Law, Partially

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 ...

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...

The FD Linges shared a few last hurrahs before Mum started school and Bob began going to nursery four days a week (up from his previous two). Having fun with soccer in Hyde Park, 1 September. September 1, we visited Hyde Park, in particular the Serpentine, in which sat this colorful pyramid made by the installation artist Christo . It was a fun day where we also played soccer in the park (see video above), and Bob got up close with some Serpentine swans. Sunday, 2 September, we spotted a sunny day and thought we better head straight for the shore before it's too late this year. Many, many others had a similar idea. Above, Bobby and I in Brighton Station just after we alighted from the Thameslink. We're both smiling in anticipation of the fun awaiting us on our day trip to Brighton. Brighton Beach has no sand, just rocks. I did wade into the English Channel; those rocks on the bare feet are uncomfortable, and the water is cold like the Pacific...

Celebrating the start of fall and the big boy's birthday falling just after, we decamped from north London for British places even further north. Nainai flew in from Cedar Rapids to adventure with the FD Linges. Months earlier, Christine and I had planned a route, booked a car, homestay lodgings, lunches and early dinners at restaurants, and seats on a scenic train route. We booked with Nainai's discerning consumer preferences in mind. We hoped to make this her best trip ever. We planned to chase down her ancestors in Nottinghamshire and Beatrix Potter in the Lake District; she also had Scotland on her list of places to visit, so grant that wish we did. Although she lives far away (at least 13 hours by plane, plus train (i.e., Piccadilly Line)), Nainai is an important part of Bobby's development. Bobby often talks to her over video chat, and Mum and I often put our child development questions to her. Usually we just need reassurance that his seemingly illogical behavior i...

The Cotswolds are an "Area of Outstanding National Beauty." Under England's (and Wale's) AONB scheme, changes to the landscape are limited by law. So in the Cotswolds we end up with these rolling, grassy hills dotted with medieval stone villages of golden limestone, looking just how you would expect the English countryside to look. Bobby dashing through the village common in  Kingham , a small Cotswolds village where we had dinner at the Kingham Plough, an upmarket pub (many, or most, of the pubs in the Cotswolds seemed to be upmarket). We had occasion to pass this fine weekend in the Cotswolds because I had a Thursday meeting in Birmingham. Birmingham is about a one and half hour train ride from London, so on Wednesday I loaded the family on the train with me. We spent two nights in Birmingham, famed for its early entrepreneurial role in the Industrial Revolution, now laced with old canals and warehouses and more recent waves of redevelopment. On Friday we...