Last Round

I still can't walk well, and unfortunately our friend Jane's lovely flat was way too far away from the train station, so between the walk there and back I was absolutely shot. Maybe one visit too many? On the other hand Andy had a car, and even though he took us to dinner scarcely three hours after our big carver's lunch, it was nice not to have to walk anywhere. Hope I sleep well tonight, tomorrow's going to be a long day!

Round Town

Ah, west and wewaxation at wast! Interestingly, I found that the two small toes on my left foot which had been giving me so much trouble lo these many days really liked walking on cobblestones, so the problem definitely has something to do with my gait (probably the IT band thing). We stuck close to the hotel, slept a lot which we both needed, I bought my requisite touristy t-shirt, and we enjoyed a terrific sushi dinner. Tomorrow we wind things down again with one last round-trip train ride before packing for departure on Tuesday morning. 

Distant and Closer

We didn’t actually take the 25th anniversary of the September 11th tragedy into account when we made our vacation plans, but I’m very glad to be away from the US and mostly offline today. I cannot forget the tragedy seared into my very being as a New Yorker a quarter century ago, and don’t need the almost fetishized reminders. I’d much rather commemorate Leah Adezio’s birth date, as I miss my late best friend every day. But today, with the distance afforded by being in the UK, it was easier to feel the joy that comes with family, especially the youngest generation. Today we visited Robin’s sister Carol and brother-in-law Graham, and the branch of the family of which she’s the matriarch. Just about 80% of the fam showed up at Sandra and Robert’s home, including Tracy and Graham, Georgina and Keri with their young ones Freddie, Rosa and Elowyn, Matthew and fiancé Kristin, and Naomi and little baby Elsie. I made repeated eye contact with 9-month-old Rosa and even got to hold her a bunch of times without her crying, and Rob drew pictures for Freddie and Elowyn (two extremely precocious, talkative, and exhausting kids) and a couple of the adults as well. I’ve already volunteered our babysitting services after we move here. It’ll be so wonderful to have kids around! We had a lovely time, and Robert even drove us back to the hotel to save wear and tear on my poor feet and legs. I could use a few quiet, non-mobile days now!

A Plethora of Bungalows with Faux Tudor Solar Panels

I slept a bit, then breakfast, then a bit more sleep. My feet hurt a but less but I have a lovely little infection at the base of one toe, so when we finally got going I went into a Boots (my fave British chemist) and the pharmacist suggested a warm water soak with some tea tree oil.  Most of the day was spent on one bus or another traveling around the south coast of East Sussex scoping out possible towns for our retirement bungalow. So many faux Tudor houses! But we have a good idea now of where we want to end up and, after all, that was the point of the visit. It’s just relaxation and foot soaking from here on!

Too Much Travel

The landlord sent up the roofers to our apartment not two hours prior to our departure, but the place is all locked now, our car is still along the side of the driveway as the dumpster hasn’t moved, our downstairs neighbors will take care of wny incoming packages, and the car service arrived early so we were on our way to JFK with no issues. I was able to walk to our gate without too much foot pain, but was glad I opted for a wheelchair on the Heathrow end. Because even though we had no seat mate on the plane and were able to stretch out over the three seats, we got no sleep at all on the overnight flight. So not having to walk to baggage retrieval was a blessing. We were on our way to Canary Wharf in short order, but by the time we arrived my feet were killing me. Still, my UK work colleagues were lovely and I couldn’t refuse a brief tour around the extremely fancy office. Alas, the trip across London to catch the regional rail down to Lewes was exhausting, so many escalators and lifts and not having slept didn’t help. We also had a few issues with out hotel room, but all sorted now  Rob’s college friends Debs and Jane came over for dinner, by which time I was too tired to care about anything else  Need sleep now…

The Hardest Part

We’re all packed and waiting for the car to pick us up and take us to the airport. But of course there are still last-minute hitches our of our control, like some weird tech issues at all English airports affecting all incoming flights (last we looked ours was still a go) and the landlord sending up the roofers again to vacuum up all the detritus from the rafters, which took over an hour of privacy away from us  Still, I’m hoping for the best and trying to get into relaxation mode  I should sleep pretty well on the flight!

