My last post concluded with the surprise weekend trip I organised to the Isle of Wight for Randi’s birthday, but the honest truth is that this was always a bit of a knock-off of Randi’s idea, who had already booked a surprise weekend trip to [mystery location] for my birthday. So it was that last Friday evening – after a flying pre-birthday visit from mum the night before – we arrived at Paddington for our train out of London. (Leaving from Paddington at least confirmed to me that we hadn’t both gone and booked the same destination, as hilarious as that would have been.)
For a little while it looked like trains-leaving-Paddington wasn’t actually a thing anymore (kudos to the woman sharing updates from Real Time Trains with the rest of us) but after the issues cleared we boarded our (surprisingly quiet!) carriage, cracked open the M&S cocktails, and relaxed into a weekend adventure to Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds!
I don’t think I’ve been to the Cotswolds before (not in blogging memory, at least) but I had an image of cutesey, chocolate box cottages, well-heeled high streets and satisfying country walks through pretty villages. And… yes, these preconceptions were basically all accurate, end of blog. We did think Moreton-in-Marsh suffered a little bit by allowing a car park to form in the middle of its high road, but it’s nevertheless very charming, and wherever they’re sourcing the cheddar for their cheese and ham croissants out to be given listed status.
On Saturday we went on a big circular walk via the village of Longborough – stopping at their lovely community cafe for lunch – getting very lucky with some temperate weather rather than scorching sun. Dinner had already been booked at The Black Bear Inn. I was really looking forward to this for two reasons: (a) the food looked great, and (b) Randi and I had cracked up laughing the night before reading the owner’s responses to the odd negative review on Google Maps. (If it helps, the slogan on their blackboard was “All of our customers make us happy. Some by staying, others by leaving.”)
Dave did not seem like a man we wanted to cross, and fortunately we didn’t have to. But we did befriend the woman sitting on the table next to us, who seemed very cool, and was treating her six year old to a birthday expedition themed around some of his favourite things: crocodiles, alligators and snakes.
Bonus Feature: Old Man Shakes Fist at Nation
For obscure reasons, the next day I found myself on the Longborough Parish Council website. Their last meeting was in May, and if you skip past the elections for chair and vice-chair (approved unanimously), the approval of prior minutes (approved unanimously) and the annual accounts (approved unanimously) you’ll see tucked away under ‘Planning/Licensing’ that Workshop Luckley Farm’s planning application to convert its furniture workshop into a wedding venue has been dismissed on appeal.
Officially, this is something to do with bats in the roof. But nobody is planning to touch the bats in the roof. Indeed, the bats seem to have coped perfectly fine with a full-time furniture restoration business, so it’s a little surprising to learn that shutting that down and switching to two hour-long wedding ceremonies per week would be so much worse. Out of interest, what is the harm? Oh, the appeal doesn’t say. It doesn’t even gesture at a plausible explanation. It just states that “it cannot be concluded what [sic] the proposal would not have a significant effect on bats” and the “precautionary principle” should therefore apply.
Reader, this is not about bats. It’s about parking. You see, if you read on, you’ll learn there’s “high potential” that visitors would “use inappropriate locations” to park, “which could hinder the free flow of traffic”. And I like to imagine the low, serious tones of a high court judge when I reach the conclusion that “although the appellant considers most guests would share lifts […] this cannot be guaranteed”.
Let’s step back for a moment. What is planning actually for? On this, Longborough Parish Council is admirably open: it is there to “support the view of its parishioners”. And I have no reason to doubt what they say their parishioners want: “most people in the village like Longborough as it is”. Planning, therefore, is about saying no. We’re not planning to get married in the Luckley Farm Barn, so who cares about anyone else? Who cares about the owner of the business? Who cares about the employment of young hospitality staff? Who cares about taxi drivers? Who cares about flatlining economic growth? Who cares about how we might fund the increasing demands of healthcare, social care, defence, pensions or anything else you care to name? I’ve got a house in the Cotswolds. I’m alright, Jack.
The absurdity is that the area is still permanently represented by the Conservative Party, which always claims to be the party of free enterprise and a lighter state. A patriotic party, supporting small business and risk-taking. Conservatives are not “supposed to” believe that entrepreneurship is subject to a collective village vote. They are “supposed” to allow businesses to succeed or fail on their own merits. Of course, it’s patently obvious that this is not at all what their supports actually believe in practice. Which is a shame, because on this, they are right! I’m not arguing for a libertarian free-for-all: this isn’t a planning application for a brothel, a coal mine or a skyscraper. It’s a wedding barn, for goodness sake.
