Ava Starts School

Day three at Abercorn and Ava's settled in like she owns the place (exception being swim class -- apparently there she lasted 10 minutes, dressed in her cheery red bathing suit and black bathing cap). The latter kills me; picture a troop of four-year-olds in their little trunks and one-piecers with speedo swim caps. Olympics here we come (or they can join the little old ladies at the Y doing their water aerobics, capped). (I can say this since I'm sure I'll segue to pool exercise at some point in my life. As one fellow spinner once stated: first I was a runner, now I'm a biker, in another 10 years I'll be a swimmer...)

Today Ava wore her kilt, red cardigan, blazer, red tights and black shoes. Too cute. (On P.E. days she wears her red sweat suit.)

Claire's 2nd week of school is going great too -- she's started some after school activities (puppet making and jewelry). We'll be entertained and she'll be well accessorized.

As for me, I have delighted in being alone (no, not lonely, alone. It's fabulous). Actually, yesterday I had coffee with two lovely ladies, parents of kids in Claire's class, at a little French cafe near the school.

Afterward I tromped off to the Victoria and Albert Museum for the Magnificence of the Tsars exhibit, which leaves London at the end of March.

The place is HUGE (not the tsars, the museum). The clothing in the exhibit did look like it would fit a skinny 14-year-old kid. Some of them were actually worn by a royal who died at 14 on his wedding day. Scarlet Fever or some such disease.

The jist of the exhibit is to "illustrate Russia’s relationship with her past and with Europe through two centuries of men’s court dress." The collection includes the dress and regalia worn by the emperors and the Russian court from the 1720s to 1917. Particularly auspicious was the coronation dress of the emperor. Some of these pieces were incredibly opulent, weighing 15+ kilos (embedded with jewels, sewn with gold thread, incredibly rich and luxurious fabrics).

Not a big exhibit, but very well staged and very interesting. I enjoyed perusing it, then had a delicious open-faced torte at the museum cafe (salami and brie on a buttery, flaky crust...). I then wandered through the photography exhibit before returning to St. John's Wood for the more mundane grocery shopping.

I must say I really do enjoy perusing food, so the grocery shopping is not an ominous task, and thanks to my wonderful River Run lady friends, my brown and white cart serves me well for these grocery errands.

Other London moments so far this week:

Ava and I came around the corner yesterday to find 50+ of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery out for a walk. Some were led, harnessed next to a horse and rider in pairs pulling carriages, others were ridden separately. In front and in back were pairs of men managing traffic as the group pranced through the streets of St. John's Wood in crisp, neat order. All the horses were brown or black -- lovely animals and a lovely site at the start of a bright, sunny day.

I had such an English lunch the other day: a warm beef and potato pasty. The only thing missing was the tea or ale, I suppose.

I'm fascinated by the dryer here (small things in life, right?). Both it and the washer seem to take FOREVER to run a cycle (as long as they work I really don't care, it's just fascinating that it takes as long as it does. Clothes come out quite clean, so all that agitation is doing the right thing, I guess.). The dryer has a container that must be emptied regularly because it fills up with water from the clothes. Obviously the machine sucks the water from the wet clothing and puts it in this tank. Good thing; line drying here would take a long time.

As for what's coming up, we're narrowing in on houses, I've signed up for an adult class (Ancient Britian) so I too can go to school, the moms at Abercorn have put me on the ladies night out list for next Thursday and I've found some babysitting resources for London style dates with my husband.

So far so good! Oh and we've got paperwork in the system for a bank account (I'm cautiously optimistic that the process won't be as painful as ex-pat banking in India)...

Now if only this incredibly beautiful, sunny, warm weather would continue for the next year or so I'd be in heaven.