Visitors at Christmas

Lucy and Scott are here visiting for Christmas; it has been wonderful to see them and celebrate the holidays together. The younger generation all get along really well together, no big surprise there. Here is a shot of Scott and gang walking in the King's college yard; I think this is the afternoon that they arrived, but nobody seems to be showing the jet lag (they all look very serious, like a group of dons having a philosophy discussion).



Hanging of stockings proved to be an interesting puzzle, since when we rented out house in Cambridge, the one thing we had to promise was to "not put any new holes in the walls". We decided that this should probably extend to banging nails into the mantelpiece, so we had to come up with alternate means of attaching our stockings (I suppose we always could have used duct tape, but that seems like a cop-out). Here is the arrangement we came up with:



Not terribly stable, but it only had to last one morning. The weird-looking thing on the very right had side of the photo is actually a large paper-mache fish that Lydia and I made together; she has mostly finished painting it, so now we need to figure out a better place to display it (maybe hung from the ceiling?).

More Cartooning

Pancake Man is a cartoon character that I fool around with occasionally (I think the first P.M. cartoon that I did was on an airplane while trying to entertain Lydia at some point). Here is a PDF file with the latest episode (sorry for the ads-- blogspot/blogger doesn't accept PDF files, so I had to put the file on a free (ad-driven) image hosting site).

I started this particular cartoon while we were on vacation this fall, then finally cleaned it up and got it scanned in. I also did a "Pancake Man Attends the Family Reunion" cartoon, but alas, that particular piece of paper seems to have been lost during the move to Cambridge. Pancake Man has many admirable qualities, however the chief one from my perspective is that he is very easy to draw-- good for bouncy car rides or cramped airplane seats.

Winter Solstice

Having lived through most of December here in the UK, I think I have a better feeling now as to why the solstices played such an important role for the Druids and other early peoples around here. This past week when I look outside at noontime, the sun is literally only a third or so up into the sky, and it really does start to get dark around 3:45 in the afternoon. You really do notice which spots have a southern exposure and which do not-- it makes a huge difference when it comes to how quickly they will defrost in the morning. There is one school of thought among historical archeologists that Stonehenge was actually built mainly to mark the winter solstice, not the summer solstice, interestingly enough. It certainly seems like a more noticeable event to me (at least at the moment).

Beer, Thy Name Is Legion

The number and variety of different types of beer here is nearly overwhelming; in addition to the zillions of national brands, each region has its own oddball local varieties. Here is a shot from the "Beer Wall" at Waitrose, the local supermarket. Just imagine this same sequence of bottles covering an entire wall for another 10 yards.



At this point I have really only tried a few, so it is hard to draw any firm conclusions about British beer. The ale served in pubs is good, but also rather flat and somewhat warmer than I like it (I realize that it is heresy here in the UK to want your glass of ale served at the same temperature as lager, but so be it).

Here is photo I took while running some errands on Lensfield road the other day (another advantage of biking: if you see something interesting, you can just pull over wherever you want and take a photo). I'm not quite sure why, but there is something about entertaining about this sign...



The UK does indeed seem like a generally more boozy society than the US; there is certainly plenty to suggest this when you read in newspapers and various books about national alcohol consumption habits. If I remember the statistics, the UK has around 60 million people, with something like 60 thousand pubs-- one for every thousand people (sometimes it seems that you can't go anywhere without bumping into a pub). On the other hand, I think the pubs mainly function as a social gathering place, as opposed to strictly a drinking spot. When people bemoan the closing of their local (something that happens a lot) it's not because they go there to drink-- they want to be able to bump into their friends and/or neighbors.

Lydia as Clara

Here is a shot of Lydia performing in the year 3 play earlier this fall, a modified version of the Nutcracker. She landed a plum role, "Clara", which was big thrill for her and resulted in lots of extra attention at school. In all the Nutcracker productions I've seen, Clara is dressed in a nightgown or pajamas, but in this one for some reason she wound up wearing what looks like a formal dinner gown. No complaints from Lydia of course, she enjoyed wearing it.

