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Last year, as you may recall, I picked up German citizenship. After just a little more paperwork, this resulted in a burgundy Europaische Union passport of my very own, which has duly sat in a desk drawer until – finally – a few weeks ago I actually had an excuse to use it on an overnight work trip to Berlin. Perfekt!

I must admit that I was a little nervous approaching the passport gates for EU citizens. I mean, I don’t believe Germans are particularly known for their practical jokes, but was this actually a real passport or simply an elaborate bureaucratic prank? Fortunately, it was real, and the gates opened with a swoosh of acceptance. On the other hand, at this moment I also realised that if you scan a German passport at a German machine in Germany then the on-screen text will (not unreasonably) switch to German. Similarly, if you present a German passport to a German receptionist at a German hotel in Germany, he will also switch to German. So at the very least, I really need to memorise some apologetic phrases about speaking English.

Berlin itself was short but delightful: a hearty Expedia party here, a tasty Airbnb breakfast there, and just a little bit of spare time to wander around ITB Berlin’s giant convention halls and compare the national tourism stalls from various countries. (The equivalent of the over-competitive Science Fair kid is surely Spain, which somehow bagged an entire room to itself!)

A few weeks later, Randi and I spent a morning at the German Embassy in London to kick-off the process of passing this European identity down to the next generation. “I should warn you that there is a bit of a backlog to process the birth certificate…” we were warned by the lovely woman at the birth registration desk after she had checked our documents, before learning that the estimated wait is three years. “But don’t worry, your son is already legally German!” she confirmed, before noting brightly that three years is already a big improvement on the four years it used to take. And, more importantly, none of this stops him getting a passport in the meantime. (And yes, we’d have to make an awful lot of family Christmas market trips before this became a cost-effective way of avoiding the €20 ETIAS fee, but still…)

Some general child updates:

• He has now graduated from SnuzPod to cot. This was a sad and traumatic moment (for me, not for him) and I have no idea why he insists on growing so quickly.
• He has also now graduated from carrycot to parent-facing buggy seat. Again, I felt very bonded with this piece of equipment, and now the era of the carrycot has just been abruptly terminated. But thanks to Jamie for coming round and giving both of these items a new home!
• All of the articles I read about the appropriate levels of screen-time for young children are so focused on TVs, phones and tablets that they never address the most addictive screen of all: the train board. He’ll always turn his head to seek this out!
• He continues to show zero interest in rolling or crawling, but is very happy to sit up straight. I’ve asked him just to pretend to crawl a bit in time for Catherine and AJ’s visit, purely to keep up appearances.

Our revolving-door childcare team over the last month has comprised Stu, then Beth & Stu together, and finally solo Beth, with a few days of bonus Aunty Tash too. Everyone has been wonderful, so thanks! These visits also coincided with both Stu and Beth’s birthdays, so we also got to compare-and-contrast Randi’s dual birthday cakes and evaluate nutella vs. peanut butter icing. (I say “we” but unfortunately I mean just the adults, sorry.) For Beth’s birthday we also spent an evening at Dishoom in Shoreditch, which is always a winner.

This month we also spent a lovely Sunday morning with Steven and Sadie and their little one, who is very close in age to ours, and so will be dangerously vulnerable to the “you must be friends!” argument in future when the parents just want to hang out. I also enjoyed some post-work drinks with Andy in Clerkenwell, watched the Wild London Attenborough special as recommended by Tash (which was great, although I do hope he’s still able to get travel insurance to go further afield) and started a new series of Jet Lag with Randi and Beth. This one is set in Taiwan, which is probably as close to scratching the “you should do a series in China!” itch as it’s possible to go.

Last Sunday, we also took both of our mothers out to a tapas lunch at El Molino in Penge to thank them for all of their grandparenting so far! Their grandson was also super-delighted to have both Bubbe and Granny G together at the same time, as our photos attest.

And finally… Tash, Katie and I also found a few hours for a session on Board Game Arena together! This was extremely fun, and we played all sorts of favourites, from Incan Gold and Can’t Stop to Cartographers, Ticket to Ride and Dobble. My only slight issue is that over the entire course of these varied games, I managed to win precisely none of them. Zero! So, a rematch will clearly be needed at some point.

A couple of weekends back, Randi and I were honoured to be invited to my cousin Alix’s big birthday weekend bash in a house in the countryside near Bath. We were joined by Tash and Cormac, Advia and Yama and many other friends of Alix and Adam for a weekend of incredible food, challenging Taskmaster-esque games, long soaks in the hot tub and communal Winter Olympic viewing. A special thank you to everyone who helped with childcare – not least the slightly older children running around who all took turns in baby cuddling on the sofa! Adam also deserves much credit for his epic organisation.

