Last day of May

Ok, May flew...and the last few days have been spectacular. England in great weather is beautiful.

Ava was off school this week so we hung out, caught up on some house stuff (we are now sporting cable; it actually works). Installed by a surly gentleman who reeked of cigarettes and coffee (he kept disappearing to his van during his 4 hour installation stint so I'm assuming he was refueling).

He also just plain reeked but since he actually set about doing the cable job, who's complaining? Plus he opened all the windows in the house...

The BT engineer was here for hours this week, too, but he left without solving the internet problem. (Why BT had to cancel broadband when it was happily minding its own business and working is beyond me.) His recommendation as I was again left high and dry without internet access: cancel and call Sky (competitor).

This I did promptly. So we begin again...

However, I've gotten no less than 8 calls from BT technical help trying to track me down to "help" me. I wonder when their own activations dept. will tell them we cancelled?!? I've already informed at least three of them.

Ava and I hit the zoo on Friday with some friends from her school -- great day for it. Big news: warthogs had babies. They're as cute as a warthog can be, I guess. Poor buggers were hot; no doubt heat in London is a rarity for them, so they were well and truly wallowing in the mud.

To end the week Joe and I had incredibly good steak at a little French restaurant near his office. We haven't eaten much good red meat since...well, really since Texas, which of course has the corner on good, big food.

BUT our little French spot was fabulous, with intimate, wood interior in sight of the kitchen, great service and a baby artichoke appetizer that was out of this world.

Yesterday we headed to the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum per Claire's request. It's set in the front yard of the museum with numerous varieties of butterflies and moths flitting about. A big crysalis display is featured in the middle, so you can see the creatures as they "hatch" and are later turned loose.

Snakes, scorpions, hairy tarantulas, a variety of bugs and other assorted creatures were also featured in the exhibit (these fellows were caged, thankfully). Outside the exhibit is a playground and picnic area, nice way to cap off the outing.

Oh and we stopped at Whole Foods on the way home. I hadn't set foot in Whole Foods, again, since leaving Texas. What fun what fun! Claire and I sampled our way through, left with a couple items (must be careful at WF or you leave half your bank account and walk away with 2 grocery bags).

Today we hit the Spanish Festival for a couple of hours. Regent Street was shut down for flamenco dancing, horse dancing, food sampling, face painting, caricatures, etc. Kids enjoyed the latter activities most. We also left with all kinds of travel info on Spain. Plenty of lovely destinations to check out when the weather turns south here.

Last night I managed to saw through my index finger so spent half the night trying to convince it not to throb. This morning it wasn't much better, this afternoon it seems more agreeable. I have of course convinced myself it does not need medical attention; an iodine wipe and some neosporin solve everything, don't they? (Lord knows I'm caught up on tetanus and every other booster out there.)

Speaking of shots, sounds like we need one for swine flu. A "mild" case was reported at Claire's school this week, so it's clearly making the rounds. Bird flu, swine flu, what's next?