… has not changed much in the time that I’ve been away. The same perpetual Midtown crush of the bodies throughout the day. The same yellow cabs hassling for position and driving with abandon (although the logo they now sport on the side seems to be something that only came…
In America, would you believe it!? My first impression after having been away for almost two years: How wide the roads are! How deep from the roads the houses sit! How much space there is between them! How much space there is, period! I know it is not a straight…
Just as in the early days of our London living there were various first-time experiences (as seen in this post, for instance), we are now going through experiences that are likely to be our “lasts”. Our last trip on the Eurotunnel train occurred back in May, on our getaway to…
In a tellingly sad testament to the fact that we, as a family, long stopped spending weekends on day-tripping in and around London, we had a hard time today recalling our last such outing. Turns out it was the trip to Chislehurst caves, in early February, although relative proximity of…
My culinary talents – and inclinations, to be honest, – are very limited: I can boil eggs or pasta, or grill pre-marinated meats. How in the world am I supposed to feed a hungry teenager and a picky little munchkin for a whole week, while their mother is away?! Three…
My late grandfather used to say, quite seriously, that the best way to remind yourself to do something important during the day is to write down what you need to do, then thoroughly crumble the piece of paper on which you wrote and put it into the front pocket of…
Natasha is off to Joysie to look at houses. We perused roughly 50 properties online and identified about a dozen as satisfying our primary parameters. She will see those, plus whatever else may come up in the next few days. In the ideal scenario, one of those properties will exhibit…
You know what I hate? You’re driving a carload of teenage girls to some get-together miles away from home, and you’re trying to drown out their giggles, shrieks, screeches and other annoying noises by turning up the volume in your iPod headphones. Then, one of the songs starts really feathery…
We identified the inventory of things that we want to get rid of before the move. Natasha is going to be putting advertisements online and in local newspapers, but one obvious place where I can advertize for free is this very blog, so here is the list. I am fully…
I’ve been somewhat aloof and incoherent in my blog activity over the course of the last few weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did not notice anything different, I get it. Nonetheless, I was preoccupied with something of utmost importance, which I am now comfortable to announce to the whole world.…
The April summer of previous years is late to materialize this year. It’s been reasonably sunny and pleasant for the last few days, but still on the cooler side of things. That does not prevent a large segment of young English women to adopt a summer-y dress code. We went…
Becky has left for China with her classmates. The itinerary will take them to the major Beijing sights, such as Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square, plus a day-long outing to the Great Wall, and a two-day trip to Xian. I directed her to take as many pictures…
And don’t forget to tell them that you love them. ————- A good friend expressed his concern for me and mine in an email, and that highlighted for me the fact that, if you did not come across my offline notice of yesterday and only saw the title and one…
This has been one of those weekends that can be filed under the oh-so-frequently-used “the good, the bad and the ugly” label. Starting with the ugly. We decided to go out for late lunch on Saturday afternoon, to a place in Greenwich that Natasha had targeted for a while. The…
Our desire to move house has been quickly replaced by the pragmatic contentment with staying put. A sizable reduction in the rent amount has that type of effect on us. At the same time as we started to look for different accommodations, we suggested to our current landlord that in…
So, Natasha often enters various contests and promotions. She reasons that it does not cost her anything and you can’t win unless you enter. Over the years, she won an occasional freebie, as last evidenced here. The local magazine that we receive is always full of various promotions: Free dinner,…
There is nothing like extraordinary weather conditions – by local standards, at least, – to improve one’s blog stats. I had my regular number of visits increase threefold yesterday, partly thanks to Natasha posting the link to earlier pictures on a Fodor’s forum, but also undoubtedly thanks to every one…
The kids decided that King George (introduced a few hours ago) sorely needed a companion and expediently built him a snow-woman. She apparently does not come of blue blood – her name is simply Masha.
What they say is the biggest snowfall in London area since 1991 produced a phenomenon that we started to forget: Snow that stays on the ground. More of it than I’ve seen in all of my three winters in UK combined so far. As I’m typing this in the morning,…
We took the girls to see the one house that we liked among those that we saw on our first house-hunting outing. They loved it. Becky was quite amenable to the idea of having her own “apartment” made out of the ground-floor reception room. Kimmy was altogether enchanted by the…