I suppose nobody will now get married under the sleeping bats of the Luckley Farm barn. If they had, it is of course totally plausible that some of their guests might have parked in the wrong place. Perhaps – just perhaps – there could have been a sign? Or a rope. Or a shuttle bus. Or a trust Parish Council volunteer issuing fines for infractions to the farm, which I suspect would have cleared up the problem pretty sharpish. All human activity brings problems, but if you see your job as trying to enable the best possible outcomes, a Parish Council operating on good faith could surely channel their time and energies into fixing real problems. Instead, we hand a small group of homeowners a veto to block anything they don’t like on spurious, pseudo-environmental grounds, and then we wonder why we can’t build a railway to Birmingham anymore. Saying “no” is not “planning”, and we need a total reset of how this works.
Setting my feelings about Longborough Parish Council aside, this was a truly wonderful birthday weekend and we returned to London on Sunday in high spirits! The week ahead was forecast to be grossly hot, as indeed it was, but fortunately I was already booked in for three days of work-related training in a gloriously air-conditioned room. (Don’t worry, the baby room at nursery is also generously cooled.) The training was a great opportunity to see colleagues in a non-Zoom setting – particularly Kira and Paulo! – and in particular I very much enjoyed drinks with Ben, Tom and Tomas on Thursday night.
For the weekend, Randi had the inspired idea of an emergency paddling pool purchase, so yesterday we spent a fair chunk of time outside in the garden. Baby-wise, we’ve now gotten some rolling, combined with a newfound ability to nap in his cot during the daytime \ a newfound ability to stick his limbs out of the cot when he doesn’t want to nap in his cot during the daytime. Oh, and lots of strawberry eating!
Over the late May bank holiday we travelled down to Exmouth for my mum’s birthday, and although we didn’t quite make it onto the beach itself, we were all very much in the market for some sunny, seaside vibes. It also turns out that my mum has been quietly hoarding many of my childhood toys, and so in true Toy Story-style, this was a great opportunity for “aeroplane” and “walker” to find another playmate in the next generation.
For the adults, we kept busy with a Sherlock Holmes themed jigsaw (admittedly only managing to finish the edges) and my mum’s nostalgic recreation of a classic “nana and grandad” Suffolk teatime. There were a few necessary anachronisms – I definitely don’t recall any red wine back in the day! – but the combination of ham, potatoes, Marmite and Rich Tea biscuits was very exciting.
Back in London, I had an excellent evening at a Leytonstone pub with Clark, including a brief guest appearance from Matt Hull. A week or so later, Randi and I were back in Leyton for a proper catch-up with Matt, Rachael and their little one, before heading over for Tash’s barbecue birthday party in their gorgeous garden. As ever, it was great to catch-up with a lot of familiar faces (hello Grace, Charlotte, Sarah, Katty, Beth, Moya and others!) but the highlight was probably the impromptu dramatic performance from the kids who live next door. There’s genuine top-notch acting talent there.
In the last few weeks we’ve also had an evening with Esther – together with the thrilling season premiere of “being able to sit out in the garden even after the sun has gone down” – and I went out with a mixture of current and former eviivo-ites including Jo, who left a few years back to retrain with the ambulance service. Having grown up on a diet of Casualty, it was interesting to hear that trauma cases are actually a relatively small proportion of callouts, although I see why “people who have been funelled to 999 by a risk-averse flow chart” would have made a less exciting show.
Talking of eviivo: it was also very lovely to see my former colleague Annie again on a visit from the States, while yesterday Randi and I made it into central London for the 2026 “beach vibes” Summer Party. We’re still at the age where our child can be passed around and held without squirming to run around independently, but clearly it’s only a matter of time! With my team having cruised to a resounding victory in the eviivo-themed quiz (excellent job, Lee), Randi and I said our goodbyes and induced some much-needed napping time by walking across London for a bit to Whitechapel. Since we don’t get much of a chance for impromptu after-work walks these days, this was genuinely wonderful, and a good reminder of what we both love most about this city.
