Happy 2025!
We had always planned to spend Christmas with Randi’s family this year, so it was both good and bad timing for us to land in Vegas barely a day after her uncle died. “We managed to take the shortest day of the year and make it the longest”, noted Randi sometime during the flight, which I was touched to see included Christmas cracker hats as part of the onboard meal.
The night before we got a chance to hang out with Tash, Cormac and Katie at our place – which was really lovely – and play dual variants of the “secret rating out of 10” game. We also ate a lot of cheese and exchanged our Secret Santas, wrapping up our final night with this year’s beloved Christmas tree.
Back in Vegas, the closest we got to the Strip was spotting the giant illuminated Sphere as we landed. In fairness this is not exactly hard to spot, and while it’s a cool thing to exist in Vegas, I’m sure the residents of Stratford are grateful for Sadiq Khan blocking a London version descending in the middle of Stratford. To be clear, neither of us had any desire for tourist Vegas. Instead, we were very happy to be able to (finally!) redeem our last wedding gift voucher from Toggolyn – don’t worry, $25 still goes very far at In-N-Out – and then taking it back to Randi’s uncle Ron and aunt Stacy for some much-needed family time.
Finally, before our drive back to California, Randi led me on an early morning walk at the edge of the city, where we could look back just as the sun was coming up and see a much more beautiful place than I typically imagine Vegas to be.
Christmas in California might lack a Dickensian winter atmosphere, but Randi and I went on a lot of local walks on this trip and we still appreciated everyone who made an effort with their lights. (Partly we just needed the walks to offset the effects of Yorba Linda’s finest eateries: Wise Guys Pizzeria, Burrito Brothers and the majestic YLS Bakery & Cafe, whose croissants alone could be wrapped for a stocking filler.) The festive spirit really ramped up on Christmas Eve when Alex and Randi rescued a stray husky from having to spend the night alone on the streets, and at the mercy of the local coyotes.
Thankfully, Dakota was reunited with her owners on Christmas Day, which also featured a Trader Joe’s cinnamon bake, Randi’s incredible strata, mimosas, a sunny walk with a view, unnecessary fear of hibernating snakes, Beth and Stewart’s legendary chicken dish, a trip to East Lake to see the seriously impressive Christmas lights, some all-important hot tub time and, of course, Doctor Who!
For Boxing Day, the traditional rainy walk was swapped for Laguna Beach, one of Randi’s favourite places and boasting a chilled linear park alongside the beach. Over the next few days we also spent some time with the Shelanksys, Elana and Alex’s friend Brian before Jeff’s funeral was arranged for New Year’s Eve. I also used this time to help digitise a bunch of old family videos, which (a) is basically my dream project, and (b) taught me that at least some families made sure to set the time and date stamp on their cameras correctly.
In all seriousness – this had actually been on my mind for a little while since Randi mentioned that she knew there was some video footage of her childhood lying around somewhere, and the subsequent wildfires in LA have been a sad reminder of how vulnerable these things can be. PSA: Backups are great.
As 2025 approached, we repeated our trick from several years ago by using London’s fireworks as a convenient 4pm midnight. In our defence, we had a rescheduled 8am flight to Chicago the next day. And then hello again, Chicago! Happily, we made it to Catherine and AJ’s in time for a timeshifted New Year’s Eve celebration featuring 100% perfectly made dumplings and lots of toddler playtime.
At times when said toddler was in bed – or at least supposed to be – Catherine and AJ introduced us to the first season of Severance, which (as promised) is excellent and I’m excited to finish with Randi when she’s back from her bonus week in Chicago. We didn’t venture out very much, but we did enjoy a wonderful afternoon with Jason and Carrie followed by a delicious dinner at Mano a Mano (it’s not a restaurant, it’s a “neighborhood pasta project”) with Toggolyn.
Finally, just before leaving for my flight home, it was really nice to see Catherine’s cousins again, even if I did feel under some pressure when I was made to place all of the US state names into the correct boxes on the giant floor mat. (Honestly? I’m pleased with my performance, and perhaps some of those states would be happier in their new locations anyhow.)
