The playground got so full the attendants (yes, attendants, at a playground! Very posh!) had to introduce a 20-out, 20-in crowd control at the gates. Being so close to Mayfair we saw some diverse children - several were out playing in miniature tweed jackets, etc. E fell asleep leaning against me on the train ride back, he was so exhausted.

Bayswater station. Probably I might catch flack from some official for posting this... but you know what? I don't care. I thought the juxtaposition of light and dark was gorgeous. Wouldn't mind waiting for trains in that station.

Randomness

So I called my US bank yesterday and wound up chatting with the lady on the other end about the royal wedding while we waited for the computers to update details. I realized that I totally heard her accent. And she was from CA. I feel really weirded out right now. I think I'm probably going to have culture shock when I visit. That is going to be strange.

Yesterday we went to one of the local street parties, because Friday was a national holiday due to the wedding. There were something like 79 street parties in our borough alone! We had a little picnic then E went on the bouncy castle someone had set up. It was great to see the street shut down to traffic.

B and I went to the local farmer's market today and then the park afterward for E to run off some energy. We both have to-do lists a mile long. Mental to-do lists. If I wrote it all down it'd just be daunting.

I have no relevant pics so here is a photo of a teethy baby. (And no, we're not getting a whole lot of sleep lately.)

Suffolk, Part 2

Before I finish up the trip recap - I just want to say that B and the kids and I will be in CA from June 16-July 12! Very excited!

Anyhow... after staying with our friends, we headed up to Lowestoft, which has a long (mostly) sandy beach. We were in one of the buildings on top of the cliff. The UK has these things called beach huts, which are colo(u)rful little shack things. I gather they basically keep beach-type things in there as a kind of glorified locker, and maybe sometimes retreat there to sit out of the sun or to change clothes. Maybe Americans don't use beach huts due to relying more on cars? I don't know.

Here's the beach:

E had been stomping about in a most pleased manner in the water.

After one night in Lowestoft (breakfast, dinner and afternoon tea included), and a quick visit to E's great-aunt, we set off to our simple but cheerful little bungalow in Kessingland (where Rider Haggard, the novelist, once lived). We were a 5 minute walk from the beach.

E on a motorbike at his GA's house:

Running up the path past the ducks at the cottage, toward the gate leading to the beach:

B getting the kite aloft, E with spade and mat.



Sandcastle-building, moat-digging...



Got a few more photos to put up in the next post... will try to get to that in a few days. We are having a great long Easter weekend, and we have another four-day weekend coming up due to the royal marriage!

Water Magnet

20 foot puddle + boy = fun.

Callie is one month old today and doing well. We all went to a friend's son's 4th birthday party today. It wasn't a long drive - 20-25 minutes or so - yet there were lots of green spaces and the area had a very village-y feel to it. There were even a few pastures with horses. 100 years ago the area wasn't considered "London" and yet it's now part of the city's outskirts, being "inside the M25" (the circular freeway around London). And Callie seems to be a car baby, so it was a pleasant drive and definitely nice to see a bit of greenery.

Thanksgiving

I'm very very jealous of everyone who has the day off and is eating a nice Thanksgiving meal! If you're reading this, have a bite of cranberry sauce for me and maybe some candied yams with marshmallows.

Here in the UK, obviously, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving. And since Halloween is kind of glossed over as well, these folks are starved for holidays. From August (not kidding) all we hear about is Christmas. Christmas. CHRISTMAS. It's like a senile great-grandma who won't shut up. No, worse, it's like 7 of them. And by the way did you know it's Christmas in about 5 weeks? Oh for the days when Christmas mania didn't start until late November.... or am I just getting old?

Speaking of holidays, E and I went up to the Christmas Fair at his little playgroup this morning. Bought a few little cupcakes, looked at the donkey "reindeer" rides, watched Snow White make balloon sculptures, then came home. I'm sorting out baby clothes slowly but surely. Got the newborn stuff mostly re-laundered at least.

Unfortunately, my blood pressure is creeping up these days. Since I basically had pre-eclampsia last pregnancy I've got to keep on top of things. Went to the hospital for monitoring last week... although that sounds serious, it wasn't really that bad. I'm going back to the clinic today for another check.

Also, B has bought me some canned pumpkin. I think I may have to make a pie with it.