Finally, I’ll leave you with last weekend’s surprise weekend trip to the Isle of Wight. This was a belated birthday present for Randi, but it had to fit into a reasonable radius from London, and in the end I gambled on the idea that Randi would be unusually excited by the novelty of a short ferry ride thrown into the journey. (I wasn’t wrong. In fact, we were both shocked at how seamless and well-integrated the train and ferry are together, both in terms of the physical terminals and the ability to buy a magical through ticket with a Railcard discount. It all made much more sense after reading about how it all used to be one consolidated British Rail operation in the first place.)
After reaching Ryde we journeyed down the island to our Airbnb in Bonchurch, near Ventnor, with commanding views of the sea from the top of the cliffs. My only previous visit to the Isle of Wight was on a school activity camp in Year 6, so I had no memory of how lush and verdant everything is. On Friday night I sampled the “life-changing lasagne” at the Bonchurch Inn (it’s pretty great, can confirm) while on Saturday we took advantage of a windier, drizzlier day for some rest and relaxation indoors. It may not have the most glamorous reputation, but I’d definitely come back.
We’re back! Prior to last weekend I’d only been to New York twice in my life, and both times in February. So when Randi and I were first invited to Mike and Melissa’s wedding, I was doubly excited: both to celebrate these wonderful human beings, but also to experience the city without a coat. Later, after Randi’s family had generously agreed to fly from California in order to provide childcare, Randi also had the inspired idea of contriving a bonus family road trip to New Jersey so that I could boost my state count to 32 states. So I was really looking forward to this trip for all sorts of reasons, and it didn’t disappoint.
We flew into Newark (which is technically in New Jersey anyway, but airports alone don’t count) and drove to Somerset, because this is where Beth and Stewart lived for a couple of years with baby Alex and we thought it’d be nice to go see their old house. We checked into a Residence Inn, which required both a physical credit card (“no contactless”) and – astonishingly – hard cash (!) to be exchanged into quarters (!!) if you wanted to do laundry. (And at the risk of providing too much information, while our flight with a seven month old was only marginally harder than it had been with a three month old, by that point we already had a lot of laundry to do.)
Fortunately, Beth was able to bail us out on all counts. But I would gently plead with the American hotel industry to consider a new approach. Otherwise, Randi found staying at a Residence Inn to be incredibly warm and nostalgic for bringing back childhood holiday memories. We were also proud of ourselves for jamming a toilet roll under the window in order to get some air without requiring the fan. So, overall I’m sure the staff thought we were totally mad.
Obviously it was important to find some distinctly New Jersey experiences, so on Thursday night we headed to the Somerset Diner where Beth and Stu had eaten many times when they lived here. Nothing quite beats a real American diner, from its characteristic features (the huge menu, the giant portions) to the finer details (like the placemat entirely covered in adverts for local small businesses) which just aren’t replicated elsewhere.
If I’m ever in Somerset again, I’d go back. This seems unlikely, though, as it’s not exactly a tourist magnet. Somerset itself is an “unincorporated community” located within “Franklin township”, and despite passing multiple road signs where the township boasted of being “the 5th best place to live in the USA” (at least according to Money Magazine 2008) this wasn’t quite enough to shake my preconception of New Jersey as a poorer, more industrial adjunct to its famous neighbour.
I’m very glad, therefore, that Randi did some emergency research and directed us to Washington Valley Park for a Friday morning walk through the woods. This was absolutely delightful, and a refreshing vision of life in the garden state. (Fortunately, we did not see any venomous Northern Copperheads, and therefore succeeded in giving snakes the “distance and respect” which the information board requested.)
We then enjoyed a scenic drive through Princeton, home of both the eponymous university but also the governor’s residence (“Drumthwacket“). This is a little odd because the state’s capital is two towns over in Trenton, although it’s not hard to guess why “the People’s House” is hidden away here instead. Our next stop was Lawrenceville – an excellent name – home to both an excellent sandwich shop and Rider University where Stewart studied as an undergraduate.
Our visit coincided with graduation weekend, which happens elsewhere, so the campus was quiet for our walk around the grounds. I appreciated the strict rules for getting a poster up on the noticeboard (“must be approved and stamped by the Office of Campus Life”) and rebelliously parked our buggy in the parking spot “reserved for President Loyack”, purely because there’s something about named parking spaces which makes me want to fight the system.