All things Rugby, including Rugby at Rugby

During the last month, the television has been prominently featuring rugby games from both "Rugby League" and "Rugy Union", the two big international rugby leagues. Ethan, the chief household rugby enthusiast, has been absolutely lapping up the coverage, and I've actually enjoyed watching some of it as well. I am finally getting a little closer to understanding the game, even though I still have no idea what the penalty is when the ref blows his whistle.

The big news in rugby this year has been the meteoric ascent (or more accurately re-ascent) of a major rugby power, New Zealand. The New Zealanders call their Union team the "All Blacks", and they are lot of fun to watch. The very start of a New Zealand match is always worth catching, since when the teams line up on the field, the All Blacks do a traditional Maori dance a ("haka") prior to the start of the game. The haka includes chanting in Maori and various hand & body movements (all the players together); it is designed basically to intimidate the heck out of the opposing team. If you read the translation of the Maori words that they are chanting during the haka, they are not in fact all that bloodthirsty, but if you had to guess the meaning while watching it for the first time, you would probably come up with "We are going to skin you alive, cook and eat you for dinner, then burn your bones", or something like that. YouTube is littered with haka videos; here is one.

Unlike some of the other rugby teams, whose style is very heavy on moving the ball through kicking or by "grinding" it out in the scrum, the All Blacks instead rely on their running game and their ball handling, which is amazingly good. New Zealand also stands out in that they are absolutely ruthless about exploiting mistakes made by the other team-- if the jugular is exposed, they go for it with teeth bared. The pattern for most of the matches that I have seen is that the first half is fairly even, and then after some crucial mistake of one sort or another, New Zealand kicks into high gear and absolutely stomps on the other team for the remaining 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, on the more local rugby scene: this past weekend the St Faiths side participated in a "7's" tournament at none other than the original Rugby School, located in (of cousre) the town of Rugby. Rugby is about 70 miles from Cambridge, so it's not too terribly far to drive. Instead of the usual format for the matches (12 on a side, 20 minutes per half) this tournament featured 7 players on a side, with 7 minute halves (very short indeed), but with the same size pitch as usual. Hence: lots of running, with a heavy emphasis on passing and possession (as opposed to kicking). Small scrums, only three players. It was interesting to watch but probably not the happiest match for the St Faiths side, partly due to the weather (it was *really* cold) and partly due to the fact that the other teams participating in the tournament were all rugby powerhouses, so we didn't make much headway. I overheard one of the coaches saying that one of the kids on the opposing team had run a 13.5 second 100 meters, which is mighty fast indeed. On the bright side, Ethan scored his first "try" in a real (non-practice) match, so he got considerably satisfaction from that.

The Importance of Shoe Polish

Weird as it may sound, my life here in Cambridge has led me to appreciate the value of something that I never paid the slightest attention to previously: shoe polish. For most of my life, shoe polish was something that I used at incredibly infrequent intervals; I just didn't wear my dress shoes often enough to ever get them dirty. In fact, the most challenging thing about shoe polish was actually finding the stuff-- I would have to dig through all of my closets and most of the way through the basement in order to locate the ancient and much-neglected can.

Here in Cambridge, however, shoe polish is a critical commodity. Both kids wear "nice" shoes to school, and more importantly, both kids run around outside in the mud and muck during recess getting their (leather) shoes good and wet. Ethan's shoes in particular are a complete wreck by the end of the week; in addition to running around in them, he also plays soccer in them. I have to first dry them out for a day by setting them on the radiator, then when they are no longer soaking, it's time to hit them hard with the black shoe polish. It's actually kind of amazing that it works as well as it does: at the end of the process, you get back a pair of shoes that actually looks somewhat decent, or at least looks something like a real shoe, and not a muddy/soggy lump. This phoenix-like rebirth never ceases to amaze me.

Leaf Paste and Bike Crashes

Now that we are well into autumn, I have to say that the daily bike rides to school are not quite as appealing as they first were back in September. For one thing, because of the shorter days (plus daylight savings), the ride home from St Faiths at 4:35 or is almost entirely in the dark. If you add in cold weather and rain, some of the trips home have been pretty yucky. I have loaded the kids up with reflective vests and bike lights (both clear lights in the front and bright red "blinker" lights in the back), but it's still not easy for them. Meanwhile, the bike path through Llamas Land that was so appealing ealier this year has now become rather treacherous. Here in Cambridge (as in New England) there are leaves falling off the trees, but because of all the rainfall, they begin to decompose almost as soon as they hit the ground, and after a few days they have turned into a sort of "leaf paste"-- even if you went at it with a rake or a leaf blower, I'm not sure you'd be able to do much. It's quite slippery and unpredictable. Both Ethan and Lydia are being very good sports about it, though-- no grumbling to speak of.