After a week back at work, many thanks to Andrew and Bonnie for plying me with wine last night for a fun Friday unwinding, and then staying up to 3am to comb through our own family’s tapes! For tonight – my last night before Randi returns from Chicago – I am reminded of Catherine’s young cousin suggesting thoughtfully that maybe I could “host a boys’ night” in her absence. I’m sorry to say that I did not do this. For partial credit, though, I did watch Katie’s latest “break glass in case of Randi absence” film: Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, an hour-long Japanese comedy from 2020 about some very limited (and not particularly useful!) time travelling hijinks, which was short and sweet. (Probably short enough for Randi, in fact…)
Happy Christmas Eve! Since I’m in the US until New Year, I thought I’d post this ‘lost blog’ from 25 years ago. It was my second-ever visit to the States, and the first time I kept a diary…
Day 1. Wednesday 31st March 1999.
My mum and I were given a lift to Paddington Station by my dad and my two sisters. We caught a very nice train with a T.V. in it to Heathrow airport. Then we caught a Virgin plane to Washington DC. On the plane it was wonderful, there was a T.V. and games console on the back of every seat! I watched the Rugrats movie and played a lot of games. It took a while to be immigrated but when we had got all our luggage we saw our friend Sharon and drove home. I watched The Simpsons then went to bed.
Day 2. Thursday 1st April 1999.
Today we went to the Smithsonian ‘Air and Space Museum’. We saw lots of planes and space rockets and we saw two movies called ‘To Fly’ and ‘Cosmic Voyage’. These are special movies because the screen is so big you feel you are actually there, as you can’t see anything else. These are called IMAX films. The Smithsonian is actually a block of 16 museums and a zoo, but 2 of these are in New York. The museums range from the ‘Air and Space’ to the ‘Portrait Gallery’, the ‘Natural History’ to ‘American History’. After that we went home, watched The Simpsons, had tea and went to bed.
Day 3. Friday 2nd April 1999.
Today we woke up at 6:30 so we could go to the White House, where all the presidents of America live. The current one is William Jefferson Clinton, the forty-second president. You get free tickets for the White House, mine is stuck in the yellow section of this book. We got a guided tour and I bought a book all about the different presidents. After that we went to have lunch in an ice-cream parlor in the museum of American history. As entrance to museums is free, we didn’t look at the exhibits, we went straight on to the Natural History Museum\Museum of Man. We saw dinosaur bones and a real life tarantula eat a beetle. After that we went home, watched The Simpsons (one of them was a Treehouse of Horror!) and went into the car again at 7:00. This was so we could see America’s famous buildings in the dark. We saw Abraham Lincoln’s (the sixteenth president) memorial. It’s like a temple with a statue of him in. Then we saw the Vietnam memorial, which is a big wall with the names of the people who died in the Vietnam war inscribed on it. Then we drove back home and went to bed.
Day 4. Saturday 3rd April 1999.
This morning we woke up at about 7:30. I had breakfast, an egg and a roll, and then at 10:00 we went to the zoo. I saw lots of things, like giraffes sitting down, kangaroos with babies in their pouches, a gorilla family and birds. But, my favourite animal was definitely the panda bear who was eating bamboo. I also saw an exhibit about teaching chimpanzees a language, and I spotted a mistake. They were teaching it numbers and they had written down: 0 1 2 3 4 5 5 6 8 9 instead of: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. When I told the man in charge of the exhibit about it he said he knew but he said I was the only one to spot it in 3 years and he gave me two free magazines. When we got back we were quite busy because Sharon had invited her mum (Pat,) her dad (Leo,) and her brother (Paul) to dinner. We talked about alot of interesting things, and they left at 9:30. If they came at 6:00, that’s 3 and a half hours. Luckily The Simpsons wasn’t on on the weekend so I went straight to bed.
Day 5. Sunday 4th April 1999.