No good pictures lately so here is an action shot of a blurry, upside down toddler. Happy Thanksigving!

Boy.

All boy.

'Scuse the flash making the letters hard to read.

He loves "the typing laptop" and asks to use it often. It's B's old work laptop so it's a clunker and stands up fairly well to, shall we say, inexperienced hands.

Dad is now in NY and planning to Amtrak it back West at some point. Having an extra pair of hands to change diapers (yes, he did! lots!), wash dishes etc was a big help! Fortunately E wasn't too traumatized by his departure and now often says "Granddad schleeping" to explain away the mysterious lack of grandfatherly presence.

B brought home a pumpkin from the local farmer's market today. I don't think they really "do" pumpkin patches here in the UK. Certainly not like they do Stateside. There isn't much of a buildup to Halloween here, which I find is refreshing yet disappointing. I don't mind the lack of emphasis on trick-or-treating, but some people are such GROUCHES about it, going so far as to put up signs on their doors warning people off. Given that there's no Thanksgiving here, as an American I always feel a little bit bereft in the autumn months... Halloween is kinda skimmed over by the majority of people, there's no late-November feast, so Christmas is a long, hyped-up wait.

Regardless, we'll be baking pumpkin pie this season (probably quite soon, with that fresh pumpkin) and I'll introduce B and E to toasted pumpkin seeds. Nom. Speaking of E and expat living, he was watching a signing show on TV (Makaton signs designed for toddlers and special-needs kids). "Giraffe" popped up. E turned to me, pointed, said "GirAffe." Turned back to the TV, said "GirAHffe." Great! Just great. At 2 and a quarter, dude already recognizes his mama talks different. Won't be long till he quits humoring me and starts correcting me. (And at that time I'll probably be tempted to suggest B takes a year-long sabbatical from work so that we can go back to MV to live for a year, for re-education, if you will.)

Speaking of the young gentleman, his quotes have been getting more convoluted, though no less funny. "OHH! Stubbed my tickles!" was a recent one. He calls the bottom of his feet his "tickles." Which tickles us. Obviously.

Another one - Dadden: "That toy has to stay in the bath for now...it's probably sleeping!" E turns, shakes his head and says "It probably wake up now!"

And he has taken to teasing me by mimicking a high-pitched yelp whenever he sees a speck-that-might-be-a-spider. Oh, the shame.

Well, we're all off to a baby event tomorrow in London since B got a free ticket through a friend. I expect it will mostly be overpriced and overhyped, but there will be deals and freebies and, apparently, play-spots with lots of toddler toys. Plus, I'm 33 weeks along now (that's technically 4 weeks until I'm considered "term") so it's probably time to look at buying a few things. Like, you know, diapers and a Moses basket. Cotton wool for wipes. Yadda yadda. And with that, swollen-ankled me is off to bed.

Funfair

I know I promised aquarium pics, but today was so much fun that I'd like to post it when things are still fresh in my mind.

We headed off to Wimbledon Common for their village fair. Luck was with us - we found a parking space immediately, one which happened to be about a 30 second walk from the edge of the festivities. It was a big event - horse show, dog show, funfair rides, food stalls, arts/crafts stalls, performances, etc. Kind of like a slightly scaled-down American county fair.

I BRAVELY went down this slide with E. He had fun. Me, not quite so much. This is a before pic and nobody is seeing the after pics. E is smiling, I am not, we'll leave it at that.

B, on the other hand...
had so much fun he did it twice.

Couple more random shots...

Punch & Judy. No, I can't explain it, it's just some British tradition that involves puppets and a fair amount of gratuitous slapping about.

Some sort of juggling show with Victorian accoutrements strewn about.

Glug, glug.

Whitsand Bay

England is not a country comfortable with hot weather. It clings to its feather duvets, its double-glazed windows, its sturdy, carpeted interiors. In the heat, its citizens wander around looking faintly bewildered, clad in hastily-assembled summer attire, perhaps bought several years ago "just in case the big heatwave showed up" and with the vague hint of mothballs clinging to the undersides.

They peer at the sun and repeat the temporary mantra, "LOVELY weather, isn't it?" They drink hot tea under the hot sun, or underneath rain shelters that for a few weeks out of the year pose as sun shelters. The kids run around as if possessed, revelling in short sleeves.

Then the rain returns and probably 90% of the population is secretly relieved.