Also, they have a pub! At least it’s labelled as such, which was very promising, so maybe our child will want to chase his dreams here in a couple of decades’ time. If he does, all I advise is that he stays away from the creepy fraternities on the campus fringe, whose dorm buildings announce their separation from the others with pompous Greek lettering on the side, and oh goodness this is just a bit hard seriously for a glorified teenage drinking club.
Finally, we arrived in Trenton, where the rental car could be handed back and – in exchange – we were all ferried to the Trenton Transit Center to catch our train to New York’s Penn Station. While Randi and I were very grateful to be taxied around by her parents in New Jersey, we did feel a palpable sense of relief to be back on rails, especially as driving with a baby seems fundamentally flawed since you can’t pick them up if they start fussing or crying. Happily, the NJ Transit route seemed both frequent and well-used.
The view from the train thereby completed my New Jersey experience, at least for now, as we passed through stations such as Elizabeth, New Brunswick and – my favourite – Rahway. As in, there’s genuinely a railway station called Rahway Station, as though it’s just very posh.
And now… New York! On this trip we stayed entirely within Brooklyn, which feels somewhat more ‘Londony’ than Manhattan with its relative greenery and lower-rise buildings. But only somewhat. Overall, NYC’s urban infrastructure is genuinely unique within the United States. (Shout-out to the much improved subway cars on the A train we rode to the hotel!) But at the same time it’s very obvious that you’re still in an American city, just from a hundred little things, just as London may be a fellow ‘world city’ but is unambiguously still the British capital. People sometimes imply that these giant cities stand completely apart from their countries, but it’s just not true.
Good New York thing: the new subway map (rolled out last year) is so delightful and such an improvement. I’m so proud they finally did it!
Bad New York thing: their drivers feel significantly less tamed. Perhaps it was just because we were staying on the busy Flatbush Avenue, but cars overall feel significantly less tamed.
Anyway, on Friday night, Randi and I (plus baby) walked to Mike and Melissa’s welcome drinks at a nearby brewery, which also featured an incredibly delicious build-your-own-taco buffet. I definitely didn’t need any more food on the way back, but since we were walking by it seemed stupid not to pick up a classic New York pizza slice too, which I also appreciated.
I did not appreciate the suggestion from a random person on the street that if I fell out with Randi at some point in the future I should resort to murder. I’m not saying there aren’t violently minded Londoners, but perhaps they’re just less socialised to offer unsolicited advice, and I’d like to keep it that way. On the other hand, the woman at the hotel the next morning who struck up a conversation with me while I was looking for proper tea bags (not easy) was lovely, if a little pushy. (“I have a niece and nephew in college nearby.” “Are they enjoying it?” “They better be enjoying it! If they want to make a career out of it!”)
On Saturday we did some emergency wedding shopping and then headed over to Prospect Park to hang out with Phoenix and Marcos, last seen on this blog last summer during their holiday to London. Prospect Park is wonderful, and – like all of the parks we saw – was chock-a-block with families enjoying the sunshine. We had a great time catching up, and then Marcos engaged his superpower of “locate nearest food spot which everyone will enjoy” and we brunched at a tasty Italian place.
That night was the wedding itself, which took place in the garden of another Italian restaurant with even more exceptional food. Randi and I were both slightly giddy since it was our first childless night in seven months, and we found it very sweet that – since Mike and Melissa are both lawyers – they were married by a judge which Melissa used to clerk for.
Talking of lawyers: I tried to deter the lawyers sitting on our table from doubling down on their written constitution idea, but unfortunately I think that ship has sailed. Enjoyable conversations though, with an unexpected focus on post-Soviet states. But the person I was most interested in hearing from was Mike and Randi’s mutual uni friend Matt, who is an honest-to-goodness college counsellor: a role which I’ve seen in films but always struggle to imagine as a full-time job. He was lovely, though, with all the earnest idealism of a native San Franciscan who spends his time encouraging teenagers to envision a bright future ahead.
Sunday was Randi’s birthday, which we kicked off with a family walk across the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge. Afterwards, Randi and I scuttled back over to the Brooklyn side for lunch with Rachel and Ana at Miss Ada: a Mediterranean restaurant with lots of sharing plates which was a big hit with both adults and baby alike. The walk there and back took us through another busy park – Fort Greene Park – which was similarly packed out with families.
