Claire Starts School

Claire's first two days of school have been great; she's at the American School London, which is comprised mainly (surprise surprise) of Americans -- about 2/3.

Ava and I got the grand tour of the school on Monday; Ava liked the fish, rabbit and legos. I'm pleased with the resources offered, Ms. Jo (Claire's teacher) seems top notch and most important, Claire is thrilled with the place. She likes the kids and yesterday, as I was visiting with the room parents, I looked around to introduce her -- she'd vanished to the playground -- good sign, I think.

Now what to do with Ava...we'll meet with schools later this week that may have space for her.

She and I got a tour of the area yesterday -- we're within walking distance of some very cool neighborhoods -- Primrose and Hamstead, the Camden market, Oxford Street...now I just need a stroller and we'll be set! Quite a contrast from India -- the only stroller I ever saw there was the one our Australian friends wheeled around the hotel for their baby (most Indians simply carry their babies; sidewalks or lack thereof make buggies hard to navigate -- that and sheer numbers of people/chaos).

Here we'll definitely get in the habit of carrying umbrellas, it rained on and off yesterday with breaks of lovely sunshine and warmth.

Yesterday's tour took us to Waitrose, another grocery store (I love grocery stores). Very nice meat and produce. Frankly I have a tough time getting past the cheese counter...must be cheese withdrawal. We also stopped at a culinary store as I'm in danger of losing a digit if I keep attempting to use the crappy knives furnished by our temp housing people.

Each day I've been picking up the newspaper; the economy is top billing here, as I'm sure is the same at home. They're printing money here in hopes of spurring things. (The economy was also a hot topic in India's papers, too, along with honor killings, anti-Valentine's Day protests, anti-"pub culture" and other moral "policing." Nice to get away from that kind of news.)

We are now library card holders; the kids are in heaven (as am I -- I'm all for building a home library but buying a book everytime we hit the Gurgaon mall was a bit much).

Cheers -- must get moving as our schedule has markedly change from vacation mode: Claire must be at school at 7:50 (in India they hadn't even rolled out until 8:30 or 9)...