Aug. 26 2026

Asst. items from our last few weeks:

Forgot to mention the Wellcome Collection in London which I visited in July. It is a museum with collections and exhibits about medicine intersecting with art. The rare museum open until 6 on Sundays and very near Euston Station so v. easy to squeeze in.

Are women in America going about their business with their hair in rollers and I just never noticed? I see it in many settings here but without fail at the airport. The Crested British female prepares for migration by grooming her plumage in a protective arrangement.

Our last dinner was at the Thai place where, after months of studying each other without making contact, my kids and the owner's kid finally broke through and started playing together. Very bittersweet to watch, the capers they could have been having all this time.

Many One Last Playdates! My personal adult equivalent was going with the German mom to the Peveril of the Peak and the Britons Protection pubs. I don't feel qualified enough on the subject to judge their high placement on all the lists of best pubs in the city, but to have carpet in the bathroom demonstrates a confidence I can't help but respect.

Britons Protection with Manchester's patron saints

A few nights before we left, N's friend's mom invited him and B over for the afternoon. "When you come and pick them up, stay and have a quick bite just so you don't have to worry about cooking!" said the friend's mom. Anyway, were got back around 1am and hopefully it will be some years before the next time N and B are walking home at that hour. Some other kids and their parents came over, and rivers of Chicken Wine poured forth (I'm not sure if I'm sad or very relieved that the threatened poitin never actually made an appearance) and at one point there was a confetti cannon? I learned the going rate of stud fees for top-tier greyhounds in Ireland. There was lots of HOT GOSS about the girl who had left a trail of broken hearts behind her by the end of Year 3. One of the other parents, moving from London as a teenager, said she'd found Manchester utterly bewildering but had better luck than her male counterpart who was forever known as Southern George. We had quite a lot that had to get done the next day and I was not able to operate at 100% but it was a lovely way to bring our year with these people to a close.

Getting rid of everything was a big headache and I had to repeat to myself many times in the last week that it had all been worth it. I wish I had acknowledged earlier on that we were going to have to use SendMyBag. I could have avoided all the time I spent procrastinating because deep in my heart I knew we couldn't check everything. I made many trips to the dump. We dodged a sticky spot when N's friend's mom told me that the van I'd rented required a special permit if you wanted to drive it to the dump, permit requiring an untenable two business days' processing. I was able to get a much more expensive SUV rental which didn't require a permit except it meant T had to saw the children's bunkbed, too battered from horseplay to give away, into smaller pieces. There were many variations on this situation, circumstances of all kinds that chewed up faff and expense and spit us out in Boston.

24 Aug. 2026

Our last family outing was staying in a hut at the Low Wray campsite in Cumbria. The night before we left, N's friend came over having just gotten back from a few days with his family at another campsite very nearby. His parents asked if we wanted any camping equipment. Do I give the impression that I long to commune with nature and shake off the fetters of civilzation? I ardently admire and love those fetters, cleaving to to them as to the breast of a kind and protective parent. As noted previously my husband has been very patient about all the places I've marched us off to and this was one of the very few things he really wanted to do while we were here, so my response to his good nature was to not actively resist but also pointedly made very little effort to assist with any preparations for the expedition except for packing, which I did quite poorly. Anyway, T said he didn't think we needed much so I told the kid's parents that we were fine. We must have set off blaring alarms that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, because about 15 minutes after the kid was picked up his mom texted me that she was sending her husband back to drop some stuff off. These were folding chairs, a table, a butane stove because no fires are allowed in some campsites due to dry weather (lol), a kettle, and headlamps, without which we would have had a very dreary time in our little hut,.

