Almost Back Home

I'm almost back at the white wooden house. It's 4am and I'm sitting in bed in a hotel somewhere in Jamaica, New York eating left over Chinese and blogging and hoping to get on a flight to Austin later today.

I'm not complaining. I hate not seeing Jo and the kids for another whole day. It took Vasco Do Gama 23 months to sail from Portugal around Africa to Calicut. And Columbus about 35 days to get from Spain to what he thought was India but turned out to be modern day Bahamas. The capable pilots of Etihad did that in about a day and the 787 Dreamliner, even in cattle car class, was a good deal more comfortable than the Pinta. And that final hop from New York to Austin - at the speed of the Pony Express, it would take me about 10 days of riding day and night at full gallop.

So after dropping off the kids and Jo at London for their trip back to Austin, I left for India. On that flight I had one of those small world moments. Four year ago when we lived in an apartment in Hyderabad, there was a Hyderabadi man, Asif Mirza, who owned an apartment on the top floor with his English wife. When they visited from abroad, Savitri, our maid, insisted that we meet them because "hamara memsahib" (Jo) is also from "London". The lady sitting next to me on the Abu Dhabi - Hyderabad flight was that English wife. Her husband had died a couple of years ago and she was returning to take care of his property. She recognized me.

I too was in Hyderabad for a similar reason - to take care of my dad's property. But visiting Hyderabad is always fun. I met friends, went to the Secunderabad Club, attended parties where I didn't know the host, and ate more food in ten days than I should eat in a month. On the holiest of the Dusshera days, Sharath, Sahiti and I went to Key's High School in Secunderabad to see the Poojo. Things have gotten grander in four decades but the scene inside was as I remember it as a child. A huge dusty pile of shoes and sandals outside. Bangalis of all ages and sizes dressed up. Drummers working themselves to a frenzy. The sweet smell of incense and burning ghee. And Durga standing on her lion as it shreds Mahisasur, the demon and his alternate form, the poor buffalo, while Durga pierces his heart with one of her ten weapons held in her ten arms. She is a mixture of violent ferocity and divine serenity - the original diva.

Next morning is Bijoy Doshomi, the 10th day - the day for new beginnings. As a child I remember everyone at home getting new clothes. Because we wore uniforms to school, we didn't really need a lot of regular clothes. Often this was the only time my dad got us new clothes - which in the late 70's meant a dress shirt with huge collars and a nice pair of bell bottoms that flared out to completely hide my shoes. This year, Sahiti bought new clothes for Sharath and me. Very nice but not bell bottoms.

On the weekend I went to Delhi. Here we are at Arjun's home where I used to stay in Delhi back when there were no direct international flights to Hyderabad. Coincidentally and not noticed till later, Arjun's photo on the shelf is smiling with us. In the next photo I'm with Surjeet Aunty, Arjun's mother and Simran's grandma. at a Chinese restaurant in the M-Block market where I met the whole family for lunch.

Over an excellent lunch (thanks for a great selection, Shaunak) Guri Uncle asked me very seriously "Arun, are you spiritual?". I thought through my answer rather carefully. I am speaking to a man who lost his only son in a freak cycling accident ten years ago. Is this going to lead to questions about Arjun's spirit? Finally I say guardedly "Guri Uncle, I'm an atheist".

"So you don't believe in God", he replies. I nod.
"But you are still spiritual", he continues.
"There is spirit in beer and vodka and gin" and he points to our drinks.

I should never take him seriously.

I make some progress with my dad's stuff in Hyderabad. While going through some old photos in my free time I found this photo of my dad from his birthday in December 2012. Miguel had shown up one day at home with very short hair. My dad said that he wanted his hair short too. I gave him a close haircut and trimmed back his normally bushy mustache. It was his last birthday.

While I am traveling, Jo and Vivian and Evan are settling back into a normal school week in Austin. Except that they are all in bed by 7pm and awake at 5am. They are in full swing with soccer and Taekwondo and dance and drama and went to the Thinkery for Magellan's Family Fun Day - here's a photo of the Mad Science lady doing something with Vivian and friends.

Crazy is apparently glad to have them back home. Jo sent me a photo of a decapitated mouse at the front door and a mouse head that was puked up later. I won't post the photo here but my wife should become a war photographer.

Can't wait to see all the crazies back at the white wooden house. As soon as Jet Blue gets those ponies saddled.