M 

20,20,24 Years To Go

Happy blogiversary to Pen-Elayne on the Web! The world and I have both changed quite a bit since 2002, sometimes we keep making the same mistakes, sometimes we make worse ones, and every now and then we learn from them. I plan to keep trying to make daily entries for the foreseeable future, but we'll see how things go in England and beyond. The landlord and his helper came by for a surprise inspection of the roof from the inside rafters, making me doubly glad we cleared those out last week! That shook me up a bit (and rudely roused Robin from his morning nap) to the point where I couldn't concentrate on packing for our trip; good job we have at least all morning tomorrow. As of now I think all my clothes are sorted except my travel outfits, and I still have to go through earrings, but first we need to make sure we can sit together (we can't reserve seats until 24 hours in advance), and tomorrow Robin sets the phones so they can work in England while I take care of last-minute job stuff. As half my brain is in travel mode and most of the other half is already overseas, you'll forgive me for not making more of a thing about this blogiversary. Next year for sure!

Jonny Come Lately

My darling godson Jonny came to visit us today. He's moving back to New York City from Austin, TX, where he felt like he never quite fit in, and wanted to assure us that we'll be a major part of his NYC experience, at least until we move. Speaking of which, he's vital and strong (he does rock climbing and lifts weights) and was able to help Robin take down our printer and AC boxes almost single-handedly! Not only that, thanks to him all the boxes from the loft that aren't filled with receipts waiting to be shredded are now situated where the old AC/printer boxes used to be, freeing up space for us to steam our kurtas for this coming weekend and retrieve our suitcases for the weekend as well as the UK trip. Plus, he will help us rehome all our tech and appliances in the next few years as we get ready to downsize all the things that run on US outlets. Best of all, we get to cat-sit his lovely orange tabby Mango when he travels, satisfying my urge to have a kitty that won't completely be fulfilled until we've emigrated. We had a lovely visit with my uncle (his grandfather) then a nice lunch locally before he took off for more parts unknown. A bit of a whirlwind, exhausting day, especially being out in non-air conditioned areas for a longer period of time than I'm used to in muggy weather. And I'm still not walking properly despite having changed back to the sneakers I was wearing before my most recent pair, so that was pretty tiring as well. But so, so worth it!

Connectivity

Well, I thought my work-related tech issues were behind me, but this morning a firmwide glitch stopped all external emails from arriving, so I had to go onto my email at the client site and stay there for awhile until things got fixed. Not good for a firm where customer connection is key. Thank goodness so many people were still on PTO. My brain is half-there too. Tomorrow I get my hair cut, Sunday I take the car for inspection, just ticking off the things to do before the big September travel (first to Philly for the wedding reception then to Merrie Olde), and expecting fate to throw a spanner in those works as it sometimes does.

OMG Shoes

Now that my tech issues at work are temporarily behind me, I can again concentrate on my personal health and such. To that end, I wore my new sneakers to work. I still have problems with the fourth toe on each foot, particularly the left one, but I'm guessing that's just a breaking-in thing. I love these sneakers, they only cost $50 and they have very wide toe boxes so things should settle by the time we're in England. I just hope the trains are running OK by the time we arrive, the tracks near where we'll be just buckled and three train cars overturned (fortunately no deaths) so it'll be awhile in repairs. I don't mind buses though!

Silly Site o' the Day

I'd rather not talk about my homeward commute on a crowded subway today, which exacerbated my various Old Person aches and pains to an uncomfortable extent, so I'm thinking about Merrie Olde since it's just about a month before our holiday there. I'm hoping to see some of the castles and such listed on this map (via BoingBoing), but we'll see how well I can walk.

Through to the Semis!

I can't believe I'm undergoing World Cup withdrawal, but I really got into it this year. I mean, I'm not as obsessive as our mayor, but once you get to the quarter finals (even the Gang of 8) there have been some enjoyable games. And I didn't expect England to beat Norway, so the fact that they did made it even more fun for this binational household. Certainly more fun than the crispy rice hot dog we had at Kura. Folks, please stay away from that, if you value your palates and stomachs. Other than that, the sushi was lovely, the food shopping reasonable, and my hallux behaved. Next on the weekend agenda, catching up on personal finances (as opposed to inherited ones) and steaming some tops to wear to work because I'm definitely not going to want to do that with the rising temps.

