April 19th-24. Bill and family visiting

Eventually to write something.

April 11-16th. Northern and Southern Wales

To write something in...

April 11th. Jumieges Abbey and back to Kingston

April 10th. Bayex, D-Day Beaches and Honfleur

Need to write about the tapestry - 1000 year old story told sewn in comics.

April 9th. Mont Saint Michel

It is not an island!! But until we read the guide on the way out we were sure it is a matter of tide before it would get flooded. As we walked through the sticky mud around the outside perimeter of the town, reading the signs about the quicksand it made for a fun experience (even though Isabella did not think so). She remembered the other Mount Michel too well.

Happy Birthday, Alenka!

April 8th. Rouen

Trying to catch up before the next trip. So this time, I will try to upload pictures instead of the text first.

Some highlights: Almost everything is closed until the small window between 3 and 6pm. Some merchants vary 2-5 or 3-4. And several, don't even open at all - based on the amount of mail stacked up behind the doors. But fortunately Doree was open, alas without the chocolate tarts.

We mentioned potentially adopting a little boy a day before. Isabella started the day by very seriously telling us that "If you get another kid, it does not mean you have to throw out all the prior ones." She must have given our discussion some serious thought.

Normandy - the capital of apples

April 7th. Wissant, Boulogne-Sur-MerDieppe, and Rouen

It was a very long and fun day. We've started out at our Hotel du Golf in Calais. The hotel receptionist maintained that we ate our breakfast out of trays on the table. Such incredible obsessive efficiency.

We started our way along the coast in the South direction stopping on the way at a couple of scenic spots to admire the views and check out decaying fortifications. Some were put in place during the first world war but others were put in here by Germans to send rocket shells over to England and to prevent landings by Allied forces. There are lots of war museums along the way. Many feature all sorts of military equipment. Once we got out to see the giant cement structure used to house an enormous cannon. The cannon is gone and the building is only a graffiti covered shell but a scary ugly looking one.

We've stopped at Wissant and Boulogne-Sur-Mer to sample the views and some baked goods. This will not be an easy journey to recover from. Our late lunch/early dinner stop was at Dieppe. It is a beautiful town that has some key elements: beautiful castle on the hill, elaborate churches, views of the channel filled with boats. We had the local specialty - scallops. Based on their appearance they were undergoing some transformation (mating?? :)). Anyhow it reflected very positively on their taste. We also had some lovely herring, smoked salmon, and oysters (Georgia). Dima had his beer out of a giant glass. Even though the waiters did not speak any English they understood our expressive looks and gave us a brand new glass to keep.

The final stop was Rouen, the capital of Normandy. Really really lovely town full of even more elaborate churches that could easily put Notre Dame de Paris to shame. It has great numbers of timbered buildings. Kind of like York to the tenth degree. Very dead looking city too. We walked around late into the evening stopping over at an area of relative light and activity to get a few beers with salami and tea for kids. 

Novotel Hotel is awesome - modern suite rooms with separate areas for kids and business area with a large table to do our work next week. But Internet barely working again. So frustrating!

April 6th. Calais

We took Eurotunnel to Calais on Saturday afternoon. Kids were entertained by driving into the train that was driving though under the channel. The goal was to get situated in Calais and start our exploration down to Normandy on Sunday. We arrived at around 5pm local time. Situated at the Hotel Du Golf – empty-looking abandoned-looking hotel across the beach. There were rows of white storage boxes on the beach. We’ve never seen anything like that. If they were in Yalta or old Sochi they could possibly rented out to house people. But here it looks like most are used to store the beach supplies.

We walked to the center town stopping to wait for boats to pass over the moving bridge. The town was pretty empty on Saturday night. One possible reason for it was because all of them were at the city hall celebrating some event. We saw the tower of the building from far away and were drawn in by its beauty. As we got closer, we saw  the lovely building that went with it. We got inside and started to look for the ticket office. But there was none in sight and everyone was too busy drinking the Champagne.  So we took the elevator to the next floor and the next, walking alone around the magnificent meeting rooms. We could not get as far as the tower but enjoyed the "private" tour with no one to stop us :) When we got back downstairs Dan dared me to join the party :)

We continued our walk but the town is really nothing to write home about. Dmitry found glorious local restaurant for us to have our dinner. It was amazing. Starting from the perfect decor which included tapestry style armchairs, chandeliers and all the works, to the incredibly nice and accommodating waiter to the food itself.. We are not used to such rich foods and so painfully dragged ourselves back to our rooms and lamenting the absence of the functional wifi connection went to sleep.

April 4th. Dima is here!

Dan swiped out Coray & Nikkie for Dmitry at the airport. And our fun life continued just like it was in November. During the day we worked, and during the evening walked around to grab some beer.

We accidentally discovered the coronation stone right across the street next to the police station. 7 Saxon kings were crowned upon that stone and that’s how Kingston derives its name. It’s only been 9 months of us living here. We were actually trying to trace down where swans go in the evenings along the stream that passes our building and came upon the stone on our way. There is a lot of egg laying around and soon we will have some cygnets, ducklings, and other baby birds (my vocabulary pretty much exhausted itself after the first two. 

The week was still somewhat jumbled. On Wed I went to Utrecht for one day business trip. I liked Utrecht – it is small and pretty and the most impressive town I’ve seen to date that gives so much space to cyclers. There is a separate wide 2 lane path on both sides of the street in the center of town. 

A whole column of parents with kids, business men and women, students are moving in both directions in the morning. Hardly anyone seems to be driving or walking. I felt strange to be one of the few people walking. Also, having been used to the fact that in the UK, as pedestrian I am the lowest type of moving creature, cyclers coming from all directions were a bit scary.

Malie Hotel was not that great – the Internet barely worked, which for a business traveler was pretty useless, despite the staff being very nice. I took the UTC cab from Amsterdam airport to Utrech. Going there was 50 euro, coming back was over 100. Rip off and they don’t even take credit cards.

Kids are off for the next few weeks. We are going to go to Normandy next week. See the town/dirve in the morning, work, have dinner and work some more. They better have good working Internet over there.

Since there was no activity on the HR front we told our landlord that we are leaving ourselves. After a string of emails with the landlord and rental agency to find out who will be walking us out we finally ended up back with the landord and no certainty on how it all will end. The agency got to work bringing in candidates, and at first had requested that we would be present, which I told them was ridiculous and so they've stopped communicating. It would be nice if the landlord had got the boiler fixed prior to starting to rent the apartment out again. The next victim will have their hot showers cut out for them, literally. 

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...