The campsite was run by the National Trust and had a correspondingly sedate crowd, lots of Nordics. Quiet hours of 10pm to 7am scrupulously adhered to. We had a hut with a double bed and a bunk about two minutes' walk from the showers/bathrooms/sinks for doing dishes. A pizza truck ran a few nights a week and the office was well stocked with equipment, snacks, and hot drinks. In sum, it barely qualified as camping and the experience solidified my disinclination to ever venture into more rugged territory. Outdoor activities limited to token immersions in the lake and a two-hour walk ("We took qute a few walks", said N's friend resignedly when I asked how they had passed their time). This walk was for me marred by what I later realized was an inadequate breakfast, and as we walked over the hills dodging cow pats my mood matched the gray roiling sky. At least I was having a better day than the Aryan couple looking for a dropped set of keys. After lunch when I'd perked up, I realized I'd had another lucky escape. All the while we've been living here, I've been hearing from people raving about their ten day walking holidays and reading about treks between ruins of Druid temples and whatnot, and I'd thought that might be something fun for us to do when the kids are older. I now know that long tramps through damp fields where you may have to go literally hundreds of minutes between cups of tea would not be my preferred form of leisure.

But overall a nice time. On the second day I knew that one sachet of instant chai prepared with the handy butane stove was not enough. Also thanks to the stove we made an attempt at s'mores on digestive biscuits, although the chocolate covered ones would have saved a lot of mess over trying to add the chocolate separately. Taking a nap with the rain beating down on the roof of the hut was very cozy. And by the second night, the sky was clear enough for us to actually see some stars which had been T's goal for this whole endeavor.

7 Aug 2026

We went to Belfast. I had romantic notions of taking the 8 hour ferry which makes a lot of sense if you are taking your whole family in a car, but we were not and the 40 minute flight is cheaper if you are willing to subject yourself to the rigors of Ryanair. "Tighten his wee belt," said the flight attendant, the first of many wees. We were greeted in the airport by a mural of the Derry Girls, not exactly local but spoken of lovingly by every Northern Irish person I've met (with the caveat that we occupy a particular bubble where every Northern Irish person I know is Catholic). Outside, the landscape smelled very sheeply. Union Jacks everywhere, far more that you see in England, and the Ulster Banner.

After a 45 minute bus ride we were deposited in central Belfast, the first but not the last time on the trip that Google Maps was not quite as granular about bus stops as one might like. We were arriving right before the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann music competition which must be absolutely massive because everywhere we went it seemed like there were signs up welcoming participants or notices warning about impending delay, disruption, and crowds. The city center was fairly quiet. Maybe a little grungier than Manchester and with fewer chains and more cops, but you could go a good while without noticing any signs that there had been serious unrest in the past decades, let alone the past month.

We hadn't prebooked tickets to the Titanic museum and had two hours to kill before the late slot we were able to get. There was a small free exhibit in the museum about Northern Irish clothing designers, and when N complained about having to go there I told him that if I was really indifferent to his preferences we would have spent the day at the Irish Linen Center. Unmoved. Then we lingered at a coffee shop and lounged around on a nearby patch of grass. In the adjoining canal was the SS Nomadic which, unnoticed by me, our museum tickets also entitled us to visit. The name "The Titantic Experience" let me to expect an infotainment boondoggle but was one of the most information-dense museums I had ever visited and I now know more than I ever could have dreamed or cared to about the Titanic. I couldn't read much in the first few rooms about Belfast's industrial history, preoccupied as I was by my children flitting through the crowds. 20 minute line for a cable car that passed through a very effective simulation of the inside of the ship as it was being built. In the room about representations of the Titanic in popular culture, there is the inevitable model of a ship's prow with sunset background where you can replicate the Jack I'm Flying moment. A young man was taking picture of a woman and I offered to take a picture of them together. "I'm taking a picture of my sister," he said, like what's wrong with you. Then we got to the part about the sinking, and procedures designed after the crash to minimize future disasters. "NEVER AGAIN" glowed a sign on the wall, and not to minimize the loss of life on the Titanic but I think there are established context for using that phrase and this isn't one of them.

"The fact that it sank on its maiden voyage has nothing to do with the men who built her."