On Sunday I woke up at about 6:30, but because they had moved the clocks forward it was now 7:30. My mum gave me an easter egg and then we drove to the train station. It was very big and fancy and we got on a train to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It took about 2 hours to get there. When we got there we met Roger and Lily-Ann, my grandmas cousins. We drove to downtown Philadelphia and had lunch in a fairly posh restaurant. Then we went to the Franklin Institute, which is like a science museum. It’s really fun, I saw another IMAX film, mysteries of Egypt. I also had my picture drawn by a robot, I saw a robot playing basketball and I went inside a huge heart, which is quite dark. In Philadelphia, I also saw Independence hall and Liberty bell. When the train arrived back in Washington D.C., I had supper in a pizza restaurant, drove back to Sharon’s flat then went to sleep.
Day 6. Monday 5th April 1999.
I woke up at about half-past 7 on Monday, the first thing we did was to get tickets for the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, then we walked around the tidal basin a big man-made lake. We saw the cherry blossoms in full bloom, and we also went to the Jefferson memorial. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the U.S.A., was the one who gained independence from Britain. After that, we went to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, where they make all of the money in the U.S.A. and most of the stamps. I actually saw the old $10,000 note! After that we had lunch at the Holocaust museum and then we saw a very moving exhibit about German Jewish children. After that Sharon and I rented a paddle boat while my mum went to an art gallery. We had alot of fun and when mum had paddled for an hour, we went home, watched The Simpsons and went to bed for a wonderful night’s sleep!
Day 7. Tuesday 6th April 1999.
This morning we got on the train to go to Capitol Hill. Sharon wasn’t with us because she had to go to work. We queued for 4 hours because the line moved ever so slowly, l……….. i…….. k…….. e……. t……… h…. i……….s! When we finally got in the tour guide showed us lots of things including the whispering chamber, where you whisper into the floor and people hear you across the room. We also saw the place where President Clinton was on trial. After that we had lunch in a restaurant near the capital. I had a cheeseburger and french fries. We went home, I saw most of The Simpsons, (but I missed a bit of the first one,) then we went to the Queen Bee, a Vietnamese restaurant. I didn’t have any food, but my mum and Sharon did. Then we went home and I went to bed.
Picture the scene. It’s Wednesday evening. Randi and I are sitting on the sofa together under the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights. The night before we were both out at work-related Christmas parties; in my case, a big bash at Freemasons’ Hall organised by Fora (our shared office space provider) and DJed by Annie Mac. Surreptitiously, I’m trying to organise a surprise weekend break for January as a Christmas gift, but I can see in Randi’s eyes that she’s hungry for one thing… a Christmas market, ASAP.
Soon, I’m accelerating my plans into an emergency Christmas trip that very weekend to… *rolls European getaway dice*… Gdańsk!
I’ve always been very curious to visit Gdańsk. Today it’s part of Poland – as it has been many times before in history – but after being invaded by Prussia in 1793, and subsequently becoming part of Germany, Gdańsk (or ‘Danzig’, in German) later spent a remarkable period between 1920 and 1939 as a rare remaining example of a European city state: the Free City of Danzig. My family has a lot of connection with Gdańsk during this period; my great-grandmother was born there. Of course, the reason this independence ended in 1939 was thanks to Nazi invasion, and the entire Jewish population – including my family – either escaped in time or were wiped out. The same is true of many non-Jewish Polish families, and as a result the modern city of Gdańsk, which was almost entirely physically destroyed by 1945, is very much a post-war reconstruction in terms of both its buildings and its people. Still, even though all this means I was never going to find a plaque commemorating my great-grandmother on a wall, you can see how I was primed for a lot of historical resonances.
Our late-night flight from Luton airport was trouble-free, despite being a bit of a trek to get there, but since the moment of booking I’d harboured doubts about whether we really had a room at the Hotel Gdańsk Boutique and when we finally arrived at 1.30am, the subsequent ten minutes of the receptionist’s hardcore keyboard tapping (interrupted only by “can I see your reservation again?”) only confounded my suspicions. Nevertheless, we waited patiently and were eventually rewarded when he finally looked up and handed over the room keys to a much, much bigger room than the one I had booked. Relieved, we hurried to bed before he could change his mind.