Our Friday night train there was uneventful, although I was pleased to discover that violently attacking one of my hands with the other could produce endless amounts of gurgling joy in a child. On Sunday afternoon, however, our journey home was interrupted by an unplanned self-guided bonus walking tour of Westbury for an hour thanks to a cancelled train. (It wasn’t a big deal, I just wanted to give a shout-out to Westbury, and apologise for the dropped sock.) Fortunately, we made it back just in time for our dinner with American cousins David and Ginger at Nonna Maria!

The following night I hopped across town for some last-minute evening plans with the Dietz family, who were all in London for a couple of days and by that point had made it to a pub in Marylebone with some of their former Groupon colleagues from Malaysia. I stayed for drinks with Robert and Julie for a while at their hotel, and it was just such a lovely night, which makes up for missing them in Chicago over the holidays.

In my 2025 annual review I briefly mentioned the death of Sabina, who was a life companion to my great uncle Leonard and sadly died in April. Last Sunday was her stone setting ceremony at a cemetary just north of London, and thankfully a few of us from the Regan family were able to make it.

I grew up with Sabina being “part of the family” but I never knew much about the rest of her life, so it was really good to hear such a fulsome eulogy from her cousin Esther, who also sent round a fearsomely well-captioned photo collection afterwards. (Seriously: if someone with the same archivist spirit is around for my death, I’d be very grateful!)

Sadly the bus service continues to fall off a cliff the minute you cross the Greater London boundary, but we took this in our stride and had a great walk from the cemetary over to Theobalds Grove for a pub lunch with mum, Andrew, Bonnie and Tash. Mum then came back with us for a final stint of childcare (at least for a little bit!) – we especially appreciated her commitment to taking him to the local library for singalong sessions!

Other recent guests have included Reema (who allegedly planned to bring us Mini Eggs, but then found them impossible to resist eating on the journey) and Esther (who did manage to arrive with Mini Eggs unscathed). We invited Esther specifically because she’s casually written an incredible novel in her spare time, and Randi and I both had so many thoughts and questions after reading it that we thought we’d stage a private ‘meet the author’ book club for the two of us. Thank you so much for Esther for putting up with all of our overthinking of things!

We’ve waited ages for Katie and Mairi’s appearance on the quiz show Riddiculous to be released, so were excited to finally be able to stream it! (No spoilers, but they were great, albeit with some quite impressive opponents too.) On Friday night, we allowed ourselves to stretch bedtime just a little in order to try the new Khachapuri restaurant in Crystal Palace, which was predictably delicious and will definitely be due a revisit soon. And finally, last night we went to a birthday party for Randi’s colleague Dan in Cricklewood, which was a super-interesting gathering of people. It also provided a great opportunity to make a nostalgic exit at Willesden Green, which will forever be my home station.

Today we welcomed back Stewart (aka Zayde) to London for his stint of grandparent childcare, so for his sake we’re all hoping that spring continues to blossom forth. Otherwise, Randi and I have just been incredibly lucky (so far!) to enjoy an incredibly chill, easygoing baby who doesn’t complain when he’s bundled in and out of trains or passed liberally between strangers’ arms. No doubt things will get harder, but he’s certainly given us a relatively gentle introduction to parenting at least. (Famous last words…)

At the risk of being annoyingly vague, it’s been a really terrible few weeks for a couple of people close to us. So, if you’re reading this, this is just a moment for me to mark and remember before moving on with less important things. 💛

For us, the highlight of January was Randi’s mum Beth – Bubbe! – coming to stay with us for a 10 day stretch. On a previous visit we had accidentally gotten Bubbe and Zayde completely addicted to Jet Lag, so much so that they had promptly gone home and binge-watched every season so far. As a consequence, Randi and I were obliged to prepare for Beth’s visit by speeding through Tag Eur It: All Stars (an extremely good season!) in order to be up-to-date enough to watch Hide + Seek: UK together with her. (No, I hadn’t anticipated that this blog would turn into a Jet Lag fanzine either.)

It was obviously very exciting to see the team speed around a familiar landscape, and although I was disappointed we didn’t get any London-based rounds, Britain’s railway system held up much better overall than Germany’s Deutsche Bahn. It’s just clear to me that in a few years we’ll need to get ourselves a copy of the home game and organise a family event!

Aside from watching competitive YouTube travel shows, we also had a delicious evening at Nonna Maria, enjoyed a great afternoon and walk around the neighbourhood with Great Aunt Carolyn, and hosted Sam, Reema and Esther one evening at ours after work. Randi and Beth cooked many things for this, but the most exciting – even though they didn’t turn out quite as desired! – were the extremely moreish potato knishes. Thank you!