The other unpleasant thing that happened recently is that Lydia managed to get into a bike crash with another cyclist while riding to school in the morning (November 12th). There is one section of the ride on Trumpington St just before we get to the school where you actually have cyclists going both directions on the same strip of sidewalk. Not a pleasant thing (there is very little room for error), but the alternative is even worse-- it means crossing the street and using the combined bus/cycle lane. The bus drivers around here are a completely ruthless lot when it comes to cyclists (they don't really have any choice, since there is almost never enough room for them to swing out into traffic to avoid a bike). No way, no how would I ever let Lydia ride with the buses, and from what I have observed, virtually all of the kids who cycle on Trumpington do the same thing.

Anyhow, while riding along on the bike path, Lydia got a little too close to the oncoming cycle traffic and collided head-on with another lady coming in the opposite direction. I was worried at first that there might be a serious injury, but to my surprise, Lydia and the other lady picked themselves up, and there were no broken bones and no blood. At the time I said to myself "Whew", but at that point the other lady got her breath back and she really lit into me. She started with a long diatribe about how I needed to "control" my "incompetent" daughter, then enumerated all of the various body parts that were sore or bruised (rolled up her trousers to display her knee to me [nothing brusied or bloody that I could see]), then complained about her front basket (the top part had been dislodged -- easily fixed) and her fender, then grumbled that she had "just had her bike in for servicing", went back again to scold me some more about how I was "irresponsible" in relation to my daughter, etc etc etc. It was very unpleasant. Lydia of course was in tears the whole time; she said "I'm sorry" to the lady several times, but the lady was too busy complaining to respond. As a final measure, she insisted on getting my name and address (which I gave to her). I wasn't sure whether I would ever hear from her again, but sure enough, I got a letter in the mail repeating some of the nasty things she said on the 12th.

After the letter, which arrived in mid-November, I haven't heard anything more from the bike crash lady. We actually see her periodically during the morning bike rides now, on same section of the sidewalk as before. I am pretty sure she recognizes me as well (although she is careful not to make any sustained eye contact...). Our routine now for this stretch of the ride is that I ride in front of Lydia and she cycles close behind me-- hopefully if there are any more bike crashes to be had, it will be me doing the crashing and not her. Lydia doesn't really talk too much about the bike crash, but when she does, she has taken to referring to the other lady as the "woman who doesn't like children".

Guy Fawkes

In the USA, fireworks are a summer thing, but in the UK, November (Guy Fawkes day) is fireworks month. Unlike many areas of the US, fireworks are sold legally to the general public (they even had them in the local Tesco's), so you hear a fair amount of booming and banging in the weeks leading up to the day and before and after the day. I kind of like the idea of a holiday that is entirely given over to things that burn and blow up in interesting ways-- there is no flag waving, no historical lectures about this or that: it's just straight fireworks and bonfires, thank you very much.

The celebration in Cambridge was held on Midsummer Common, which in the north part of central Cambridge just south of the Cam. I was a little apprehensive about biking into the city at night through the big crowds of people, but in fact it wasn't a difficult ride at all, and the crowds were (for the most part) very well behaved. The display was lovely. It was a little foggy, but we were able to get close enough that we could see everything. Here is a short video from the outing.

Driving

I think I am (finally!) starting to get a little more comfortable behind the steering wheel here in England these days. It has taken me a while, most likely because I haven't actually had to drive on a very regular basis since we've been here. The kids and I bike to and from school, and we nearly always bike if we're going to hit the library or visit somewhere downtown. About the only place to which I really have to drive is the local Waitrose (grocery store).



The first few weeks, I found that after driving for 5 or 10 minutes I would suddenly realize that my body had started to lean slightly to the left (maybe this was my subconscious telling me that it wanted to shift from the right-hand seat to the left hand seat!), and I would have to straighten myself out again by leaning to the right. That seems to have gone away, but holding the stick shift in my left hand definitely still feels weird.

