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.
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.
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