Randi also has Polish ancestry, and the next morning she began to experience a growing love for her long-lost motherland when she discovered that the breakfast buffet included both pickles and fish. Having both stuffed ourselves, we walked off our breakfasts on a nature path along one of the branches of the river before turning towards the Old Town for our first foray into the Christmas Fair. Gdańsk is very proud of winning the Best Christmas Market in Europe award for 2025, and if it was ever a ‘hidden gem’ type of place it’s certainly not now! The market is absolutely packed with people, but there are also tons of stalls and we barely had to queue for our latke lunch. (They had a different name, but same thing.) We also tried the delicious little Oscypek dumplings served with cranberry sauce which – I later learnt from Klaudia! – are filled with sheep cheese. Another win for Gdańsk.
You’ll be glad to hear that we took a break from eating in exchange for a two-hour afternoon walking tour, which did get a little chilly as the sun went down. I could have done with a little more historical context from the guide as he was pointing things out, but he redeemed himself at the end with a useful overview of Gdańsk’s history combined with an impassioned defence of Polish democracy against both Putin and the native Law and Justice party. It packs a punch when you’re standing in a courtyard where one of the first battles of the Second World War took place (the Defence of the Post Office); afterwards, the captured Polish prisoners were executed by firing squad.
It is worth saying that, just as in Warsaw, the architecture of the Old Town is truly extraordinary. You’re walking around a medieval city – cobbled streets, protected from cars, flanked on either side by beautiful painted buildings – and yet almost the entire thing has been resurrected from rubble in the 1950s and 60s. As a British person, Poland’s success at recapturing the beauty of its pre-war architecture makes me so envious in comparison to some of the ‘modernisation’ which took place in the UK around the same time. Why?!
Also – fun bonus Gdańsk fact – the physicist Daniel Fahrenheit was also born here, inventor of the historic also-ran Fahrenheit temperature scale, and to commemorate him they still broadcast the weather forecast in Farenheit here… for one day a year. (Note to the US: this is an appropriately limited usage of the Fahrenheit scale.)
After nipping back to our hotel to warm up, we dined on pierogi and salmon (although it turns out that lard is a step too far for Randi) before returning to the Christmas market for a spot of Secret Santering, dessert and a spin on the ‘Spinning Barrels’ fairground ride on which (a) we were definitely the oldest people not accompanied by any children, (b) Randi wasn’t certain if she was going to make it without throwing up or not. (But she didn’t!) Finally, we returned to our hotel to redeem our free beers from the inhouse brewery (see, there’s a reason they were actually fully booked) and enjoyed the live music before bed.
If I claimed we didn’t spend a hearty chunk of Sunday morning down at the breakfast buffet, I’d be lying. (I mean, c’mon, they had honey from the honeycomb.) But then we marched up to the Góra Gradowa hilltop lookout, through the gorgeous Gdańsk Główny railway station and onto the museum which made it to the top of the museum wishlist: the European Solidarity Centre. This was a close call – yes, the other museums were very tempting! – but here you’re spoiled for choice, as on top of everything else Gdańsk was also the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union in the 1980s. This movement led civil resistance against the Soviet-aligned state, precipitating the imposition of martial law in 1981 in Poland and ultimately contributing to the remarkably peaceful downfall of Communist rule. So, of course we had to see this.
Plus, on the walk there we stumbled across a near-infinite stream of motorised Santas to boot…
I won’t recap the entire history of the Polish trade union movement (stifle your disappointment, please) but suffice to say the exhibition was very immersive, and you could really feel the pride not just in the movement’s ultimate success but in how the transition to democracy unfolded in Poland. As Randi noted, it gave us both a new perspective on how painful the democratic backsliding of the last few years must have been for those who opposed the Law and Justice government. The 1980s was never the period of history I had in mind when visiting Gdańsk – my family were long gone by then – but learning more about this era was an unexpected bonus of our trip.
With our emergency Christmas Market mission achieved, we flew home on Sunday night feeling very satisfied and festive. Over the following week, Randi treated me to dinner in Strangers’ Dining Room at the Houses of Parliament (while the abolition of the last hereditary peers was debated down the hallway). The following night we hopped over to Queen’s Park to see Randi’s colleague Dan play a gig at Worldly Wicked & Wise, which in my day (!) was a trinket-filled gift shop but is now a minimalist art gallery with space for a band to play. This was a super-fun night, my favourite song being the adorably silly cover In Spite of Ourselves, which gives you a sense of the vibe.