I split off with N who usually lasted about 3 minutes per room before saying he wanted to move on. B would prefer to stay with T over me even to the depths of the most firey inferno or, in this case, while T took his characteristic thorough review, so N and I had time to kill until they finished. I got to chatting with a woman who was also waiting for the rest of her party. My knowledge of Belfast comes mostly from Say Nothing and Blue Lights so I thought that we were well off the beaten track trod by the American hordes. Lol! I heard more American accents in three days than I've heard in a year in Manchester. This woman was visiting from Ohio with 12 relatives. She'd done some research at the LDS geneology center in Salt Lake City so she knows she has some Irish heritage, and being here made her feel really Irish! She was as much a part of the visitor checklist as the Game of Thrones sculptures.

After the museum we just made it back on the SS Nomad before it closed, the barge that had carried passengers out to the Titanic at Cherbourg Harbor because the Titanic was too big to dock. Dinner at Dumpling Library which should have been right up my alley, disappointingly no books to be seen!

Day 2, the princely Premier Inn breakfast buffet which the children had been feverishly anticipating. It was the usual hot/cold options we've seen in other PI locations with the local addition of black and white sausage, ignored by all of us except T. Bus to the Giant's Causeway. Once again we were at the wrong bus stop, pointed right by a driver who noticed us standing in an alight-only stand. Ninetiesh minute through Ballythis and Ballythat. TGC is technically free but admission gives you access to the visitor's center (site of the crucial bathrooms) and a tour. It had begun to rain. Our tour guide gave us radio receivers and headphones which I would say worked 85% of the time and when they didn't I just trotted up closer behind him as he led us down to the volcanic rock formations by the water. At the end of the tour, he had the dreary job of perching on a cliff and telling people not to take selfies on a loose section with a 40 foot drop. There was a long spit of stone that extended out into the water, hence the Causeway, but I stayed behind while T took the kids as it was clear that I had not picked the right footware for wet slippery rock and am not the picture of grace and coordination under the best of circs.

The Organ

The Boot

We were very ready for lunch and a hot drink when we got back to the visitor center, as was everybody else. Fed eventually. Luckily the bus stop to get back to Belfast was one of the few we encountered that was where we expected. Especially lucky since that service wasn't very frequent and we'd cut it close with the inevitable last minute need to go to the bathroom despite many earlier entreaties. Is there any better feeling than getting on a bus when you're cold, wet, and tired, and knowing that you have a good stretch of sitting somewhere warm and dry ahead of you? Very quiet ride home.

Having used up all our bus stop good fortune, we were dropped off in rather a different spot than we were expecting but it wasn't too far. I'd finished my book and needed another one(s), oh no! We just happen to pass an Oxfam and we were so bedgraggled that I had to do less than my usual thorough review but still made out nicely. For dinner we went to White's, a pub recommended by the Belfast-born parents of one of N's classmates from home (they had also recommended getting into a random cab and asking the driver to show us around, which I didn't have the nerve to attempt). The pub was very dark and atmospheric and every seat inside was taken. "Can we order food at the outside tables?" I asked. We could not. A server looked us over and said "There's a place I can seat you" and he lead us down the hall to a much larger room lined with booths that looked like the kind of place that in America is patronized by running clubs and groups of colleagues celebrating Tracy's retirement. Every party I could overhear had a non-Irish accent. Were we being funneled into this room so we wouldn't nuke the vibe? My kids and the other American kid in the booth ajoining ours horsed around the entire meal so I guess the precaution was justified. Maybe you'd get to sit in the cozy low-ceilinged pub if you look cooler than us.