We also completed the first batch of pages of our first family photo album, which Randi and I have decided to do in a deliberately retro 90s style complete with fiddly adhesive paper, handwritten captions and that plastic film which you can never smooth out 100% correctly. But it’s nice to be forced to curate hundreds of digital photos into a more manageable story, and it feels very grown-up to have a big physical album on the shelf.

In January I also felt dutifully civic by doing some local litter-picking (thanks to Kate and Lucy for organising!) and very much enjoyed watching the 13 minute comedy Govan Fair Queen. This Scottish short film was recommended by Katie, who I think has realised that the chances of me watching a feature-length movie are now even lower than usual. Randi and I also had a lovely afternoon at Frankie and Kirst’s baby shower.

Talking of Scotland: last weekend, our son made it north of the border for the first time on a long weekend to Edinburgh. Our first stop was to see Katie and James’s new house in person, which has a wonderfully cosy vibe, and we’re excited about appropriating it as our Scottish base of operations for years to come. Then we had a quick turnaround in order to make it to a Labour Party Burns supper.

I’ve never been to a Burns Night before, but the haggis-centric menu is obviously excellent, and I appreciated the brief but intense performance of Burns’s poetry. Sadly, we weren’t able to stay late enough for the ‘Toast to the Lassies’ and their subsequent reply, but we were able to hand over our baby to Anas Sarwar for safekeeping for a little bit, and I can confirm that the leader of Scottish Labour is also a natural with children. So, that’s one photo for the album! The next day we also had a wonderful afternoon at Kirsty and Roger’s, although I accidentally ate the last mini cupcake and still feel quite guilty about it.

For Secret Santa this year Randi and I had been given tickets to Edinburgh’s Barnton Quarry Nuclear Bunker, and so on Sunday afternoon the five of us set off for a fascinating tour around this newly-restored Cold War era facility.

Originally an RAF base to detect and deter Soviet attacks by air, this underground complex was transformed into a civilian command centre during the height of the Cold War once it was recognised that the nuclear threat had shifted permanently from planes to missiles. Now that there was no chance of actually preventing armageddon if an attack was launched, the government’s focus shifted to trying to prepare to govern in its aftermath, and so the bunker includes a BBC radio studio to broadcast instructions to the public (they play a rather chilling test announcement on the tour) and facilities for officials to try to maintain some semblance of law and order.

In retrospect, it turns out that thanks to aerial photographs the Soviets had always known the exact location of Scotland’s prospective ‘regional seat of government’, so they probably could have wiped it out completely if they’d wanted to. And (spoiler alert!) thankfully the world never actually descended into all-out nuclear war, so the preparations were moot.

In the 1980s, the site was decommissioned and lay abandoned, becoming a great spot for illegal raves. (And to be fair, walking around it did feel like the ideal ambience you might want for an illegal rave you had to organise.) Indeed, my favourite fact on the whole tour was that trespassers originally used the ventilation shafts to break in, and given that this is a trope used in every single sci-fi TV show ever made it was very exciting to see giant, human-sized air vents in real life which could actually be used for such a purpose. In the 1990s the whole thing was destroyed by fire, but since 2011 teams of volunteers have been working to restore the site and it’s only recently now open for visitors.

In summary – a highly recommended tour!

Back at Katie and James’s we watched two more short films from the BBC Comedy Short Films series: neither as good as Govan Fair Queen, but a sweet enough short about two Bradford kids imagining themselves into space in Rocket Fuel and the rather dark 7 Minutes. We also got a chance for a quick classic Doctor Who two-parter with The King’s Demons, which is by no means a highlight of the genre (and doesn’t even include any trespassing through air vents!) but was nonetheless an unexpected bonus of the trip. Finally, we all played Dominion together! (Randi would want me to include that she won.)

This week Randi returned to work part-time, and so we were especially grateful to Granny G for coming to stay with us for a couple of days of childcare duties. She also rustled up a pair of scrumptious fish pies, and joined us for Friday night drinks at the Perry Hill pub to celebrate the weekend. Finally, yesterday we also reached the exciting milestone of baby’s first swim! Despite probably being a bit cold (a full-length swimsuit is now in the post) he seemed to enjoy it, and I’m very much looking forward to more follow-up sessions soon. I used to love swimming as a kid, and all of the fun stuff (like floats!) brought it all flowing back.

Hello from Chicago! I’ll write about this trip once we’re home again, but for now I’m taking advantage of still having my hands free (despite also having a sleeping baby on me) to bring this blog up to date with our Chrismukkah back home.

My first Christmas outing was to listen to carols and general festive songs at our beloved local pub, The Perry Hill, along with a baked camembert, a pie and a pint. (Truly, it’s hard to think of a better combination of things for an evening.) I also enjoyed some seasonal post-work drinks one night with Lee and Paul to bid farewell to the year. The following night, after wrapping up at work, my family descended on Tash and Cormac’s for a very special Hanukkah celebration together.

