March 30. London circuit & a bike ride to Richmond

We got our first batch of spring guests last week - Coray and Nikkie. Dan showed them around on Friday. They saw the Stonehenge and Windsor. They liked it. There is a beautiful new visitor center at the Stonehenge - with a multi-media 3D experience based on some of the theories about its history. It is interesting that they chose not to light the site up at night. You can pass by within 0.2 of a mile of it and not even see it in the dark. At Windsor they got to see George's church and the doll house along with the castle. We really have to come back for return visit. As they were visiting, the queen came over as well - the flag over the castle had changed. They must have just missed her walking around or they would have had all the works :) By the end of the day Dan brought back our guests over-caffeinated and barely alive.

On Thursday Isabella went to a farm with her school. She was waiting for that for a long time. They told kids probably three weeks in advance and since then she asked every when she went to school if today was the day. We asked her what she saw there and she fired off this list: goats, horse, donkeys, ducks, chicken, cows, trampoline, and the playground. It just sounded funny all together.

Isabella is at the pinnacle of her coin scavenging phase (I hope). She keeps thinking of the ways to find more coins and as we walk to school or go to the store religiously checks the old "productive" spots. She just likes the hunt. As soon as she finds something, she hands it over to Georgia, Dan, or myself and continues her search. A few days ago she said she came up with the way to get more coins. She said that she will learn to play a guitar and become a street performer - they get a lot of coins :)

Georgia remains faithful to her plan - to become a painter and teach kids to paint. And  travel around the world as she does. She made beautiful lifelike sculptures from plasticine for the Mother's day.

On Saturday Coray and I went for a run - around the Hampton court palace. He liked it. Later in the day we did our standard walk down the Southwark, to Borough market (oysters, grilled cheese sandwiches & jambon baquettes), and past Tower bridge, Tower (fish and chips), and St. Paul's to Covent garden and Trafalgar square. Then they went on to see Nikkie's friends for dinner and we tried to catch our dinner at Dishoom. Even though half the tables were empty, they said it was booked and the wait was 30 minutes.

We kept going around Soho before settling down at a cramped Japanese with epically rude Israeli girl next to us. Don't remember the name of the restaurant but even though the staff was genuine Japanese, and presentation was good, we probably would not come back there - the food itself was not that thrilling. The main highlight was Isabella throwing the edamami pod across the table, missing the trash plate, and landing it neatly into the girl's handbag. If only it was a piece of fish instead... Kids walked over 36,000 steps on Saturday - no complaints. Very very strong girls.

We got up late on Sunday. And got another hour taken away due to the changing clocks. After breakfast we rode bikes to Richmond. Isabella lasted about a mile on hers before we latched it on to Dan's. In Richmond kids got ice-cream and we walked around the little weekend market before heading back. Georgia did the entire 9 mile circuit on her bike. After lunch kids and I went to do some window shopping. Then they made banana bread for their evening desert. Tanya came in around 5pm and Dan and I headed back to the city to meet up with our guests and try Dishoom again. To hell with the diet. The worst thing is that we barely covered 20% of the menu at this point.

We walked around, came back to Kingston and kept going with the banana cake, beer, Lithuanian salami, and cheddar in no particular order. Pictures later...