For our first truly post-election weekend, Randi and I… (…drumroll…) headed straight back up to Midlothian for a celebratory campaign party for volunteers. But, weirdly, we weren’t required to spend the rest of the time knocking on strangers’ doors to ask who they were swithering between. Instead, we stayed with Katie and James on Friday night so that the parkrunners could parkrun together in Vogrie Country Park on Saturday morning. Then, Kira joined us from Glasgow for a very quick dip in the Gladhouse Reservoir! Kudos to her magic water shoes which made it a lot easier to run into the water. This brief adventurism was followed by a good gaming session of Cartographer (in which my art style was described as ‘abstract’) and Wingspan (where I did a lot better than my first attempt).
We headed back to London on Monday night, for which I splurged and bought us first class tickets on LNER so that we could see what we had been missing all this time. It’s probably a good thing I waited until the end, because now I have a taste for the luxuriously wider seats, alcoholic drinks and homity pie, so I’m not entirely sure what will happen next time I need to travel to Scotland. In the meantime, back in London we finally made it back to the Bush theatre to see My Father’s Fable after my family WhatsApp chat was all ablaze with praise for it. True to form, the play was gripping and excellent, stirring up the audience reaction into shock and horror as the villain became clear.
It’s been (*checks blog*) six years since I last saw my cousin Jonah, Staci and their kids, so it was great to see them all again at Carolyn’s in the middle of their somewhat eventful holiday. The next day, before trying and failing to give blood, I did “the most you thing ever” (©giantlawnmower) and visited a photography exhibition about Silverlink trains. In case you didn’t grow up in North London during the Siverlink era, these were the worst trains ever, and I visited mostly as a cathartic ritual to ensure the dead would stay buried. That said, there is something weirdly nostalgic about seeing photos of kids who I could have easily been at school with.
There is a bit of bullshit politics involved: if you buy the book (which I did) you learn that the route was “something of a metaphor for New Labour’s ambivalence”, which is hard to fit with the fact that it was a New Labour government which abolished the Silverlink franchise, cleaned everything up, staffed the stations, replaced the trains and generally transformed the whole thing under the London Overground. So then you’re left with a vaguely chin-stroking sense of “but maybe bad things are actually good” vibe (something something gentrification) which is fine until you’re waiting on a cold platform for a train which never shows up. No, the truth is simpler: bad trains are bad, and they should stay confined to historical art exhibitions.
To continue the cousin theme – we were also visited by Julie and Daisy, who we took out for an Indian meal at Sparsh along with Tash and Cormac. Poor Julie had been horribly misled by Google Maps on a journey to the other road in London with the same name as ours (exactly the scenario which Catherine and AJ feared could happen when they visited, to be fair) but thankfully they still made it in time for a lovely evening together.
Now that (a) it’s proper summer and (b) we actually have a nice garden thanks to Pierre’s efforts, Randi and I have been diligently watering the lawn and somewhat diligently cutting the grass. We’ve also been making great progress on our backlog of other to-do list tasks! For example, I made us watch the two-part Agatha Christie adaption of Murder is Easy from Christmas (a bit disappointing) while we caught up with Randi’s birthday by way of a return visit to The Waterside Inn for a long Saturday lunch. OK, sure, this wasn’t the most original birthday gift in the world but that didn’t make the three Michelin star tasting menu any less sumptuous, and – just like last time – we followed it by a delightful walk along the river to Windsor before getting the train home.
Meanwhile, Randi’s birthday surprise for me was a fabulous combination of basically all over the above: The Murdér Express! This immersive theatre combined a delicious three-course meal and cocktails onboard a ‘train’ (to the sleepy French village of Murdér where nothing bad could ever happen, see?) while a 1920s era comedy murder mystery played out around us. It was just a super fun night and I also really enjoyed our table companions.
I also had the chance to make use of the cheese vouchers gifted by Katie – albeit after a significant amount of hemming and hawing over which cheese to order – while Randi and I also manged to catch up with Matt and Laura (and meet Fred!) in their garden one sunny Sunday afternoon. A week later, we also joined one of our irregular but beloved reunions at London’s pioneer provider of Chicago deep dish pizza, Japes, along with Steve, Soo-Jin, Simon, Fleur and their kids. The absolute best part of this whole day – aside from the pizza, obviously – was the discovery that Randi’s personal battle with the chef last time seems to have translated into one item being permanently struck off their menu. We were surprised they didn’t have a warning photo of her at the entrance.
And finally… it’s the Olympics! I really enjoyed the opening ceremony with its procession of boats down the Seine, and have caught a decent amount of athletics and swimming in the evenings. But I’m especially happy that I took the opportunity to grab some tickets back in May 2023, and also that a one day there-and-back on the Eurostar didn’t seem like a totally mad idea to other people either. So, on Tuesday, Randi and I woke up very early (and crossed our fingers that the 5.26 from Catford wouldn’t be cancelled) to join mum, Tash and Cormac at St Pancras for a school trip to Paris!
I had prepared myself for big crowds and long queues, but in fact most of Paris was incredibly quiet: clearly a combination of the usual August holidays plus those not excited about the Olympics just leaving town. We arrived with enough time to pop down to see the Olympic cauldron balloon – sadly not flying during the daytime, but still impressive – before heading over to the Paris La Défense Arena for two quarter final matches in the women’s water polo.
And like a true sports journalist, here are my contemporaneous, unedited Olympic water polo notes:
| – not water volleyball – Teams jumping in together / swimming like dolphins – Race to get to the ball first – Spain won, which was a prelude to what was to come for Canada – Italy vs Netherlands much more evenly matched, but lots of orange in the crowd |
To explain: yes, having just picked ‘water polo’ from the limited options available without much thought during my online session back in May 2023, it turns out that I had actually been imagining water volleyball all this time, and it wasn’t until we took our seats in the stadium that I realised there was no big net in the middle. But not to worry! Water polo turns out to be lots of fun too, albeit it’s more entertaining when two closely-matched teams play (such as Italy vs. Netherlands) rather than the total annihilation which Spain inflicted on Canada. We also loved the ‘Monet inspired’ lightshow over the pool before they started, and in general the atmosphere around the games – just like London in 2012 – was so warm and lovely.
Shockingly, we were able to secure a table at a nice restaurant just opposite the arena after our session ended, enjoying a long French meal together before catching the last train of the night back to London and some long-awaited sleep. Thank you for such a great Olympics experience, Paris!