Finally – and to complete the circle of my last post being drafted on the Friday night train to Edinburgh – this weekend we were back in Scotland! Many thanks to Katie and James for hosting us and also for Katie’s stellar gingerbread men, which were quickly devoured when we all made it over to Kirsty and Roger’s on Saturday night for a really wonderful evening together. We also met Katie and James’s friend Dan over brunch, who patiently answered my dumb gardening questions without rolling his eyes, and later shared some great growing facts with us at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital’s Community Gardens.
In addition, Katie and I completed not one but two classic Doctor Who stories on this trip: 1987’s Paradise Towers and 1964’s Planet of Giants. The former is the first classic story I’ve ever seen with Mel as the companion – a gap I was keen to fill after her triumphant return in the most recent series. It’s safe to say the writing of this character has improved. Poor Mel: back in the day, more than half of respondents to a BBC audience research survey wished she’d been eaten by the cannibalistic couple in this story! Cannibals aside, Paradise Towers is partly a satire about brutalist housing block disasters. I really should love it, but it made me somewhat depressed, especially since I can all too vividly imagine the Twentieth Century Society fundraising to support the Great Architect Kroagnon’s legal defence fund. In contrast, Planet of Giants is more whimsical and fun: the Doctor and his (original) companions are accidentally shrunk down to be very small, and have to escape terrors such as ‘cat’, ‘matchbox’ and ‘plughole’. What more could you ask for?
Spoiler alert for anyone who’s still saving the US election night for a streaming binge over Christmas: Trump won. And, as Randi says, if Trump was going to win then we should be glad it was clear and decisive, because it’s always unhealthy when the losing side can sooth itself into passivity because it “won the argument” or wasn’t “really” beaten. There are a million arguments about why the Democrats lost – and I have my favourites! – reasonable people can disagree. What irks me is when people start from the question “…but how could people vote for Trump?”.
The answer to that question is really simple: Donald Trump was the Republican candidate. His voters pulled lever A rather than lever B, and that’s it. It doesn’t work to claim that you’re not allowed to vote for one of the two candidates on the ballot, or that you’re guilty of pathological character flaws if you do. It’s not just that blaming the electorate is a bad idea. It’s also absurd to claim that you’re defending democracy by leaving the voter with only one valid choice. That’s not a vote, it’s a threat.
I know this is disempowering because none of the Democrats chose Donald Trump to be their opponent. So what can they do? Well, one answer is to keep trying to win elections. Political parties which keep getting beaten have a strong incentive to change. But the Democrats do try to win elections, of course. Everyone’s entitled to their own pet theories about how to increase the odds. Here’s my list: Biden announces he won’t seek re-election after the 2022 midterms. An open primary selects a candidate with outsider energy and a popular theme. Internal coalitional groups stop being so self-destructive and weird. You can pick your own list, and it may be completely different to mine. Bernie would have won! Michelle Obama would have won! Taylor Swift would have won!
The point is, believing that Democrats could have done things differently is not the same as believing that victory can ever be guaranteed, especially in a world where all incumbents are losing. ‘Sometimes losing elections’ is really, really normal. I’m not writing this to be sanguine. Trump winning is very bad. But the alternate universe hovering most closely to ours is the one where Democrats lose to someone else, not the one where Democrats always win every election. If you care about a democracy in a two party system, you have to care about the health of both parties, not just your own side. To use an overly British metaphor, they are the neighbouring flat in your terraced house. You should not expect to share their taste in music. A good neighbour is not the same as a good friend! But if they have rising damp, or a leaky roof, it’s going to get you both in the end.
Ranty introduction over! If you made it through all that, I promise I’ll move on to other things too, just after recording how strange my actual 5th November turned out to be. After a day on a stationary boat – for an unrelated work event! – I ended up at a watch party with Randi’s colleagues featuring not just the usual CNN (gotta love John King’s magic wall) but also a dedicated desk of hardcore election analysts just for us. So while CNN cut to commercials, we could just wander over to the number crunchers to get the real story. Sadly, of course, none of this did anything to change the outcome and by the time we got into an Uber home at around 1.30am the trends were starting to become clear. By the end of our ride, it was obvious. Still, I’m grateful for the invite and it was certainly a memorable election-watching experience.