British drivers are, on the whole, a pretty good lot. Naturally, you can always find one or two that behave badly, but for the most part they and both skillful and easy to get along with. In both Santa Clara and in Lexington you periodically run into drivers that look as if they are just barely competent (e.g. afraid to touch the accelerator pedal, forget to signal turns, etc)-- I really haven't seen any of those types here in Cambridge. I think it may have something to do with the UK driving tests, which are quite difficult to pass.

Highway driving seems ok, although the big highways (M1, M6) seem to be very crowded at all hours of day and night. On our trip up to the Lake District last weekend we made aggressive use of the GPS, which helped a lot. We have named our GPS "Bruce" (Ethan was fiddling with the unit and somehow managed to set his "voice" to an Australian accent-- not sure how to undo that).

So far no accidents or "bumps", although I have had a couple of close calls, the closest at the main rotary near the train station (very busy indeed). The cardinal rules that I need to keep repeating to myself are: 1) keep left (duh!), and 2) look for oncoming traffic from your right (crucial for rotaries). It also helps to keep the radio turned off-- the fewer distractions, the better. I haven't had any significant "lane confusion" issues, thank goodness. In fact, the only incident I can think of was on a recent trip down Grantchester Road to the grocery store, where I came around a corner and was confronted with a white-haired elderly lady who was approaching from the opposite direction in my lane. Possible American ex-pat? Anyhow, she realized her mistake and pulled to the other side before we reached the critical juncture.

Riding on the passenger side still feels a little odd, too. It is hard to ignore the sensation that your side of the car is about to smash into something (of course it doesn't help much that most of the roads in Cambridge are very narrow, so there are lots of tight squeezes and tiny alleys where you have to "take turns" with the oncoming traffic.

Evensong

Yesterday we went to hear Evensong at King's College Chapel. Dad and Joanie are visiting this week; through his various Cambridge connections, he was able to get us reserved seats in the main portion of the church. It was a memorable experience-- the building alone is very old and lovely, and the music was astonishingly beautiful. This page has some pictures of the exterior of the church; here is a page on the choir itself (the top picture is actually more or less exactly the view that we were seeing, although from a slightly different angle). The interior of the church dates back to the original construction (completed in 1547)-- it was amazing to sit in a seat made from an oak tree that grew in the first part of the 16th century.

Rugby

Ethan has taken to rugby in a big way this fall, and the St Faiths rugby team has definitely taken to him as well. In spite of his relative inexperience (e.g. never played a game before this September), he seems to have figured out how to operate on the rugby field and make his way in the game. Here is a shot of Ethan's team (most of them at least) with their coach, Mr Mageean.


As a parent watching the games, I have to say that it is an emotional roller coaster. On the one hand I am very proud of Ethan and I love to watch him out on the field playing. On the other hand, rugby is a rough game, no two ways about it. I cringe every time I see him get tackled or wind up on the bottom of the scrum. It also doesn't help much that if it were me out there, I would not last 10 minutes without having to be led off the field with some sort of broken bone or strained muscle.

There are of course rules designed to limit the amount of contact for this age group. For example, the runners are supposed to avoid "fending off" with one hand when they run: you are supposed to hold onto the ball with two hands (in theory) which in turn leads you to be a little more conservative about making contact (e.g. when you see yourself about to be tackled, you can turn your back).

There is a huge team element in rugby, at least as much as there is in soccer if not more (which I like). When you get tackled, you try to hand off to another of your teammates, and much of the strategy and field positioning play is design to enable this sort of transfer.

Here is a picture of Ethan setting up for the scrum. For a while it seemed that his coaches were moving him from position to position every day (at one point he was tight head prop, at one point he was playing left wing, etc) but at this point he seems to be consistently in the back part of the scrum, typically "lock" (second row).



This next sequence of photos gives you a sense for the flow of the game. In the first shot, Ethan's teammate is being tackled, so he passes it laterally to Ethan. Ethan grabs the ball, charges forward, then gets tackled by the other team. And so it goes...