It will surprise nobody to learn that our next stop was the New York Transit Museum, which has an advantage over the London Transport Museum in that it’s housed in a real abandoned station. Not only does this give the exhibitions plenty of atmosphere, but it also allows them to dedicate the platforms to a whole slew of subway cars from different eras which kids (and non-kids) can happily run through.
There’s also an excellent shop, although I was disappointed not to find any Forest Hills-specific memorabilia which I would have been compelled to buy. I will note, for the record, that the section of the museum about payment systems has some brazen factual inaccuracies about both London and Hong Kong, and implies that New York was some kind of pioneer in contactless. This is… not correct.
After the museum we all went our separate ways, leaving the three of us to enjoy an afternoon wander along Brooklyn Bridge Park. This is a long, linear stretch of greenery by the East River, punctuated by piers, and has a surprising smell of the sea. We ate some ice creams in the sun before setting off to the airport for our overnight flight back home, although not before stopping for one final burst of New York pizza. (I’m not entirely sure why the UK didn’t welcome a generation of late nineteenth century Italian immigrants to sell pizza by the slice, but it was a serious policy error.)
We might all be a little exhausted – and varying degrees of sick – after this mad, nonstop weekend. But it was extremely nice to have a bit of the old travelling feeling back again… and, of course, to scratch off another US state from the scratch map. Still 18 more to go…
Happy 22nd birthday, blog! You turned 22 on 27th April, and while it’s tempting to say “ah, they grow up so fast!”, that’s emphatically not true in this case. It feels like forever! Unfortunately the only thing I could find in the list of rights at different ages for 22 was that “support ends for young people who have been in Local Authority Care… unless they are going into Higher Education” which is (a) convoluted, (b) not applicable, and (c) surely more of a loss than a ‘right’ anyway.
Back in the world of human parenting – which is significantly more hands-on, and doesn’t come with any backups – the latest milestone has been ‘settling-in days’ at nursery before he starts properly later this month. For the very first session, we just sat together in the nursery for an hour, and I got the same warm and cosy feelings that I had on our first visit, long before he was actually born. Fingers crossed he agrees!
Of course, nursery also means an entire marauding army of new germs heading our way, some of which may have been responsible for his dodgy eye and subsequent trip to the walk-in centre in Beckenham to be prescribed some eye drops. This just happened to be on local election day, and so our plan for a relaxed after-work family stroll to the polling station to commemorate Randi’s first time voting in the UK turned into a genuine moment in the pharmacy (right after “I’m so sorry, but we’re actually out of those”) of wondering if I would actually miss my window to vote. But then came “oh actually, I found one hiding at the back of the fridge!” and we all made it in the nick of time. It is a really good thing that polls in this country stay open until 10pm, though.
Talking of new experiences: you know what else might be revelatory if you were born in October 2025? Long sunny days in the park! A couple of weekends ago, we finally hit the tipping point for being able to lounge on a lawn for a few hours, enjoying a beer and\or ice cream and admiring the rival foam rockets being launched around us in all directions. On Saturday we did just this in Beckenham Place Park, while on Sunday we headed to Crystal Palace Park to hang out with Caroline, Josh and their little one – who we hadn’t met yet! – in the new (and very cool) dinosaur-themed playground.
This month, I also celebrated my aunt Bonnie’s 60th birthday at a fancy dress party with the theme “something beginning with B”. Naturally, I went for British Rail (yes, the defunct nationalised entity), which is why I’m now the proud owner of an authentic British Rail corporate shirt, cap and whistle. (If only I had a matching Silverlink outfit then I’d also be sorted for Halloween.)
Anyway, this was lots of fun, with a special shout-out to the Bananas in Pyjamas and – of course – to the latest cousin to join the newest generation of the family! Despite it being her birthday, Bonnie also produced an outrageously large number of desserts, which were delicious and great fuel for my journey home.
All that said, the big event of May was Catherine and AJ’s latest visit to London! There are too many kids in too many photos to do justice to their whole trip on here, and since I was working I also missed out on some choice outings, including an overnight stay in Canterbury or the obligatory visit to the Transport Museum. But, I did get a decent chunk of time to hang out with everyone, including trips to Padella, the Perry Hill pub (twice!), ScandiKitchen and a quick stop at the British Library (albeit mostly as a nappy changing destination).