The last few days in the run-up to Christmas were a little hectic, with us juggling a second round of baby vaccines, a madcap dash to collect his passport from the US Embassy in time for travel, and my grandmother’s funeral on Christmas Eve. A few days before that, the extended family gathered at her flat to say goodbye and – of course – compete in a brilliantly-organised quiz. (My team lost badly, and I still feel bad about my contribution to this defeat. Otherwise, it was the perfect send-off.)

In amongst this we also managed to see Matt, Laura and their kids for a morning at ours, and also spent a lovely afternoon with Reema and my mum. This included an amazing moment at a café in Sydenham where, after Randi and Reema had been discussing the plot of the novel which their mutual friend has just casually written in her spare time, we were interrupted by the man on the next table asking for the title so that he could buy a copy!

After all of these comings and goings, we ended up on Christmas Eve with my mum, Tash and Katie hunkered down at ours, ready for our first family Christmas of the next generation. We had such an incredible time filled with many generous presents, some water-based tummy time, several rounds of mutual psychological analysis with the ‘Preferences’ game, Katie’s special Christmas mull, the WILTY Boxing Day special, a sunny afternoon walk up Blythe Hill and – of course – lots and lots of filling Christmas food. Special thanks to Tash for proposing the excellent Christmas ham with Coca Cola recipe, which was delicious!

Before I begin: yesterday my Grandma died overnight at the age of 93. She was my last surviving grandparent, which is quite something given that I first wrote this type of post back in 2008.

My earliest memories of Grandma are hazy, but in a good way, as she helped to look after me when I was very young. I’m pretty confident that egg and toast soldiers on the little table in the kitchen were involved, though. Later, armed with my incredible portable tape recorder, I remember going with her to church and recording the service, which she was disappointed to discover sounded “mostly like people standing up and sitting down again”.

My siblings, cousins and I can all thank her for a huge number of family outings, and for bringing a packet of Fruit Pastilles to pass along the row during any theatre trips in case we got hungry between the start and the interval. At home, she hosted many family gatherings – both big and small – and was the central figure around whom the rest of the family orbited.

I’m incredibly glad that she got to meet her fourth great-grandchild before she died, and that she approved of him too!

We are now hurtling towards Christmas, and after carefully measuring the ceiling height of our new house, we were kindly joined by my mum on pram-pushing duties so that Randi and I could continue our tradition of carrying home the largest possible Christmas tree. It’s a beauty!

Back in November, I also had my celebrated first mulled wine of the season at The Free Press in Cambridge, during a family trip for lunch with Peter Mandler. (Yes, this means our child has now crossed over the London boundary for the first time… and his father has successfully changed a nappy on the freshly-mopped floor of a Greater Anglia toilet!)

We’ve also enjoyed a lovely afternoon visit from Andrew and Bonnie, and also made it up to Kingsbury for a long-awaited first meeting with Josh, Anna and family. This was an incredibly special moment as Josh and I did always plan to have kids at roughly the same time so as to unlock the possibility of joint walks across Hampstead Heath later on. That’s still in the future, but in the meantime I was very amused to receive Economics for babies as a gift. “It was her favourite book!”

In other news, I was very, very happy to finally give blood again successfully after my ban for failing the iron test expired. It’s good to donate blood, of course, but the main motivation (other than keeping myself in the race with my sisters) was that I could legitimately pick up one of those adorable ‘my dad gave blood today!’ stickers which I have wanted forever.

I was also very chuffed to be chosen, alongside my colleague Patrick, to attend the 2025 Travolution Awards. My company, eviivo, had been shortlisted in several categories but we had no idea we were actually going to clinch ‘Best Technology Product’. Huge congratulations to all of my colleagues at eviivo who work so hard to build something amazing!

Finally, yesterday turned out to be an extremely strange day. After waking up to the news of my Grandma, Randi and I turned our attention to welcoming the rest of our NCT class to ours for a holiday get-together. (It turned into a real feast after everyone arrived with lots of delicious food, but as a backup we were also ready with an array of premium biscuits: Grandma would have been proud.)

Martina and Will were the first to arrive, and while chatting over the frying of latkes, Randi and Michaela discovered that for a year they had actually gone to the same high school, only one year apart. This is all the more impressive given that Michaela is from the Czech Republic.

Those latkes, by the way, were hands down the best latkes I have ever had. It’s going to be nail-biting on Randi’s next batch to see if she can replicate them.

In the evening we also popped over to Angela’s for her 50th birthday drinks, although we didn’t join the trip to go clubbing in Balham afterwards. (Actually, I’m not sure we were really invited to go clubbing in Balham. My 50th is going to be a lot more pedestrian.)

Tonight is also the first night of Hanukkah, so we’ll also be experimenting with baby’s first candles!