In a disastrous chronological mishap, my last post completely left out a family trip to Kelsey Park in Beckenham one Saturday afternoon. So, to correct the record: the highlight was seeking out a shady lunch spot in the long grass to share some very generously cheesy chips. And I guess if we’re doing historical recordkeeping, I should also record (in case I ever look back at this) that we’re still in the middle of the absurdly hot summer of 2026. It’s far hotter than necessary, and while I’m not saying I want the Gulf Stream to collapse, the thought has crossed my mind…
On another one of these scorching July days, the three of us journeyed to St Albans for a reunion with two of my former English teachers. I realise at this point I should refer to them as ‘Alison’ and ‘Luna’ rather than Ms Hook and Ms Rupchand respectively, but it’s a difficult habit to break. So, while we lulled our child to sleep with a buggy ride around St Albans Cathedral, the adults enjoyed Ms Hook’s impromptu tour of the building before settling down to a delicious Turkish meze lunch. (In these divisive times, I found the display of artwork by local schoolchildren celebrating their local mosques to be unexpectedly moving.)
It was a wonderful catch-up, but I did learn the very sad news that Sue Wales – another of my former English teachers – had recently died. She was incredibly formative in my life: constructing my secondary school class in her role as Deputy Head, publicly instructing me to “look after Josh” on our first day as he was the only kid from his primary school (which I assumed meant he was a refugee) and going on to teach us English, which was a hoot. Probably my fondest memory was her exasperation when someone was reluctant to read the word ‘bosom’ out loud, which she solved by forcing every single one of us to say ‘bosom’ in turn in an attempt to desensitise us. She will be greatly missed.
The following Sunday, Randi and I were totally spoilt by Tash and Cormac for our joint birthday present, starting with a trip to see the animals of Surrey Docks Farm (including two enormous pigs and a rabbit named Roger) before we all walked over to the Mayflower for an extravagant lunch together. This was just a totally lovely afternoon all round.
A couple of days later, we were equally excited to host Katie and Kim for a few days. Kim had flown all the way from Australia with a sample of Cadbury’s Top Deck chocolate for us, which raised the obvious question of why Britain is being denied this excellent milk & white chocolate mix. Meanwhile, on Thursday night, the Self siblings convened for Italian food in Wapping before a nostalgic evening stroll around Shadwell.
Other summer adventures have included a trip to Randi’s family namesake, The Lawrence Arms, which turns out to be named after a former wine bar (“Mr Lawrence Wine Bar”) and does rather suggest that Mr. Lawrence is high on entrepreneurship but low on naming creativity. (Excellent vibes, though.) We’ve also enjoyed an impromptu tapas night out in East Dulwich and some very strong drinks (and sometimes spicy conversations) at Campaign Lab’s summer BBQ at Newspeak House. Special kudos to the heroes there who kept the food cooking all day!
I also went out for drinks one evening with Jan, an old colleague from my Groupon London days. Along with providing some wise life advice, he was also able to confirm my existing biases with some stories from the world of fintech. These are exactly the kind of stories you want to hear over drinks.
Finally, today we travelled to Sussex to spend an afternoon with Simon, Fleur and family. This was so much fun, especially seeing the siblings playing together, and we had fun baking many human-flavoured pies. In the spirit of train nerdiness which I share with Simon, it also felt appropriate to catch my first glimpse of the new GBR livery in the wild on the journey down. And talking of firsts: before bedtime tonight Randi and I performed an inaugural tooth brushing for baby’s first tooth (he seemed to enjoy it) before moving on to Randi’s now-traditional reading of Goodnight Moon (which he enjoys to a crazy degree).