Back to our trip - one hot morning, we packed our things and headed to a nearby recommended beach. Sandy and beautiful, it was accessed via a steep cliff hike. E fell asleep on the short drive there.

(Yes, we still have a rear-facing carseat, and I bought one specifically to use as rear-facing, because it's safer - something to do with the proportionality of the weight/size of the head on children under the age of 4 or so leads to more spinal injuries in crashes when forward-facing. Some of the Nordic countries require children to sit rear-facing until the age of 4. Safety lecture over.)

Heading down the path....


View from the top.


And further down the path. Lots of little holiday cottages along the way.


To give you an idea of how far down it was, here's the cliff from below. Yes, going back up was fun.

The little cafe at the bottom had a great way of trekking goods down the steep path. I love seeing unorthodox things like this. Makes me view the local community as a bit more down-to-earth as opposed to the Housing Association Types who freak if your picket fence is painted off-white instead of the appropriate shade of pearl.

We'd borrowed a bucket and spade from the B&B and E went to town in the little tidepools.

After the initial sunscreen pindown and wild running around, E got properly dorked out in hat and sunglasses and set to the business of plopping handfuls of sand into a bucketful of seawater.


It was upon this beach that E constructed his very first four-word sentence. After taking a spill in the ocean and getting a mouthful of water, the young gentleman stood up and proclaimed: "Fall down ocean, yucky!"


That's all for now.

Who I Am

So I usually keep this blog light and fluffy. Easy-reading, non-confrontational. In general, the fastest way to cause tension is bringing up religion or politics. Because, let's face it, relatively few people change their opinions during an argument, or even after one. Maybe it's a matter of pride. Maybe it has something to do with the difficulty of thinking during an argument - too busy thinking up a zinging response.

Maybe that's the problem with politics today. When I first came to the UK, I remember watching a televised debate in the Houses of Parliament and being surprised at the surging emotional reactions of the politicians. The Tory leader (Conservative/Right) would be attacking the Labo(u)r leader (Center-Right-ish) and there'd be boos and cheers from the politicians in the audience. The Liberal Democrat leader would start attacking the Budget and the whole damn place would start shrieking in condemnation or in support. Occasionally they'd get almost choreographed, low, mostly-male OOOing, or YEAAAHing catapulting across the room. Almost might as well beat on their chests... except I suppose the arguments help these politicians define Who They Are. Not What They Stand For, so much, which I think is an important and unfortunate distinction.

See, I could say I vote Libertarian and some people might immediately peg me as an anarchist or something. So I don't usually say what I am - and being a student journalist pretty much reinforced that habit. Plus, why define Who You Are by a political party? Is it written somewhere that you have to agree with everything a certain party stands for? The UK's system isn't limited to a 2-party one - smaller parties can and have won political battles. Heck, they even have the Monster Raving Loony Party here - which I believe has come close to winning in certain arenas. Refreshing! (I think.)

Let's talk about health care.

There's been a lot of coverage of the U.S. system lately and the recently-passed changes. And somewhere during the mud-slinging, things got highly politicized. Now this whole health care revamp thing seems to be X vs. Y, no middle ground. You're either a SOCIALIST or an EVIL RIGHT-WINGER. No compromise. Because clearly, you cannot pick and choose what you agree with. You must stand on one side of the line or the other, and that is how you, and others, define Who You Are. You're either with us or against us, baby.

I'm sorry, but I call shenanigans on this slippery slope stuff. (And yes! I do realize that sentence is nearly alliteration.)

Just once, I'd like to see someone speak their mind without some drama llama getting the hump. I don't know if that's even possible in today's overcharged political arenas. How did we careen so far off course? Why are we not examining the facts?

In the last years of her life, a middle-aged woman was unable to entertain the idea of moving more than a few miles away because she could not change health plans. Nobody would insure a middle-aged diabetic. Her monthly prescription costs were soaring. And, despite paying high premiums--presumably for world-class health care--she passed away at the age of 57. Doctor's visits were 15 minutes long. By the last week of her life she knew she was in deep trouble but she had no clue how to fix it apart from continuing to pay the high premiums and try to schedule another appointment - preferably within the week. She died of a massive heart attack. Autopsy showed she'd had strokes and other symptoms for months which went undiagnosed despite her visits to her regular doctor.