Saturday

It's our last full day in London. No bacon sandwiches today either. Instead we met Simran outside the Waterloo tube station and walked across the street to a small but amazing Saturday outdoor food market. Pop-up tents and a couple of food trucks in the parking lot of the National Theater. We walked around and the kids got fresh juices - some combination of fruits and mint. Simran got coffee. Jo bought a cronut (a crosaint donut), I bought a large number of very nice cookies, and Vivian talked a vendor out if a bowl of olives for a paltry 30 pence. In the second photo you can see her working through the olives while carrying her "wand".

Simran showed us around Southbank a bit and then we retreated underground to catch a tube to Baker Street. At some point we passed a poster for Kinky Boots and all three of the young ones posed. Backstory - in long escalator rides up and down tube station all over London you see posters and ads for plays and musicals. Vivian saw about a hundred and gravitated towards Kinky Boots. In most posters (though not this one where he's a fuzzy helmeted royal guard) a bobby is portrayed in gray tones supporting thigh high lace-up red glittering boots. Vivian asked why a male policeman was dressed like that. I said "Why not?". And she said "Awkward". But it continued to intrigue her.

We passed the afternoon lazing at my friend's home near Baker Street (the kids veged in front of a TV in another room). Rani made us aloo parathas. Evan wasn't having any of that but Vivian put away a few.

Simran and us spent the evening waiting in line back at Masala Zone near Covent Gardens. After a very good dinner we took a cab back to the hotel and I walked Sinran to her digs. 

Next morning we woke up hours before our usual time and took a cab to Heathrow. I saw Jo and Evan and Vivian off at the Virgin gates and before I arrived to my terminal for my flight to Abu Dhabi Jo had sent me a photo of the kids munching on bacon sandwiches. A little bit later I boarded a cavernous Etihad Airways A380 and arrived in Hyderabd on Monday morning to see Sharath and Sahiti's smiling faces at the airport. By then it was Sunday night in Austin and the kids were fast asleep in their own beds back at the white wooden house and London was only a memory.

Friday

So it's Day Five in London and we finally get to see Simran today.

We skipped the bacon sandwich and met Simran outside the London Bridge tube station. The kids ran up and gave her a hug while Jo and I restrained ourselves to "air hugs" and we then wandered for a couple of hours through the most amazing Borough's Market. I could have eaten *everything*. Vegetables, mushrooms, cheeses, meats, fish, bread, wines and beer, fruits. I'd rather shop here than Whole Foods any day. I bought myself some mushroom pate and excellent bread and munched my way through the market.

Then we walked for a few minutes to a Gourmet Burger Kitchen where we fed our faces with burgers and fries and very nice shakes to recover from the walk. Followed by another walk up London bridge along the Thames Path to the London Tower where we arrived famished and replenished ourselves with Ben and Jerry's ice creams. Along the way we played "I spy". I suck at it. But it passes the time and stops Evan from asking me to carry him on my shoulders. Though it does make us look like a shifty eyed bunch as we suspiciously scan everything around us to find the object of the game, as you can see in these photos.

It was impossible to get Evan to pose for a photo - either he covers his face and darts away or he makes a gross/funny face. We didn't have time to take a Tower of London tour because we had tickets for a 5:30pm start at the Warner Brothers studio in Watford. Busy sightseers today.

So Simran went back to her studies and we caught the tube to Euston and then a train to Watford Junction, and finally a double decker shuttle bus to the studios. This is where most of all eight Harry Potter movies were made. It isn't a theme park or a Universal Studios type thing. It's more a museum of the artifacts and sets and costumes and creatures and models made for the movies. The cast members, especially the three main kids, Harry, Ron and Hermione lived and worked and studied here for 10 years - from their preteens till they were past 20. Vivian is into Harry Potter and Evan has been dragged along though he's probably a bit young for it. Everyone else there are grown-ups. People who probably grew up reading Potter at the times of their lives when they were younger but not any more.

In the picture where Evan appears to be sitting in a train, the window has been replaced by a screen and it is playing what you'd expect to see outside the Hogwarts Express as it wound it's way through Scotland. Then the dementors appear and frost freezes on the window and Harry faints. That's Vivian's head towards the bottom of the picture as she pretends to faint.

The place was pretty amazing. With full sized versions of the entrance to Hogwarts, the great hall, and platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross. The locomotive and two carriages used to shoot the movie were moved here a few months ago. The kids attended spells classes, walked through the night bus and sat on Hagrid's motor bike. They also had movies made of them on mechanical brooms in a green screen and backgrounds were added in later. I'll add a clip or two from there when I get back to Austin.