In between all of this Randi and I also did some emergency kitten-sitting for Za’atar at Tash and Cormac’s place in Leyton, where we also enjoyed a very tasty Italian dinner with mum later in the week. That Friday night I was also very excited for a catch-up with Jill at The Island (where I feel like she had to endure an early draft of the opening to this post) and we somehow managed to drag out our last half-pint for nearly two hours.
But, fun things aside, by the end of that week Randi and I were itching to get away somewhere and so we settled on… Bath!
The honest reason why we ended choosing Bath is because at Matt and Rachael’s wedding, several weeks earlier, I had been reunited with ex-Groupon colleague Ben and his wife Steph. When I learnt that Steph runs her own bakery and brunch place – Good Day Cafe in Bath – I sent the menu to Randi as a note for the future, and this seemed like a good time to be sharing some delicious French toast and loaded hash browns. Which we did, for brunch on Sunday, and it was great!
We also arrived with enough time for a long Saturday afternoon walk, which we both found invigorating even when Randi made a rare slip-up in her directions and we had to climb under some barbed wire to avoid a 25 minute walk through a long, dark tunnel. (Which, to be fair, looked really cool. It just wasn’t the outside-in-nature experience we were looking for.)
That evening, we met up with Randi’s friends Will and Zoë for dinner at an excellent pizza place, followed by drinks elsewhere, followed by an oh-my-god-we-can’t-get-rid-of-them walk back to their house for even more drinks around the kitchen counter. They’re both super fun to hang out with, and when we eventually took ourselves back to our BnB (by phone torchlight) we were both suitably uplifted about the world.
After brunch at Steph’s café we thought it would be silly not to visit the Roman Baths of Bath, which (I later learnt) I apparently visited as a child but have no memory of. There have been no swimmers here since a child was killed by a waterborne infection in 1978, but there is a decent audio guide which guides you through the Roman development of this hot spring into a full-blown leisure complex featuring hot baths, cold baths, gyms, wine and poolside snack vendors.
The best part are the curse tablets: bitchy notes inscribed into metal by ordinary people asking the goddess Sulis Minerva to curse someone else, usually after a theft. For example: Docimedis has lost two gloves and asks that the thief responsible should lose their minds and eyes in the goddess’ temple. (Very level-headed, Docimedis.) Our absolute favourite author wasn’t actually sure who had stolen his property, but named about eight potential suspects like a stressed-out supply teacher. It’s wild to still have access to this bottled-up rage nearly 2000 years later.
On the way home on Sunday night we had some engineering works on our Overground and did what any normal couple would do: split up to race home via two completely different routes. Sadly, I don’t think this record will last 2000 years, but here’s a teaser in case I can somehow fool the far future into thinking that everyone did this:
Finally, while Randi is in Wales for the weekend, I met up with Josh, Anna and Cora for lunch and a stomp around Golders Hill Park . A perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon, even after being magically transformed into a rabbit-frog-tree.
Last week I returned to Amsterdam for Booking.com’s annual Travel Tech conference for software partners. The event itself was great, and this year I was super happy to be joined by Kira who (a) could split the technical roundtable sessions with me, (b) was willing to indulge my late night craving for pizza. Thank you!
Since the conference finished on a Friday, we took advantage of the weekend by having Randi fly out to meet me in Amsterdam on Friday afternoon and then catching the train tother to Haarlem, a nearby city which Randi’s parents had really enjoyed on their recent trip to the Netherlands. (And when I say ‘nearby’ city I mean really, really nearby – this is a small country and nothing is far apart.) Anyway, Haarlem is lovely! As it happens, Randi had just upgraded her phone so you can appreciate it through some artfully refined photos which I have stolen for this post.