Day 3: I hadn't prepaid for breakfast on our second morning in case there had been some amazing black sausage experience T wanted to try, but since they had it at the hotel we decided to just eat there again. The British mania for reserving reached new heights when I told the hostess that we didn't have a prebooking and she told us with great exasperation that we could be accomodated but we really should have made a reservation since they had to feed 140 people that day and we had been at risk of getting turned away from the hotel breakfast. Another family was shooed away from their preferred table which was irrevocably set for lunch. We were early enough to indulge in our newish family tradition, the post-breakfast pre-outing TV watching. To a kid raised on streaming, flipping channels means exploring a world of wonder and serendipity. But you have to be vigilant. I had some ethical qualms about the reality show New Zealand Border Patrol, where we saw the unblurred face of a suspected sex worker being refused entry, so we moved on. They loved Everybody Loves Raymond (Marie has the voice of every customer who was mean to me when I worked at CVS as a teenager) and Kitchen Nightmares.

English/Irish/Ulster Scots

From there to Botanical Gardens with impressive greenhouses, then the Ulster Museum. By the time we got inside the museum it was around noon so we ate right away and that turned out to be the right move because the cafeteria line moved in agonizingly small increments and I can't imagine it got better as the day went on. As always, if there is a table with coloring sheets and markers, my children declare they MUST DRAW IMMEDIATELY. The main exhibits are free but while the boys were coloring with T I paid 8 pounds to see their fashion collection which they have been rebuilding from scratch since the original collection was destroyed in a firebombing in the eighties. There were also artifacts from a recovered Spanish galeon that had sunk not far from the Giant's causeway and galleries about early Irish history and the Troubles, which seemed fairly nuanced to the extent I could take the information in while being frogmarched between the children's activity sections.

On our way to our next stop we passed the Warhammer store, which the children have recently gotten into. The salesguy was very tall and had long curly red hair and a booming voice. We learned a lot of facts about the distribution of Warhammer retail establishments. "There's five stores just in Dallas, so there are." I'd been experimenting on this trip with stepping back and letting T answer when people asked where we were from. Normally I go into the whole thing. T just says "Manchester" and lets people puzzle over that until they ask for follow-up. On hearing this news, ginger Weird Al told us about Warhammer World at the factory in Nottingham, to which after a brief moment of superdad exuberance T realized we did not have time for him to take the children, but it will get filed away with all the other another-times. Then he asked for follow up. He'd always wanted to go to Boston. "I'm obssessed with Mark Wahlberg," he said, which I guess answers a sectarian question. "And I could probably go into any bar and drink like a king, so I could."

We'd hit TradFast which is a stretch of workshops and music sessions held right before the Fleadh (like flan with no n as far as I can tell?). Unsure how enthused the children would be for Irish music we decided to go to the family ceilidh held at Ulster University, where an instructor led attendees with a wide range of ages and very, very wide range of skill levels through some group dances. I might have sat a few numbers out but the instructor was not having it, everyone who tried to sit down was chivvied into getting back up and when some of the groups were short a person or two he took to flagging down people in the hallway. It was fun but very exhausting and I was glad I hadn't had to rely on ceilidh skills to attract a mate.

Once again we had many difficulties finding the bus stop to get to the airport, which naturally was not where we had been dropped off. Google Maps led me in a circle and T, schlepping our bag, very civilly took over navigating but got us no further. We wandered a weird triangular dead zone of streets, encountering several pairs of Chinese women who were similarly bewildered. Some men smoking outside a snooker hall were more solicitous than their demeanor initially suggested, but their advice was incorrect. A group of teenaged boys rocketed past. Finally we saw some cops who pointed us right, and to my great relief they did not ask if we had seen a suspicious group of teenaged boys. Not looking to get involved in anything!

It's a Sun Shower/Not too bad/Mizzly

In the end we got on the bus, rather later than hoped but still OK on time. As it turned out we were more than OK on time because our flight was delayed until midnight. In the food court, a 40th birthday girls trip with matching shirts and bucket hats abutted a group of men who broke out into a song by the Fratellis and for a moment it seemed impossible that there would not be some kind of collision but the groups stayed contained. My children and a few other young boys waiting for the Manchester flight clubbed together trying to fish change out from under the claw machines, N made two pounds. We got home around 2am. Greeted by half a dozen slugs in the kitchen.

Come on