The strategic part of rugby is interesting, particularly kicking. In American football, virtually all of the kicking plays (punt, field goal) are set pieces, elaborately planned and rehearsed ahead of time and often with a specialized/dedicated kicking crew. In rugby, if you have the ball and you suddenly decide that you don't like you or your team's field position, you can haul off and kick it up field more or less at any point. Picture to illustrate:



There are occasional breakaways, but it doesn't seem to happen that often. In one of the most recent St Faiths games, the other team had one guy who was especially speedy and was able to break away. This next shot shows Ethan trying (unsuccessfully) to chase down this player after he broke away on the sideline. [Note of parental pride: Ethan was the only kid on the team who got close enough to even get a shot at tackling this speed demon].

Libraries

Cambridge, in spite of being a world-renowned center for learning with an extraordinary history of academic achievement, doesn't have an especially good public library system right at the moment. The main library downtown is closed for repairs, and the various branch libraries are miniscule, with tiny collections and cramped quarters. [Footnote: yes, it seems incredibly petty to grumble about something like this, but libraries are such an integral part of our family life, it's a shock when things aren't working out.] I decided that I wouldn't be put off by the small stacks, so I just went on line and requested a bunch of books from other libraries in the Cambridgeshire area. When I went in to pick up my loans yesterday, however, I wound up having to pay a one pound "transport" fee for each book. Ouch! I really miss my local library in Lexington, which I have obviously been taking for granted until now. You know don't know how good you've got it until "it" isn't around any more!

Oi! Me bank's been nationalized!

Woke up this morning to hear on the radio that Gordon Brown and company decided to take a controlling interest in the Royal Bank of Scotland (owner of NatWest, the British bank that our family uses here). The banking crisis hits home...

I can't say that the banking experience here is all that wonderful, at least compared with how things are in the US. Generally speaking in America you can open a free checking account with nearly any bank as long as you have a pulse and you provide some sort of minimum deposit. Here in the UK we had to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to get the same sort of deal-- most of the banks wanted to charge us steep fees just in order to provide us with a checking account (and apparently this is not just how foreigners are treated-- it's the same deal for the locals). Amy was able to find a better deal with NatWest, but it was puzzling that the "base" level of service here is so much more expensive.

Artwork

Here is Lydia's latest, a portrait of her mom. The photo doesn't quite do it justice-- it looks better in person. She drew the main features of the face in pencil and then did the rest with her watercolors.

Cycling

Here are a couple of pix of my trusty bicycle, which I have been using religiously since we arrived here in Cambridge-- cycling has become a huge part of our everyday life. If you look closely at the odometer, it reads 221 miles, which over 6 weeks averages out to about 5 miles a day, which seems like a lot. Still, if you figure that I bike to and from school (St Faiths) twice a day during the week, that gets me pretty close to 5 miles already, then once you add in a bunch of longer rides on the weekend, it makes sense.



I am especially proud of my kids for all the biking they have done since we arrived here! There has been remarkably little complaining (all things considered), and they are developing into very competent cyclists as a result of all the mileage. The morning rides are definitely challenging-- sometimes it is quite cold, the pavement can be slick, there are cow pies to be dodged in poor light (on the Llamas Land portion of the ride), and all of the other bikers on the paths are usually in a hurry and biking aggressively.



I do worry every now and then about bike safety. If you bike a lot, sooner or later you are going to get into a bike accident of some sort: it's really just a matter of time. Both Amy and I have had several close calls while biking, and both Ethan and Lydia have had (minor) spills while biking to and from school.

Interestingly enough, you see very few "real" mountain bikes on the roads around here, compared to the USA. There are plenty of hybrids and bikes with "sort of" mountain geometry, but really most of the cycles you see out there were purpose built for commuting, which is kind of neat. Folding bicycles are also very popular; it's reallyquite common for people who work in the city to park on the outskirts, haul the bike out of their trunk, unfold it, and go by cycle from there.

I hope all of our bikes manage to make it through the year, given the heavy use. My bike has developed a bunch of slightly ominous clicking/crunching noises-- I am hoping that if I ignore them, they will go away...

