26 Sep 2025

This may have appeared twice, I am still figuring out Wix. Anyway, Tuesday

I made my monthly trip to my company's London office. It was dark when the train left and every time I woke up we were at a station, until suddenly I opened my eyes and we were in green hills covered with sheep and cows with thick mist rising off the grass. A blanket of thin ruffled clouds made for a Tier One sunrise, notable enough that the guy in a suit across the aisle from me looked up from his spreadsheet and took a picture of it.

The office is one of those fun ones with a vine wall, a juicer and lots of snacks. Today they'd hired an organization that will bring half a dozen or so puppies to your workplace and you could sign up for a slot to play with them so they can be socialized and you can get a little morale boost. I am almost certain I have seen the guy in charge of the puppies on some BBC murder show but I think that about at least 8 people a week here.

25 Sep 2025

Here's what we've been up to.

Saturday N had his first ever cross country meet. It seemed to be a sort of dry run for the rest of the season: no discernable announcements, no time keeping that I could see, no awards, once the race was over everyone just went straight to the snack bar for penny candy. There were kids from maybe half a dozen schools, all in their gym uniforms, we could see them in clusters here and there doing stretches and squats together. Meanwhile the gym teacher from my kids' school unexpectedly not there so one of the moms had to buzz around with the clipboard, numbers were pinned and switched and repinned willy-nilly, and N's leg of the relay changed several times until suddenly someone at the starting line pointed to him and said "GO!". One very small girl was really cooking, and after her leg was done she went back to take her teammate's hand and try physically dragging her along faster.

Speaking as someone with a deep personal antipathy towards all athletic activity, I liked that it felt decidedly casual. N plays hockey at home and we'd kind of stalled on transitioning into the next level because our town is known for having an exceptionally toxic hockey parent culture, which in New England is really saying something. We're here to have fun! Well, I'm not but at least some people should be! And while I won't be heartbroken if N decides his cross country days are over and we can free up some weekends, I know I'll probably end up meeting more people through the school stuff like this than any other activity I'd find on my own steam.

Sunday

Museum of Science and Industry. Most of it is free except for special exhibits and Power Up, the room where you can play with 150 different video game consoles, which we did not see but had to make a solemn promise we would go back to before we leave. If you are interested in textile manufacturing there is some neat stuff, and if you are not there is a place to play with blocks when you give up asking your mom if she's done reading about bobbins.

We also had tea at Cloud23, a gift from my brother. The kids got some electric blue drink garnished with a hank of cotton candy and based on their reaction they will look back on it as the highlight of this year if not their lives. The little sandwiches and cakes didn't look like a ton of food when they brought it out but we all slowed down surprisingly quickly. I had to make a slight modifcation to my usual eating order from least-to-most-preferred to make sure I had room for the scone, the highlight!

Thursday We had dinner for T’s birthday at a Thai restaurant.  The owner’s son, who was probably around 7, spent the evening in a nest of cushions with his tablet under the counter while his mom cooked and his sister waited tables. I didn't see him under there until a small arm emerged to discard an empty package of cookies. B is still adusting to his new nap-free day and spent most of the meal asleep in my lap. We are probably going to be at this restaurant semi-regularly over the next year, so maybe I can work up to asking if we can just stow him in the nest.

18 Sep 2025

We went to the Official World Blackpudding Throwing Championship. I saw an announcement in the Mill, and maybe as we settle in more we'll start to be blase about this type of thing, but we're not there yet. It was in the village of Ramsbottom. I will know I've assimilated when I can say things like that without smirking.*

I would guess that 80% of the people the Ramsbottom-boundbus from central Manchester were going to this event. We passed the Aldeh. We got off the bus, followed the crowd with some direction as to the orientation of the various lines, and after a brief wait paid our £2 to a guy hooked up to an oxygen tank for three black squishy balls and commemorative certificate. The goal was to stand with your foot on a piece of gold spray-painted grating (significance unknown), throw your fake black puddings underhand, and knock as many Yorkshire puddings as possible off the scaffold (the Yorkshire puddings, at least, were real). The announcer said we were the first Americans of the day.

We were about as successful as you'd think. The winner, I learned later, knocked off six Yorkshires.

Disappointingly not a real black pudding

After we made our tosses we ate our £4 Meal Deal lunches on the train platform (which I later realized we should have bought platform tickets to do, whoops) and watched the restored steam trains carrying rail buffs. Other than the toss, where a crowd was steadily building despite the drizzle, there wasn't a ton to do besides browse. A few small carnival booths and rides that I heartlessly nixed. The perfectly utilitarian yarn store: well-stocked enough that I found the supplies I needed for an upcoming class, but was not seriously tempted beyond that. The two stores selling equistrian gear and the caliber of items in the five charity shops we inspected suggested a well-heeled population. There was a large antique store with such a dense and varied array of stuff that I was too overwhelmed to buy anything but N got a £1 grab bag of plastic junk including some small toys in varying states of usability and what Google image search revealed to be half of an epilator.

My hazy goal had been to spend roughly the same amount of time in Ramsbottom as we had spent getting there (15 min walk, ~25 min tram, 30 min bus), and after a hot beverage everyone was ready to head home. It felt like a trek for a very short activity-maybe if it hadn't been so blech out we would have lingered and watched other people making their throws a little longer? But the alternative could have been rattling around in our sparsely furnished but already impressively dirty house, or trying to figure out what is open on Sunday (hint: nothing), so I'd call our first outing beyond Manchester proper a net positive. N asked if we can come back in a future year and try again, so we'll have to practice our underhand toss.

*Thank God we didn't end up taking the apartment T saw in Chorlton-cum-Hardy