Put It in The Books

Well, now we've done it. We're headed to England for reals in September. I expected the sticker shock from the airfare, but was not prepared for same from the car service. Robin did a bit of searching and other services cost more or less the same, given fuel prices and tolls and such, so I'm leaving things the way they are. The hotel had a few hidden costs as well, but we really haven't had a proper vacay (certainly not to England) since before COVID, and after all what have I saved up for, besides retirement? If I think of the airfare as less than a month's rent it somehow makes me feel better. But what really relieves the stress is knowing it's all been done, and we can now start planning!

Flights of Fancy

We're finally getting ready to take a for-really vacation to England, our first in many years. Today we talked through various permutations in terms of flight classes and timing, and it appears it'll be at least a few thousand dollars but, hey, what else am I saving up for? We have a lot of fact-finding to do in terms of looking for a retirement bungalow, and I've made tentative plans to meet up with folks I've met through my job; I really want to see my firm's Canary Wharf office! It's all too exhausting to do right away, so I've put things off until at least tomorrow if not Monday, but it's a good start.

World Cupery

Today my firm sponsored a watch party in our dining lounge for the opening game of the World Cup. I wound up only making it for the second half due to a meeting, but I'm pleased to say that, by the time I got up to that room, I had very little work on which I needed to catch up. Almost every quarterly meeting for all three of "my" big clients are now done, important as two of those clients have multi-week inspections coming up and I now need to concentrate on that. I really need some time off, and I'll be getting some: next week I have some medical stuff to take care of, plus Friday is Juneteenth and a firm holiday; the last week of June/first week of July is our annual Summer Shutdown (no plans other than getting my orthotics reupholstered since I won't be going anywhere else); then in September we're hoping to go back to Merrie Olde to begin scouting possible retirement areas. In the meantime, we have to deal with World Cup Madness in the NY/NJ area as the MetLife Stadium is home to a lot of the games. Oh, and I did have fun watching the footie, except folks were encouraged to wear team kits and I was the only one who brought one (England of course). Oh, and also, they cut away to ads while the game was still going on! Bet they won't do that with the Oo-Ess-Ey game tomorrow...

Silly Site o' the Day

We're still mulling over whether to visit Merrie Olde this coming autumn (have lots of PTO time I need to use up), and here's one reason although they probably won't be anywhere near where we want to go: the K6 Project (via BoingBoing) which maps still-extant telephone boxes.

I Got Circadian Rhythm

My timing seemed to be off today. I've been awake since around 4:30, but can't seem to get up the energy to do very much other than work-from-home. Thank goodness I didn't have to schlep into Manhattan today, my aching legs and feet and IT band and whatever would not have liked that very much. This evening we watched a fascinating documentary about Life On Earth, a late '70s nature program by Sir David Attenborough, who turns 100 years old on Friday. Robin remembers seeing the show on BBC in the '70s, I don't think it ever made it over here. Then we watched a program made a couple years ago about dark matter, which still makes my head hurt, but the main thing was how much our understanding of the cosmos has changed since I was in high school. Say, did you know that Jupiter has way more than 12 moons?

Parts Unknown

I finally got the last piece of the puzzle to finish up one of my partners' marathon trip to Asia and Europe. Another partner had me look up flights to Heathrow and hotels by our Canary Wharf office, leading to a pang or two that Robin and I won't be visiting England for the next few years, considering the way the TSA and ICE have been disappearing non-citizens on the flimsiest of pretexts (or none). I'm trying very hard to busy myself so I don't think about the fall of the American empire, and it looks like I may be taking on new assignments at work so that should keep me occupied. In the meantime, I'm living vicariously through my Facebook friends' travelogues.

Silly Site o' the Day

Again, too frazzled and busy and in pain (really just my toe, but that affects the rest of me) to do more than a silly site, but I think SwearSky is appropriate as well (once again via BoingBoing). I mean, swear words in a British accent tied to BlueSky? Sign me up!

Silly Site o' the Day

Another nice day taking it easy, on the exercise bike and watching Olympic stuff, as I gear up for three consecutive Manhattan days this week with no Wednesday PTO. Many of my friends are either at Galaxy Con or Shore Leave or San Diego Comic Con, but I'm well past FOMO, particularly given how many are once again contracting COVID. Except I still want to make it to England again, if only for this Sunday roast in a burrito:

Via BoingBoing.