By the time we made our way back to our hotel, it was another long fun filled day and a late night.

Thursday

We started our fourth day in London an hour or two earlier than normal but in the usual way (bacon sandwiches at EAT, walk to Southwark station) but then it took a different turn. Vivian's classmate's parents had recommended a bike tour from Fat Tire and so we took the tube to Queensway and waited at the corner of Bayswater Road and soon after 11am we were outfitted with bikes and helmets and we walked our bikes through the Black Gate into Kensington Gardens.

For the next four hours we biked and stopped and viewed and chatted through central London on our bikes. Vivian opted for control over speed. So she selected a smaller bike than she normally rides and she had to pedal hard on the single speed to keep up with us but she was great. Evan was in a "tag-along" (a trailer bike) attached to my seat post and we both felt that each of us did all the pedaling while the other got a free ride.

We rode through Kensington Gardens, stopped at Kensington Palace, past the Serpentine, crossed a couple of busy streets at Hyde Park Corner, through the Wellington Arch and along Green Park to Buckingham Palace. After a break we rode along the Mall under the Admiralty Arch and stopped for lunch at Trafalgar Square.

After lunch we biked along Horse Guards Road, past Downing Street (blocked off from traffic), the statue of Robert Clive (hero of the East India Company, colonial arsehole), the entrance to the Churchill War Rooms, down to Westminister Abbey. And then we rolled on down to Parliament Square where I took the photo of Vivian and Jo while Evan ran away screaming because he didn't want his photo taken. Vivian posed by the Gandhi statue. And next to the Churchill statue, our bike tour guide recounted a Churchill quote much to the delight of the non-Americans in the group "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else". We retraced our paths from here, stopping briefly at the Prince Albert Memorial behind the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gardens and back to where we started.

After quick showers back at the hotel we had a great dinner at a restaurant that Jo found, the Masala Zone in the West End declared "the best restaurant in London" by the extremely famous and picky food critic Evan. From there we walked to the Cambridge Theater at Seven Dials (Dickens, Agatha Christie) to see Royal Shakespeare's Matilda The Musical. Tired as the kids were, they both enjoyed the show. I think Vivian who is learning her lines for a distant Mary Poppins show was amazed by the virtuosity of the child actors, specially the little girl who did a superb job as Matilda (a few days later Xi Jinping and the first lady of China were given a performance of one of the songs by the Matilda cast during their visit to London).

The final event of a rather busy day was a late night pedicab trip for the family from the West End to South Bank. I never dreamed that I would cross the Thames in a rickshaw before the Musi!

Wednesday

We are in a rut. We sleep in till 10am and lounge around in bed for an hour more.

Then bacon sandwiches and hot chocolate for breakfast. Walk to Southwark station. Descend into the tube station to start the day's travels around London.

On Wednesday we take the tube to Green Park and walk (Evan runs, chasing fat pigeons that aren't particularly scared of him but just keep out of his reach). The old oak trees are beautiful. Fall is here - the colors are changing and there is a good breeze. Highs in the low fifties today.

We walk to Buckingham palace, passing thousands of tourists heading the other way. We have apparently missed the changing of the guard - but that isn't our plan, so we don't care. Evan and Vivian walk around the fountain in front of Buckingham with a gilded Victoria perched on top. and peered through the fence and don't seem terribly impressed. In fact Evan is quite stubbornly democratic. After talking about the queen and her long reign and how she became queen at 26 while visiting Kenya and all that I showed him a coin and asked whose head was shown in the coin.

He looked uncertainly around and then replied "Their president ?".

We stopped at the TKTS box office at Leicester square to book tickets for a show for the next evening, and then went to see Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station - just because we were nearby. There was a short line, a bricked wall with a sign declaring "Hogwarts Express Platform 9 3/4", and a luggage cart piled with trunks that looked like it was half embedded in the brick as if the person pushing it was in the act of disappearing into platform 9 3/4.

And there were two people helping take your photograph with the cart. That story deserves a post of it's own but must wait till I return to Austin and download some photos from Jo's phone (my phone's battery was dead that day)

But here's a picture of Vivian in full flight disappearing into platform 9 3/4. This specific photo was taken a couple of days later at the Warner Brother's Studio in Watford outside London. But the one at Kings Cross was like this.

Tuesday

We introduced the kids to bacon sandwiches this morning. There's an EAT in the OXO tower next door to the hotel. I had my bacon sandwich with a poached egg thrown in there but the kids preferred theirs plain. A nice rustic sort of bun with a good quantity of wiggly English bacon. For both kids, especially Evan, this was love at first bite.