We played in parks too, of course: a very satisfying brunch in Crystal Palace, a fun day out at Blackheath and Greenwich Park (during which I was surprised when AJ just flat-out agreed with me about daylight savings – that never happens!) and Beckenham Place on their final day with special guests Tash, Katie and Cormac. These three trekked a long way across London to hang out with us all, which we were very grateful for. To capture the real essence of these trips, look no further than the lovely Polaroid snaps taken from the sightline of a four year old, which really took me back to the unusual angles of my own first photos taken with my own childhood camera.
But my favourite moments were back at ours, from chaotic daytimes to chiller evenings featuring some combination of Taskmaster, wine and caterpillar birthday cake. At some point we did wonder if hantavirus was about to lock us down together, but seemingly not this time. It is kinda incredible that we’ve kept up the frequency of visits, though, and now we’re into a groove it feels unlikely that our children won’t be forced to play together for many years to come… while we argue about the primary election schedule.
Next time on dom.blog:
- Dominic’s 32nd state!
- Some familiar faces
- A marriage made in Brooklyn
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If you’re skimming this post only for the baby news, the big update in the last few weeks is that we’ve started weaning! (If you’re bored of all the baby news, I can only apologise.) So far, the good news is that he’s been more than happy to experiment with food. Sometimes, when we’re feeling chill and modern, this has included strips of carrot, sweet potato, avocado, and so on. Also pancakes and latkes! At other times, after we’ve talked ourselves into paranoia around choking, we’ve retreated to the mashed baby food of yore like porridge, mashed potato and yoghurt.
Either way, he’s definitely into it, and is also methodically working his way through the allergens. (Obviously, you should introduce allergens in priority order based on how sad you would personally feel if your baby couldn’t eat them. Dairy would be tragic. Shellfish less so. I am not a doctor.)
Mainstream clinical advice is that babies should not consume ice cream or beer, but this doesn’t extend to parents. So on a sunny Saturday in March, we celebrated his very first high-chair meal with a trip to the Crystal Palace Food Market. We’d never visited before, but the ice cream flavours included rhubarb, so we will be going back. From there, we moved on to the Gipsy Hill Brewery Taproom. Originally, this was driven by a birthday voucher for a brewery tour from Tash and Cormac, but over email the company had patiently explained that it would be hard for them to deliver a brewery tour now that production has moved to Kent, and perhaps I’d be happy if it was converted into a voucher for drinks at the taproom instead? More than happy, guys!
Another big family outing in March was Randi’s citizenship ceremony at Lewisham Town Hall in Catford! In the interest of protecting his privacy I won’t post the (mandatory) photo of Randi posing with a portrait of the King, but while anything involving the monarchy is always going to feel very odd – especially with an American – my overwhelming feeling was how warm and Londony the ceremony was. Most of the time, you likely just take for granted quite how wide the range of backgrounds in the city is. But having everyone’s home country* announced one-by-one as they collect their naturalisation certificates felt like a peek into the superdiversity engine which, I increasingly suspect, is an essential foundation to sustain liberalism today.
I also found it very funny that the newly-minted citizens were divided into two sections of the chamber based on whether they had chosen to say the religious ‘oath’ or non-religious ‘affirmation’ of allegiance. I understand this was for boring practical reasons of making sure everyone said the right magic words at the same time, but it felt like they were setting things up for a controversial revival of CBBC’s excellent gameshow 50/50 (ask your parents).
I will also note, with my historian hat on, that we were promised a “history of the borough” in the email and very much did not receive one, even though Jay Foreman has produced some great videos on the London Government Act 1963.
But still, I’d taken the day off work for the occasion, so after we finished up at the Civic Suite (which charmingly includes the fancy old Mayor’s chair from the council chamber as a novelty seat in the foyer) we headed over to the Perry Hill pub for an authentically British celebration. It’s taken a while, but at least everybody in this household now shares at least one common passport!
Recently we also had Reema and Esther over for dinner, during which I hope we successfully encouraged Esther to reconnect with her old school pal David Broadband. A few nights later, Randi and I were invited over to kick off the long Easter weekend with NCT friends Jordan and Miska. And speaking of NCT: a week later, we caught up with the rest of the gang at Horniman Market, and it is true that knowing just a few parents with kids the same age and within walking distance (even if those kids are still amusingly different sizes!) is a really nice thing to have.
