Law, Partially

We had a good life in the Lower Holloway area of Islington. Bobby's nursery was very close, and many kids living in our building also attended. His best friend lived in the same building. There were many cafes, all of which knew how to make babycinos (ingredients consist of foamed milk and some chocolate powder), including one on the ground floor of our building. Some of the last few babycinos at the New Zealand-style cafe, Sacred, on the ground floor of our building; since the hamburger restaurant across the square closed, Sacred became a de facto hangout for the local gangs of small children. King's Cross was two stops away on the Piccadilly. This area north of the station was an old intermodal port, where goods could be transferred from train to ships on the Victoria Canal. The big brick building was grain storage but is now an art school with various restaurant chains on the ground floor. Next door are former coal storage buildings that now house a high-end s...

As a northern hemispheric country, just as in the U.S., summer's heat wears away and leaves change color as fall arrives in the U.K. In my years abroad I've learned how memories of time and place attach to seasons, with seasons becoming markers on the timeline. Your perception of seasonal change is shaped by where you've spent most of your years, especially where you grew up. Shaped by the American Midwest, the autumnal months remind me of baseball season's end, football season's start, school terms commencing, green leaves becoming red and orange, Thanksgiving, and Christmas shopping. We find some parallels between the U.S. and London. Fall brings cooler temperatures, although summers are never as hot and winters never as cold here as we'd get in Iowa. This year, fall brought Christine's return to school, this time at the London School of Economics, alma mater of Mick Jagger and JFK, both of whom didn't earn degrees there (hopefully Christine will be...

Already into November, London doesn't so much feel like summer. But we felt it in the streets, on a day like this (below), summertime. July 8, on the deck with his summer friend, Ee Ee. Within the month Bob would be saying good bye to his sweet toddler mullet. This post and the ones to follow narrate our summer in London. British people will remember the summer of 2018 as one of a remarkable and sustained heat wave and a surprising abundance of sun and lack of rain. British people like to say on sunny summer days that this will be the last one for the year, but that just kept being not true this summer. You can see in the chart below that while the winter was particularly cold (when compared to historical averages, called normal, below), the summer was particularly hot. My apologies that the data is in Celsius. The temperatures are also for the UK as a whole. Twenty degrees Celsius is sixty-eight Fahrenheit. In London it was hotter, up past 95°F in July. The below ...

Strutting into one of the first sunny days of the season, in the courtyard of our building, 10 May. Highbury Fields is a big park near our house. This curved street along the park's edge is called Highbury Crescent. We all like the stately old houses along the crescent. In this photo, Bob, sporting his jean jacket from his cousin-in-law Beth, is strutting toward the Highbury Fields playground, where we passed many a sunny (and not sunny) summer morning. 11 May. The FD Linges' ongoing European vacation, with this 26 May stop at the Colosseum. For Mum's and Baba's anniversary this year, 8 June, we ventured to the biggest grocery store in the neighborhood, Waitrose, where we had some coupons, and bought ingredients for a special family dinner. Bob was tearing through the store, filling his shopping basket with whatever the hell he felt like, Baba trailing behind and placing those items back on the shelf. The next day, we went to Lord'...

Eating french fries and watching England play Colombia, 3 July. The match ended in a draw with Harry Kane scoring England's only goal. England lived to play several more matches, eventually making it to the quarterfinals. It was a very fun time to be in London. Bobby would agree. He got to watch a lot of football and have a lot of fries and cheeseburgers  at Ley Ley's  over the summer. Too bad Ley Ley's closed at the end of August to seek a lease in a higher traffic spot. One way to beat the heat is to get wet. Here is Bobby in the fountains at Granary Square; he's dressed in high-tech sports clothes courtesy of his nainai. Granary Square is part of large urban redevelopment site near King's Cross station, where Victorian industrial buildings, having fallen into disuse, have been refurbished into a modern consumer playground with restaurants and shops. This big building was formerly a store for grain, and from here it could travel by barge (on the Re...