Then we walked across the Waterloo bridge past the Strand to the London Transport Museum. Vivian and Evan engaged themselves with horse drawn omnibuses, motor double decker buses, the tube from it's earliest days to now, and a real tube driver's seat and controls with a simulation screen in front. Several local schools had field trips with kids dressed in uniforms. "Daddy - they are all from the same school" Evan noted. I explained that they were from different schools and I knew this because the name of the school appeared in small letters on the front or back of the kids' uniform. "But why are they wearing the same uniform?" And I tried to explain that many public schools here have the same or similar uniforms and I lost him about halfway through that explanation. 

After that we walked next door to Covent Gardens and the kids opted for burgers and cheesy fries and a single frozen concrete from the Shake Shack that they shared very well.

We had plans to meet my childhood friend Rani and her husband for dinner, so Jo and Vivian and Evan nixed my plans to proceed to the science museum and the natural history museum and we instead returned to the hotel for naps.

Before dinner Jo and I bought Oyster Cards for the tube (kids travel free) and we dove underground at Southwark station for our first foray into the tube on this trip. At the restaurant the kids behaved themselves amazingly well. A waiter stopped by often to entertain them by folding napkins into various shapes. Our kids were the only children at the restaurant (and in most other places - you don't see a lot of Londoners with children). By the time we made our way back to the hotel by tube it was well past bed time. But whose counting...

Monday

When I used to travel through London in my early 20's the first Indian sight that greeted my eyes upon deplaning at Heathrow used to be an elderly Sardarni mopping the floors. This time instead, I saw Tata Communications ads all over the airport and on the outside of the Heathrow Express to Paddington. 30 years isn't long in the history of a nation, but from this limited lens that's some serious progress seriously fast.

The next thing I usually did at Heathrow was to board a "coach" that took me to my onward flight at Gatwick airport (I had to usually change flights in London on my way to and from India). A nice young English lady with a maddeningly attractive English accent rode the coach whose sole job seemed to be to make hot chocolate and hand it out during the drive. Instead here I was now, waking up from my nap in a hotel room with a wife and kids. Serious progress here too, though a good bit slower :).

We woke up after napping for a couple of hours and walked down the river bank a few hundred feet down towards the Blackfriars bridge to eat a late lunch at the Doggetts Coat and Badge pub. Good pub fare for the kids, English ale for myself, and a local cider for the lady but no English accents behind the taps. Europe is an interesting place without national borders. But how long will that last?

Then we walked and Vivian and Evan frolicked westwards along the Thames past the OXO tower, the National Theater, the British Film Institute (right in the middle of the London Film Festival), the Southbank Center (last couple of days of the London Literary Festival) under the Jubilee bridge to the London Eye. While the kids hemmed and hawed trying to decide if they wanted to go on the Eye, they played at Jubilee park. Evan fell off a log and had the breath knocked out of him. Finally decided that they did. We bought tickets and walked up to the Eye. 

We stepped into our gondola (called a passenger capsule) while it was still light outside but by the time the giant wheel had  spun once the sky had darkened and the city sparkled and glittered below us. There was a Brazilian kid on the gondola who played hide and go seek with Evan (pretty hard to hide in a transparent 8m long egg shaped glass globe). Vivian walked around and studied the landmarks and examined their details on the touch screens in different languages. And Jo pretended that we had never left the ground - which was easy to do given the huge size and stability of the gondolas. 

On the walk back we stopped at a little pizza joint for dinner. The kids ate as if they hadn't seen food before. We were all wide awake and Evan and Vivian kept us rolling with laughter and the people around us entertained. Towards the end of dinner a couple sitting beside us chatted with us a bit. When it was time for them to leave they hesitated and then gave us a hundred dollar bill. They explained that they were from Ipswich and were at the British museum earlier that day and had found the money on the floor and had looked around for the owner. Unable to find them they decided to give the money to an American. We tried to pay them back in British pounds but they would have none of it and said that their kids were now older but they remember when they were Vivian and Evan's ages and how much fun they had traveling together. And that this was a sign of the special friendship between the two countries. We humbly accepted. And later that evening we explained the concept of paying it forward to the kids and agreed to contribute the full hundred dollars to their piggy bank back home with the understanding that when they could, they would pass on the good deed.

So we need to come back for pizza a couple more times to make back the money we spent on the London Eye. But I am liking our first few hours in London!