After an evening stroll along the canal to the local windmill and a great Italian meal, we retired to our boutique hotel suite (the ‘sardine’ suite – probably not the name I’d use for any hotel room but actually very spacious) and slept soundly before waking up for an early-morning run into the countryside and\or sleeping some more.
Later that morning we enjoyed some tasty savoury crepes from a café on a pretty little side street while watching the cyclists go by. The centre of Haarlem follows the typical Dutch street layout where the ‘road’ and ‘pavement’ aren’t sharply delineated from each other, which sounds scary but works because the cars have been completely tamed. Sure, there are a few going by, but for the most part everyone is on their bikes, with many kids either cycling alongside their parents or sitting happily in a trailer. It’s both beautiful and a little infuriating. This isn’t a fantasy utopia! It’s just the Netherlands!
Afterwards we took the bus to the beach resort of Zandvoort, admired the plaques commemorating the great and good of Zandvoort (often with local notes along the lines of “his uncle still lives in Zandvoort”) and took a stroll along the sandy beach. We got very lucky with the weather this whole weekend, and despite it being October could enjoy cocktails at a beach bar as if we were on some tropical island (with jumpers).
On Saturday we also admired the interior of the local church, popped into a board game café and had dinner at Kokkie Londo, a Javanese restaurant with a set menu, delicious food and a very cheerful chef who tours the tables to talk about his food with an infectious laugh. Finally, back at our hotel, we curled up on the sofa with some complimentary wine and chocolate to watch a Norwegian police procedural (with Dutch subtitles) and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (which still throws me with the new lifelines). It makes me a bit sad that enjoying random TV from another country is now archaic, and I don’t suppose anyone younger than us would ever think to do it. Still, Google Translate was very helpful for translating the quiz questions, even if we still didn’t know whose cabinet was brought down by the Night of Schmelzer in 1966.
We spent most of Sunday at the nearby Zuid-Kennemerland National Park and decided to rent bikes from the visitor centre. Despite several staff members reminding us that helmets aren’t compulsory in the Netherlands – and basically nobody thinks to wear them – we insisted on paying extra so that all the other cyclists would see that we were stupid tourists.
While I definitely got quite sore by the end, riding around the park was so lovely and peaceful, and the occasional detours out of the park onto nearby roads only underlined how exceptional the cycling infrastructure is here. For any main road there’s just always a dedicated cycle lane, with no awkward missing gaps or theatrening car traffic. It felt completely safe, and quite magical.
The price for such a relaxed Sunday was a very late flight back from Amsterdam and then a taxi from Heathrow, but it was a price worth paying for such a full and enjoyable weekend in Haarlem. A final word of appreciation goes to the German-themed Wurst & Schnitzelhaus near the station before we left, with some fine German beer and the staff all complete in dirndl and lederhosen. In fact, the Dutch seem to be particularly fond of dressing up in restaurants, with everyone in Indonesian outfits on Saturday night at our Javanese place. It feels vaguely inappropriate, but is obviously considered to be a critical part of the theming.
In retrospect, flying back to London on Sunday night was a stupid plan because on Tuesday morning I was back out again on a stupidly early Eurostar to Paris for a work event. In mitigation, Eric was over from the States so it was great to see him in person again and catch-up as we caffined ourselves up to being fully awake. The event itself was fantastic – always excellent to meet some of our customers in person, share what we’re working on and gather feedback – and in the evening we all went to the famous (and joyously French) Moulin Rouge cabaret show.
Back in London again, on Thursday we gathered almost all of eviivo’s R&D department in person for an offsite meeting, roadmap kick-off and pub evening together. It’s always a bit surreal when this happens, as seeing everyone from Zoom in person feels a bit like a reunion with characters from a computer game. But I really enjoyed chatting to everyone – too many to name here! Finally, this weekend Randi and I congratulated Caroline and Josh at their pre-baby bash, before joining Reema at a nearby pub in Streatham for a catch-up and general work\life updates. Sadly, we could not cycle home afterwards. But if we were Dutch, we would have cycled home. Sigh.
Todd on 2024: My Year In Books: “I know what Glass Hotel is about. It’s about a bunch of loosely connected, barely developed characters, with their timelines…” Jan 4, 17:17