But getting back to Easter itself: our biggest family adventure in recent weeks was to Bury St Edmunds, which was an exceptionally lovely trip. The sun was shining, our Airbnb came with virtually its own secret entrance to the Abbey Gardens, and both Bubbe and baby got to experience Suffolk for the first time. Shout-out to Randi for remembering to take us all to Nowton Park after she discovered it on a run last time, and to the cheesemonger back in Bury who sold us a wide variety of very tasty cheeses for our Saturday night feast! Then, on Sunday, we took the train to Diss for a very special Sunday roast at Ampersand Brew Tap with my uncle Derek and aunt Ginny and cousins Julie and Daisy.
I don’t get to see this side of the family very often, but we had such a great afternoon catching-up on everything from baby news (massive congratulations to my cousin Kieron!) to the Artemis II space mission, which Derek was following with the same baseline interest and enthusiasm which my dad would have had. I am also grateful to Daisy for agreeing to split a chocolate brownie with me, as otherwise the prospect of dessert would have been dashed. Afterwards we all went for a walk on the fens nearby, before returning to the brewery where Randi – clearly envious of my earlier haul at Gipsy Hill – picked up some craft beers of her own. The perfect Easter outing.
We very much intend to keep returning to East Anglia as a family, even though we’re now another generation removed, so I hope we did a reasonable job with our first indoctrination attempt. But we also have brainwashing goals back in London too, and perhaps none more important than Hampstead Heath.
Josh and I have been promising each other for literally decades now that we would slowly mind-trick our future children into enjoying long walks by meeting up on the Heath, and last weekend we finally accomplished this for the first time! I mean, sure, not everyone was walking yet. And at one point we actually had to exit the Heath to save the buggy from a dust storm. But we got there, so onwards and upwards.
(Pro-tip: we were looking for a semi-affordable lunch in Belsize Park beforehand and came across Brad & Dills, which is tucked implausibly around what feels like a hospital service road but I promise is real and does excellent bagels. I also accidentally ordered more doughnuts here than I meant to by saying “we’ll take one of each!” and not realising there were more than two kinds, but I regret nothing.)
Finally, we’ve also managed to watch a couple of long-form things recently! The first was Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, i.e. the third installment of the wonderful Benoit Blanc murder mysteries, and honestly I could enjoy these forever. Ideally I’d enjoy them in an actual cinema, but Netflix’s release window is a crime all of its own, so we tried to watch it on Beth’s account as, no, we still don’t have Netflix. This was our intention, at least, but actually we ended up adding a “Beth” to Sam Pow’s Netflix account (look, if you sign into Netflix on our TV, it’s gonna stay there for a while) and triggering a wave of confusion on her side about what on earth was going on. Sorry, Sam!
The other thing we saw – yesterday, in fact! – was Heart Wall at the Bush theatre. This was the other voucher from my birthday last year which was rapidly reaching its expiration date (thanks, Katie and James!) so Randi and I were doubly excited to find one of the Bush’s “relaxed performances” on a weekend matinee. Essentially, this just means there’s an expectation that some members of the audience, for a variety of reasons, may need to make some noise or leave and re-enter the show. It’s a brilliant idea, especially if – like us – you have a baby who is largely willing to sleep through the performance. (He woke up at the end to the sound of clapping all around him, which must have been a little weird.)
Anyway: the play itself was also brilliant! Don’t fool yourself into thinking that we picked something child-friendly for his first theatre outing. This is an emotional family drama about buried grief, set somewhere in the North West of England, and staged mostly in the local pub – the kind of pub where everybody knows each other and the karaoke machine is always available. (Here I’ll pause and voice my respect for the audience members who volunteered to have a go at some karaoke beforehand.)
In the play proper, we start with 23 year old Franky’s surprise visit home from her detached London life. But despite what you might guess, it’s not really a play about class or place. Instead, we see the unravelling of the tragic events which clouded Franky’s childhood, building to an emotional confrontation with dad Dez. Honestly, Heart Wall is just one of those plays where everything just kinda works. Every individual performance is very strong, there’s a good balance of light and dark, and the pace moves well through a single act. Highly recommended.
Finally, and apropos nothing, please enjoy my sad face when I realise I’ve taken the wrong branch of the Windrush line home after a day in the office:
(*P.S. If you’re thinking that ‘home country’ is a confusing term for me to choose here, because of course Britain is now also a home country, the truth is that I originally wrote ‘country-of-origin’ before deciding it sounded too much like a food label.)
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