Arriving

On the flight from the US to London the kids slept pretty well - we severely restricted their movie intake and had kept mostly sleep deprived all weekend. I watched about half of Far From the Madding Crowd before Bathsheba's antics lulled me to sleep. But even with that when we woke up in Heathrow on Monday morning it felt tike about 3am to us.

This is Vivian sitting on the big fuzzy fake turf covered armchair in T3 arrivals  writing in her journal while Jo went off to change Evan out of his shorts into something suitably warmer.

And that's them on the taxi ride from Paddington to our hotel. Due to traffic around Buckingham Palace and again in the Southbank area it took the cabbie and hour. And the kids slept.

And then we checked into the hotel and Vivian made a bed for herself on the window sill overlooking the Thames and we all slept for a couple of hours. 

Hello, London.

Happy Birthday Greta

On Saturday afternoon we drove to San Antonio for Greta's 50th. She knows how to throw a party. The kids sat with their cousins and had a great time. Evan got on the dance floor with some kids his age and had a blast doing his strange dance while Jo and I tried dancing the two-step badly. There were a few hundred people and we met friends we hadn't seen in years. I met Jo through Nicolle who I met through Greta so I owe her!

By the time we drove to Carol's it was past 11pm. Next morning we walked the dam with Grandma after the customary donuts from Sweetie's. The kids and I have this stupid thing where one of us secretly hurries up and gets somewhere (usually a few steps away) faster than the other and that person leans on his or her elbow and lazily drawls "What's holding you up?"

I went by the restroom at Canyon Lake Dam and by the time I ran half a mile in Carol's purple crocks (I had only brought dress shoes for Greta's party) to catch up with Jo and Carol and the kids I found them leaning on the guard rail.

"What's been holding you up, Daddy?"

After donuts we drove back to Austin, packed and drove to the airport for the kids' upcoming Fall break trip. We'll wake up in London on Monday morning if it all works out.

Sugar and Movie

On Saturday morning with no Mommy around (Jo was in Houston overnight for a wine tasting with Jen and friends) we went to the Upper Crust for a sugary breakfast. They have set up their Halloween decorations and Vivian and Evan's appreciation of the monsters and ghouls grew more enthusiastic with every bite of sugar.

This is Vivian pretending to be a bat outside the bakery.

The next event of the morning was planned and sponsored by the Valby-Delasandro's. Ava, her dad, grand dad and the three of us went to Alamo Draft House to see the new Malala documentary. We had hoped to take a photo of the kids in front of a giant movie poster of Malala and add it to the blog with a pithy caption about dads and girls and education and world peace but the Alamo had a set of flat screens above a row of taps at the bar that showed the "Now Playing" movies. So instead I took a photo of the kids playing with the trike before the bartender told us that it wasn't to play around in.

Vivian was suitably impressed by the documentary and asked several questions about the Taliban and why and how they took over the Swat Valley. I was impressed with Malala's calm thoughtfulness. Evan ate pizza and a lot of popcorn. 

Sleepng Away

If I drive like crazy right after picking the kids up on Friday after school I can almost make it in time to Vivian's broadway musical class. When ACL intervenes I can't. When the venue is moved to Arlo's house on the second weekend of ACL it takes even longer. But I get there and Vivian and her friends have a great class.

Meanwhile, Evan fell asleep on the drive over and sleeps through class. When I text Jo the photo she replies "Sleeping away his career in theater :-)"

Afterwards he wakes up in time for a great time with everyone in Arlo's wonderful back yard.

Dentist, Again

On Thursday the week before Fall Break I took Evan for a checkup and cleaning to the dentist. I asked him to pose for a photo with his face towards the camera so I could take a picture of his teeth. This is what I got.

Evan got a hero's (by proxy) welcome at the dentist's office. People all the way from the front desk to the back office and two of the four dentists in the practice stopped by to ask how Vivian was doing and how brave and marvelous she was.

After the praise for Vivian quietened down a bit the dentist asked Evan what he wanted do when he grew up. Must be a stock question because Evan had several things in his mouth and couldn't answer. When he did manage to speak, he first told the dentist to be careful with the gum where his two front teeth had been, because without the teeth the gums could get hurt easily.

At this the hygienist looked in my direction and said "Evan speaks so precisely. May be you want to be an engineer like your dad?" (though neither engineers in general nor I in particular speak precisely).

