Life since Amsterdam

Life since Amsterdam has been without complaint, I must say. Claire is closing in on end of school year and First Holy Communion classes. She seems to be enjoying both.

Ava is on break this week for mid-term. I like the British school year; kids coast along, do the show and tells, work on their maths, learn their 200 words and read their weekly books, perform a couple concerts per year, swim on Mondays, wear their red uniforms, park their scooters in the overflowing scooter parking and when they’re worn out, suddenly, voila! The mid-term break.

After a few days of recovery, they’re back at it…and don’t worry, they get plenty of summer vacation – 8 weeks. Frankly I think it’s perfect.

Whereas at Claire’s school all the type A parents (that would be everyone at ASL) ponder how to make sure our children don’t fall behind during the long summer break…
Which of course is sacrosanct…3 months of long, sunny, relaxing days spent in leisure. Think pool, beach, books, games, puzzles… Norman Rockwell. Throw in some whining, fighting and boredom and that’s probably a more accurate picture.

What’s new with us aside from June rapidly approaching? I had my Cinco de Mayo event w/ the ladies…I was recruited by the host because my email has the word “Texan” in it. This engendered me with Tex Mex food expertise.

For the love of food, I rose to the occasion and made corn salsa and Mexican wedding cakes (which my children and I believe are to DIE for warm out of the oven, happily rolled in powdered sugar).

We had a rocking Cinco de Mayo with plenty of margaritas and some kind of tomato juice shooters. Bring on the homemade salsa!!!

Also that day I had the honor of participating in Ava’s school’s spring fundraiser. My contribution was to show up and contrive incorrect answers for the quiz bowl. No door prizes for our table.

What did rock was an event later that week…”Stomp.” Which I really hadn’t much interest in until recently, when two for one tickets were available. Yes, it is so worth going. Two hours of solid, unique, creative entertainment. Fun, funny, unexpected. That, preceded by excellent cheap Chinese food (when you’re the only Caucasians in the restaurant it must be good, or the shop owners have a really large family. Maybe both?) and the company of a good friend, made for a great evening out.
We ended the first week of May with our guests, Joe’s sister and husband, at Rules, London’s oldest restaurant. A lovely place with a rich sense of history and some quite proper British décor, it’s known for its “game-y” menu. I no doubt will long be remembered for eating pigeon. (Squab on some menus.) Frankly if you’re dabbling in chicken the old pigeon isn’t far off…or maybe I’ve seen the inside of one too many chicken houses?!?

Over the weekend we hit the Real Food Festival (year 2 for the kids and me). I love that stuff. I suspect everyone else was along for the ride, but they seemed willing company. We left with a few goodies and had pork belly and asparagus for dinner; can’t beat that. Claire had her first non-family sleepover and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.

Sunday our guests took off and Ava and I prepped for “Star of the Week” (this involved gathering up photos and creating captions so Ava could be showcased as class star M-F). She shot off to school on Monday with the goods and a ready smile for class photo day.

I spent a couple hours on Monday w/ the Italian ASL ladies (mix of women who are either from Italy or interested in Italy – who isn’t?!?) at a FABULOUS pizzeria in Notting Hill. Will be dragging my family there sometime in the near future. We were well spoiled with all kinds of seafood, cheese, sliced meat appetizers. Then they brought on the big pizzas. I’m stuffed just thinking about it.

The day after that I spent a couple hours wandering around the St. Paul’s area, as I joined the last London walks tour of the school year. This one was Shakespeare/Dickens walk. Where they wrote, places cited in their works, what was happening in various parts of London when they were writing, etc. Great walk except we were all blue at the end, even the guide. Only in May in London would I need to go home and take a hot bath to warm up.

That day was Ava’s trip to the Tate Modern to look at paintings like Pollock’s, who she’s been studying. Sounds like it was a great outing – kids make better sense of modern art than adults, I think. This was one of those field trips I would have loved to go on, but alas Abercorn didn’t invite me (control the parent involvement…gotta love that).

Another recent highlight on my end: tooling around Islington w/ a friend. We had an amazing brunch. Amazing. The quiche I had was beyond belief. Great bacon, cheese and butter. Did I mention great bacon, cheese and butter…

As we’re winding things down, the St. Johns Woods Women’s Club is calling it a halt for the year, so I attended their finale luncheon recently. Freemason Arms in Hampstead. Highly recommend their duck. And brownie. Always lovely to spend time with these ladies – nice mix with diverse interests. Good thing I like them as I am moving into a position on their 2010-11 board shortly…

Joe and I enjoyed the theatre performance of “Chicago” last week, too – I liked it much better than the movie. The depth of talent here never ceases to amaze.

And to end that week, which was clearly action-packed, I had the opportunity to fit in one last “local travel” activity – a tour of Chiswick House in, you guessed it, Chiswick.