A grand day out

This weekend we had our first day trip into London, which was an excellent outing. Saturday morning we woke to cool weather, a bit windy, fairly high cloud ceiling, but the weather forecast was grim (predicted "pouring" rain in the evening). Accordingly, we left the bikes in the shed and called a cab to get to the train station. The train was fine-- we had a little muddle at the station trying to find a newspaper, but then settled in and had an uneventful ride. Took about 50-55 minutes with no stops. Kings Cross station was mobbed-- way more people than I had expected to see on a chilly Saturday morning in October (wonder what it's like in July!), and we had another mob scene in the Underground due to the fact that the Victoria line entrance was closed for the day to be worked on, so all of those guys pushed onto our train (the Picadilly line). Anyhow, we got to the Waterloo tube station without any problems.

The London Eye is pretty cool-- I think everyone really enjoyed it. The wheel travels at a ridiculously sedate pace, but in fact this is a good thing, since it gives you lots of time to soak in the sights. Picture taking is a little tricky due to the fact that the curved glass on the "pods" tends to warp the view slightly, so you have to pick your spot. Lovely views of Westminster / Parliment, the river, and you can even see St Pauls off on the distance to the northeast.

After we finished up at the Eye, we took a walk around on the riverside and then tried going across the footbridge for the view. On out way back across the river we got to hear Big Ben chime the noon hour, which was neat. At that point we high-tailed it to the restaurant for lunch: "Ping Pong" a sort of reinvented dim sum place (very sleek and modern, with contemporary furniture, etc). The food was quite good, although for some reason they wouldn't give me a bowl of rice to go along with the dumplings, so I was still rather hungry afterwards (wound up eating both the carrots that I had brought as part of kid snack food).

The weather was nice (still quite cool and breezy but only a hint of rain every now and then) so we decided to walk to the theater district. We went past Trafalgar Square, where they were having some sort of very large Unicef demonstration on child poverty, then up along Charing Cross road, which was also quite crowded. That area has a lot of the same qualities that you find in the Broadway theater area in New York, except that it's all crammed into a much smaller area
with narrower streets.

Amy had arranged ahead for theater tickets in the afternoon, the 3pm performance of "Stomp". When we arrived at the theater, we still had plenty of time, so we decided to go for a walk the area. There are several used book stores along Charing Cross that we got to explore, and then we cut over into Chinatown for a bit to see what it looked like. Chinatown was just a bit too crowded (also we were getting tired of walking), so we ducked into a bakery to buy a couple of coconut buns, then headed back to the theater to wait for the show.

"Stomp" was terrific-- amazing dancing and music (percussion, that is). Many of the individual percussion performance pieces during the show were just jaw-dropping ("how the heck did he/she do that!!!"), the group pieces were terrific as well. Very entertaining; my expectations were greatly exceeded.

Afterwards we thought about eating dinner in the area (there was actually a nice restaurant that we walked by), but it was still fairly early and we didn't feel like yet another tromp around the city before dinner. Instead we decided to make our retreat to Cambridge, so we hopped on the tube to King's Cross and caught the 5:15 train back to Cambridge (just made it in time). It had indeed started to rain at that point, so we felt good about not having biked (also felt good to take a warm cab ride back to Newnham!).

For dinner we had pizza + pasta at the Red Bull, one of the local pubs in Newnham (right down on Barton Road). Very cheerful place; friendly staff, nice atmosphere. The pizza we ordered for the kids was good, although the pasta dishes were a little on the bland side. The waiter who brought us our food turned out to be from Colorado (he actually had a very British look to him, and we were certain he was a local until he opened his mouth and started speaking). After that we walked the rest of the way home-- raining lightly but not too cold. All in all, a nice day.

Today, Sunday, we woke up to more find that the rain had started in earnest, so we had an "at home day" catching up on laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and (of course) blogging. The kids and I are having a lot of fun playing the board game ("The aMAZEing Labyrinth") that Rustin gave Ethan for his birthday. The rain finally let up long enough for me to go for a run-- it was a hard slog (my legs are still store from the walking yesterday, apparently).

Getting started

Thoughts on my first posting: I still can't quite believe that my son Ethan aced me out with respect to entering the blogosphere-- his blog has been up and running for more than a month. Get with the program, dad! I hope to squeeze in a few posts this weekend in a feeble attempt to catch up.