"No. I am going to be a scientist", Evan responded.
"But he knows all about the human body" I added, helpfully.
"So may be a doctor, or a dentist", urged the dentist.
"No. I said I want to be a scientist. But I will use parts of the body to make chemicals", Evan said with an air of finality that ended the conversation.

Here he is trying to launch James' whirly toy thing at school the next morning while James' dad watches.

Addictions

The other day after her shower Vivian stepped out of the bathroom looking like this. She had carefully positioned her hair to fall over the front of her face like a curtain and she thought it was scary funny - like a dementor. Nothing scares this girl, I thought.

The next day at about 3pm after watching The Martian all by my lonesome self at a movie theater in Houston I glanced at my phone and there was a message from Jo. At the school playground some girl's knee had ended up on Vivian's face and her lip and cheek had gotten pressed into and attached to her braces.

The dentist had to numb her with a shot (and precede that with a bout of nitrous) to free the inside of Vivian's face from her braces. Jo took Vivian back with her to school to pick up Evan that afternoon and to also reassure her classmates that she was still alive, but apparently Vivian's bloody lip didn't help settle any nerves (I got emails from dads of concerned classmates that night enquiring about Vivian's health).  

But Vivian said she was fine. She and Evan sang happy birthday to me in two languages when I showed by later that evening and helped blow out the one candle (when you are old enough you get to hit reset). The next morning she ate a normal breakfast and went to school. No big deal.

Yesterday, a day later, she went over to say hello to Ava and see if they could read lines (they are in a play together). I heard this from Tim who was with Ava when she opened the door for Vivian.

"Ava - I think I'm addicted to nitrous oxide".

I'm conflicted.

Vivian's not seriously hurt. Good.
Nothing scares this girl. Good.
She can name her addictions. Meh.

At least she's articulate. And addiction has become a household term in Rosedale. As in when Ava announced "Zinnia is addicted to her formula". 

Looking Backwards

Or backwards looking.

My friend sent me a Facebook message with a link to an article about things being banned in India. From books to beef. Another shared a Huff Post story on the incongruity of the #MakeInIndia campaign by Modi, his conversations with people like Tim Cook of Apple, and India's "377", the section of the Penal Code that criminalizes homosexuality. And then there is the NYT op ed by Sonia Faleiro that discusses the killings of liberal Indians and the rise of Hindu fundamentalism/nationalism.

Ironically, Double Click juxtaposed a MakeInIndia ad with the NYT story when I read it - thus producing a striking graphic - better than anything I could photoshop.

This is unfortunate. And India isn't alone which is even more unfortunate. A shrinking world and a greater exchange of ideas has forced small minded people everywhere to thrust their beliefs more stridently upon their fellow humans hoping that somehow that would make them stronger. Kim Davis, Boko Haram, extreme Hindutva. Where will they be in a few decades? Or will the world give itself a huge enema and wake up feeling better in time for the next generation?

Mountain Bikers

This morning while we were still laying in bed Jo mentioned that we should take advantage of the cool weather and go mountain biking to McKinney Falls State Park. We packed up the bikes, grabbed tacos from the Shack and headed out.

The kids had never ridden on dirt before. Evan took a spill a few minutes in. Vivian got off her bike and walked it down a gentle slope. They were very unsure. But in about half an hour (and another spill later for poor Evan) they were rocking. Vivian said it felt like the same thrills she got while skiing. They were slamming down slopes and hammering up hills and extracted a promise that we do this every weekend ("when possible" I amended).

I couldn't get a photo to Vivian riding because she was always close behind me. In fact on the last steep slope I slowed down to check how she was doing and she slammed into my bike from behind.

"Vivian - did you hurt yourself?"
"Just on my vagina"
"Ooh"
"It's not too bad - you just have to hit it at the right spot"

Later Evan and Vivian walked around the limestone hollowed out into interesting shapes by running water and climbed and had a ton of fun.

When we returned, I grilled sausage, asparagus, and some whole fish. Vivian who loves fish declined to eat any:

"I like my fish to come in pieces, not whole."

Evan agreed to try some but the first bone he encountered turned him off. And while Jo ate a whole fish she too mentioned that the rest of the family seems to prefer fish in fillets or steaks, and not whole :-)

But the kids enjoyed sticking their fingers into the mouths of the fish to feel their teeth and Ava and Eleanor who dropped by during lunch did the same too - though somewhat more reluctantly.

Oh - and Jo and I are feeling the glow of accomplishment for getting shit done. I booked us a hotel in London and Jo booked my flights to India. I do things at the very last moment. Sometime I even put off  procrastinating till later.