Chiswick House is a magnificent neo-Palladian villa set in beautiful historic gardens in west London.
Built by the third Earl of Burlington in 1729 to showcase his art collection and to enthral his guests, the house continues to display many spectacular works of art and provides a stunning venue for entertaining.
The gardens at Chiswick are the birthplace of the English Landscape Movement and have inspired countless gardens including New York's Central Park.
Completed by 1729, the villa, which echoes classical temple design, was never conceived as a private residence. It is instead, a bold architectural experiment by Burlington, a grand pavilion where he could display his art and book collection and entertain small groups of friends.
During his travels Burlington met the architect William Kent and invited him to collaborate on the design of the villa. No expense or creativity was spared on the interior and Kent designed the luxurious and colourful velvet rooms with red, green and blue velvet walls, that interconnect with a magnificent domed central saloon.

The day after Chiswick, a Saturday, I spent cooking and getting ready for a visit from my German friends! They were in town on a whirlwind London tour – people I hadn’t seen since our wedding. Great fun! They and their two boys came late in the afternoon; we had a lovely time catching up (in spite of language barriers). I’d picked up some Fullers brews for Udo to try (he’s a very tall, mustached German who enjoys Kolsh beer very much). I asked if he’d tried any English beers since arrival; he responded he’d tried Guiness (wrong country) and Foster’s (wrong again).
So he made his way through 3 or 4 big bottles of Fullers, various types. Without complaint!

I had to laugh as I sent them home w/ some fun little British items, one being tea (of course). When asked if they drink/like tea, Udo said they drink it when they're sick...which is generally my approach, too (other than the occasional special tea outing which involves all kinds of yummy goodies!).

This all brings us to last week…which wasn’t so frantic with last minute London outings. I did manage to power through Gladwells What the Dog Saw for a non-fiction book group I was recruited to attend by my friend Sczerina recruited. I like Gladwell, liked the group and the discussion so am now a willing non-fiction reader. Next up: The Genome (or something to that effect).

Late in the week I hit a cooking class with a friend – this time French technique. Gotta love the French; they know food. All the recipes were fabulous and appear to be very user-friendly; the food didn’t feel as heavy as lead and the instructor was fabulous. She is also I swear is no more than 25, with staff of 19 or 20, if that – how did they all get to be so poised, professional and talented at such a young age?
I’m sure I was still trying to make it look like I ironed my blouse for work when I really was far too late (or lazy or both)…

After frantically unloading my groceries that afternoon, I jetted off to a little wine bar in a pedestrian area of the West End for appetizers and wine with a friend before our theatre event, “Sister Act.” (Another of those “why not go? It’s 2 for 1 and got surprisingly good reviews.) Great fun, feel good show with wonderful music.
And the wine bar? Fabulous little find and a great evening for it – breezy and warm, windows and doors of the place open to let the outside in.

On the 21st I hit another book group – this one the monthly fiction meeting, wherein we discussed The Other Hand. Ok book. Not great. But made for a good discussion. Unfortunately our host had to run shortly before we wound up, so we closed her house down and headed to…the bar. The bar? Yes, the bar. How decadent. How fun. How…British. Pimm’s on a sunny Friday afternoon in London.

Oh I’m sure we could have done something “more productive” with our time but who wants to miss pimm’s on a sunny fri afternoon in London w/ friends?

In the evening Joe and I wandered down to Marleybone and it was such a nice evening we vetoed plans to watch Russell Crowe exude Robinhood-ness for dinner at a fabulous Turkish restaurant. We sat outdoors and ate a long, slow, tasty dinner…love all the eggplant, hummus and tziki (sp?) sauces and bread. We shared a lamb dish and an asparagus dish. Ended our meal w/ a meandering to a nearby café and an apple tart and coffee.

Over this past weekend we again had some friends over for dinner, enjoyable by all, and soaked up the sun. The backyard garden is ideal – tranquil and lovely, great place for the kids to romp and NO MAINTENANCE on our part. I do love a yard but I admit I don’t like gardening and yard work. (Well, that’s not 100 percent true; I like to plant things, but then I just really want them to be self sufficient. Independent plants; do they make them? I guess maybe the plastics dept. at Michael’s. Cacti?)

Monday Ava and I had a lovely catch up day, picnic in the garden, ice cream at the new gelato place in SJW…

And yesterday I got to go to Wimbledon! Great trip…

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which is responsible for staging the world's leading tennis tournament, is a private Club founded in 1868, originally as 'The All England Croquet Club'. Its first ground was situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon.
In 1875 lawn tennis, a game introduced by major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so earlier and originally called Sphairistike, was added to the activities of the Club.
By 1882 activity at the Club was almost exclusively confined to lawn tennis and that year the word 'croquet' was dropped from the title. However, for sentimental reasons, it was restored in 1899 and the club has been known as 'The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club' ever since.
Wimbledon is acknowledged to be the premier tennis tournament in the world and the priority of The All England Lawn Tennis Club, which hosts The Championships, is to maintain its leadership into the twenty-first century.

One highlight of our 2 hour tour: the roof was raised while we sat in Centre Court…

And of course I must note that my cioux (sp?) for the month was arrival of my updated driver's license! So when I jet off to Salt Lake this summer I will actually be able to rent a car...I did have a moment or two of wonderment as to how I was going to handle arrival in SLC w/ two kids no car...