I don’t know what Meg Ryan felt – she was on the same flight with us, but on the lower deck, – but we were quite miffed with how America greeted us. The plane departed on-time, and everything was going on swimmingly until after all preparations for landing were made.…
My oldest and most devoted readers may recognize the symbolism of the title. It was the name of this post, written on my way to England. I was in a bit of disarrayed feelings then and, as I surely well projected over the last couple of days, I am somewhat…
I can’t escape the feeling that I may never be back. Come on, you say, this is London you are talking about, surely a restless traveler such as yourself will come to London as a tourist eventually. Hmm… I don’t know. Except for Scotland, which we practically left aside, we…
Our last weekend in London. Our last visit to Central London. Do you think that London did its best to collaborate weather-wise on such an occasion? Nope. Could any more lines of National Rail and the Tube be suspended “for planned engineering works” on the only day that we had…
Continuing with Kimmy’s activity farewells, she had her last swimming lesson. During which she had to pass an exam. A 200 meters medley: Backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, free style, 50 meters each. In one go! She passed with flying colors. The swim was not timed, but according to eyewitnesses – Natasha…
I have been working from home quite regularly in the last ten years or so. Not having to suffer through the commute at least once every couple of weeks, if not more frequently, is both a perk and a fairly common arrangement in technology1. I always had a dedicated “home…
It is a bit eerie how fast a house full of assorted belongings and various junk becomes a house full of neatly stacked boxes. Three guys showed up at our door this morning. I gave them a brief tour of the land and they went about their business. Just a…
Busy at work, plus various relocation-related errands, phone calls and what-not. Less than frequent blogging, as the result. The temperatures have been pretty high in London the last week or so. Not too hot. Warm-to-hot, cooling down nicely overnight. But in a house without any air conditioning, it gets quite…
As I mentioned in passing at least once, I can’t sleep on planes. Sleep, to me, is an exercise in tranquility, with no ambient light, no nearby movement and definitely no unaccustomed-to sound allowed. Ability to adopt the most favorite pose for falling asleep is a key component of the…
… 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…
Happy birthday, Kimmy!
Kimmy had an advance birthday party last Saturday (we had a bit of a scheduling problem with our customary approach of celebrating after the date, not ahead of it). She and a dozen of friends – including Big Sis and one of her friends – enjoyed an hour of fun…
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…
A few weeks ago Natasha scored free tickets to participate in a taping of a UK food channel show “Market Kitchen”. She invited a couple of girlfriends and spent half a day in a studio listening to the chef’s presentations and tasting their creations. She says it was a lot…
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…
In lieu of any other content that I can provide at the moment, here is a recent masterpiece from my budding artist offspring, a music-video-ish interpretation of the immortal Shakespeare’s play by Becky and her friends. As with her poem, Becky decided that my vast audience offers a chance for…
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…