Springtime continues to deliver some wonderful weather to London in 2011. Even at the height of summer, the English climate is not usually one for shorts and sandals -- a cool breeze tends to keep it too brisk for that -- but the last few weeks have brought a prolonged blast of sunny, mild, even balmy weather. So that pair of shorts that I brought over from New Jersey have been getting some good use.
A highlight of the vernal season so far was a visit to Kew Gardens last weekend. A luxurious set of botanical gardens on the west side of London, these are also surprisingly easy to get from our place, thanks to the shiny new London Overground (new line that will be transit hub during next summer's Olympics). We met up with our friends from Sadie's ballet class, Sophie and her parents Hunter and Jenny, and had a picnic by the newly-budding azaleas. Nice.
Otherwise we've been chugging along. Some sicknesses here and there (Karen with a feverish achey joint crud, Sadie with a cold, Parker with diaper rash and me with a quick 1-day bug) but nothing too prolonged and generally we feel a lot healthier than we did last fall. Sadie is currently on spring break from school which is keeping Karen and Andrea particularly busy, especially since Sadie's back in a phase of hard-core terrible two defiance (always gets worse when she's sick). I've been traveling a bit (3 days in US, where I got to see my family in DC which was great; and a day in Zurich).
The exterior work on our house continues, and although we managed to negotiate a modest rent reduction out of it we're still pretty pissed off at the situation. Hoping we at least get some of the warmer weather without spending it with a bunch of Polish workers over coffee and cigarettes (which they spend a lot more time consuming than they do working on the house).
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