In her 20's, a woman was able to entertain the idea of moving anywhere in the country. None of her doctor's appointments made her wait more than a week - except for the specialist appointment she got which required an EKG at the hospital. If she wanted it, she could get birth control pills without paying more than a token fee. When she gave birth at the hospital, she felt the care could have been better, and the wards were shared. She felt angry that the hospital seemed to be too busy, and probably short of staff for a proper patient/nurse ratio, but the discomfort was short-lived. She gets prescriptions for her under-16yr son free. Recently, she went to the doctor at her husband's urging to check out a suspected case of food-poisoning that had affected her and her son. The doctor prescribed anti-nausea tablets and rehydrating fluid - total cost was about $14.00 for the prescription.

The former situation occurred in the U.S. and the latter in the U.K. If you know me, you'll have realized that I'm comparing the situations of my mother and myself. And if you have an inkling of Who I Am, you'll realize that What I Stand For isn't as simple or as petty as standing on one side of the line or the other and hurling verbal grenades.

When did we lose the ability to stand up as a Person and say what's right and what's wrong? Have we lost our ability to reason for ourselves? Why do we need politicians holding our hands and shoehorning us onto false "sides"? Pitting us against each other when our own individual ethics should be screaming at us to check the facts from several independent sources and decide for ourselves instead of claiming mob mentality?

That dog don't hunt, and the emperor is naked, and I feel really good writing that down.

Spring

The UK holds Mother's Day in March, so I was surprised with a chocolate croissant and tea in bed this morning... plus a great card:


Then B and E headed outside to build the tent and tunnel that Grandpa in California sent us for Christmas....

I didn't fit down the tunnel.

But E did.


B also built a little trampoline we picked up last weekend.

Anyhow, that's all I have time for - it's time for a certain gentleman's nap, and I'm off for a hot date with a pot of tea and my notebook at a local cafe. Happy Spring.

Autumn Leaves

The weather is starting to get nippier, but it's been downright pleasant throughout September and early October. There's a different feel to the weather in England... there's more of a warning bite to the breeze than I ever felt in California.

I remember swimming in mountain lakes in Shasta County with my godfamily when I was younger. The water on top was sun-kissed, warm and pleasant. If you dove more than a few feet underneath, however, the water grew instantly colder, reminding you of the lake's glacier roots. Autumn in England is a little bit like swimming on the line, dipping in and out of the cold.

Today E and I visited the park because he woke up too late to go to one of the play areas (they close at 3:30). He was a little bit out of sorts today because he had his MMR jab yesterday. The nurse said to be aware that symptoms can crop up within a week - some children go through a very mild form of measles or mumps, some run a fever, etc. So I'm keeping an eye on him.

Meanwhile, at the park...



Running, climbing, pointing, swinging (not pictured, too blurry)...


Wanting to climb, and...

...giving himself a hand for getting to the top of something he could climb.

That's all for now. Poor B left before 7 this morning and won't be back until after 10pm, so hopefully he'll catch a break sooner rather than later.

Politics

I don't usually talk about politics on this blog, but I feel I'm entitled to an occasional blog post about it... especially when it affects my family.

This evening we got a letter through the door informing us that Elijah's information is now being held on a central database. Actually, it wasn't even a letter, it was a pamphlet, laid out in a kind of slick, propaganda-magazine style.

ContactPoint, the government's new database, includes Elijah's full name, age, address, name of his doctor, school information, and information about us, his parents.

And no, we don't get to opt out, it's mandatory. So... joy of joys, Elijah's information is now out there for pedophiles to search through. Of course, there's a "limited amount" of people who can access the database, but with Britain's shoddy security record, it's a given that there will be unwanted eyes roaming over the information in ContactPoint.

Oh, and there's the small matter of users being able to search the data for the "prevention or detection of crime"

This from a government who stores genetic fingerprints from about 750,000 under-18s (including innocent children).

To say that I'm hacked off with this is a bit of an understatement.

I think Americans tend to get the impression that Britain is just a meek, rainy island with lots of castles and tea parties. Don't get me wrong: I like it here, but the government is downright scary. Sure, it's currently in turmoil, but it's still rolling out stuff like ContactPoint, and the National ID card scheme, which requires everyone to be fingerprinted.

Yes, we're

Or... maybe we're really not.