An invasion! From Uzbekistan!

As noted before, our daughter Ashley has been developing new versions of Sherwood kids every two years or so for the past thirteen years, and the latest was due to arrive in October.  She was initially planning to travel from Tashkent, Uzbekistan to have the new one in London, but after plans had been laid, including ours (see a previous post) that destination was changed to Raleigh.  This time, however, her good husband refused to impose on us for her lodging with the other six kids for the required six weeks before and after her delivery , and they rented a house about ten minutes away.
However, that was no impediment to a lot of fun with the gang.  Everything from sailing boats in the back yard

to digging out Laura and Ashley's wedding dress (they had employed the same one) with cousins,

to washing Grandpa's car on a sunny afternoon, which of course involved spraying Grandpa,

to enjoying the slides at Monkey Palace

and climbing high enough in the neighbor's magnolia to require oxygen.

Ashley kept the kids on schedule in their schooling, and even enrolled them in equestrian lessons, which they were taking as Phys Ed back in Tashkent.  Ironically she got them in at the same stables where she had ridden as a teenager, having earned her own money to do so.  

No one could keep clothes on Big Bill, aka Captain Underpants.  

Brandon arrived from Tashkent in time to get over most of the jet lag before New Baby Elizabeth Sherwood arrived safely in the early morning hours of October 23, to the delight of all.  

Despite the excitement of the new sister, life went on including the observance of such vital celebrations as Halloween, complete with costumes put together out of stuff in our play clothes bins.  I'm not sure what the kid with the green face is supposed to be, and I'm not sure that he cares except for the candy.

The other set of grandparents drove from Missouri (!) for Joseph's baptism and Elizabeth's blessing, and two of my sisters (under the clock and in the blue shirt) also came down for the weekend. 

No pictures were taken of the ensuing feast, as I was schlepping dishes and corralling grandkids.  

As time went on, we took care of other things, like making a kid change the oil in the Miata,

and piercing the ears of the 11- and 13-year-old granddaughters, who had finally obtained permission from their dad.  They also knew that Grandpa had xylocaine and clean needles. 

New visas for Uzbekistan were needed, so I pulled out the camera and shot the pictures.  OK, the image of the last kid in the lineup, Baby Elizabeth, could have been pulled from Google Images and no one would have been the wiser.

We got all the twelve grandkids to slow down long enough for a group picture, which won't happen again for a long while.  Mike and Adrienne had come down from Delaware, bringing one-year-old Kate who tied with New Baby for Favorite Cousin to Hold and Play With.  

And finally the end of twelve weeks came, more quickly than we would have liked.  After one last poignantly sweet trip with Kathleen and Sophia to the mall for earrings and a butterfly necklace for Eleanor, we bid them all farewell the next day as they started their long trip back to Uzbekistan.

It was good to have them here for a while.  

Family seems to become more important all the time.

Dave & Paula

"You know, we're not getting any younger."

"We've got to do this stuff while we can."  Thus said my brother Mark a couple of weeks ago to add another reason why he and I should hop a plane to Florida to go kiteboarding on Tampa Bay.
For many, many years there has been an arms race between us; he got back into cycling in the late 80's, so I had to get a bike.  He started windsurfing, so of course I had to get a board and a sail - duh!  For the past ten years, minus that little five-year hiatus in South America, we've been kiteboarding.  As usual, he has raced ahead in terms of skill. 
So, off to warm(er) Florida!

Since the Wright Brothers, there has been a cruel and unjust situation in air travel.  Golfers

and skiers

have been able to schlep their oversize heavy awkward stuff aboard airplanes just like any other piece of luggage, with no special tariff.  On the other hand, we poor, downtrodden, misunderstood kiters have had to pay $150 or so extra for ours.  As in any such unjust situation, innovation sprang forward.  Behold, the Golf Bag!

Kite guys figured out that a bag the same size, cleverly marked "Golf" could instead carry a couple of kiteboards and a handful of kites.  Some even pushed the subterfuge further, bringing along a 9-iron and a putter for the x-ray machines and nosy airline personnel.  

However, all this nonsense became moot recently, as most of the carriers recognized this massive injustice and relented.  You'll still see guys in board shorts (obviously kiters from the sloping foreheads and knee braces) furtively looking around as they drag their "Golf" bags through the airports.  

Tampa Bay has massive areas of shallow, warm(er) water and in the right seasons, a lot of wind.  A favorite spot is on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge approach.

So, after quickly renting a car, dropping our stuff at the AirBnb and donning wet suits, off we went!

We got lucky and had three days of good wind.  At one moment catching my breath on the beach, I counted over thirty kites in the air, as plumbers, accountants and architects lied to their wives and employers and cut out for the Skyway rest area.  Remember, priorities!

Guys were hitting 30+-foot jumps and all sorts of cool tricks.  As usual, I was just trying to survive.  That, and for a desperate two hours, looking for the rental car key fob - $450 - that I dropped while changing boards, but hey, that's another fun story.  (I found it - major "Whew!")

Remembering that we, too had responsibilities we finally packed up,

carefully swept the sand off the front porch of the AirBnB, and headed home.

Noticing the glances at our luggage in the airport, I commented to a fellow traveler, "Yeah, a few good rounds.  I would have hit the ball better but there was too much wind!"

We hope that you also have siblings that keep you doing fun stuff!

Dave

Even though we weren't supposed to be there...

it was great!!  Just brilliant, as I heard a lot of Londoners say.
We visited Churchill's War Room complex under Whitehall, and were reminded of how close a call it all was during World War II.  It was not a sure thing for years.

I was also impressed by the utter secrecy of the operation; the interviews with people involved included statements like, "We knew the importance of what we were doing, and there was not a single thought of breaking our word of confidentiality."  This was all deadly serious, and their dedication was inspiring.
On a lighter note, we next headed to Borough Market, stopping on the way to buy, what else, a new dress for Paula.  FOR PAULA!!  Get your minds out of the gutter!!  And anyway, I don't need any more dresses.
The market goes waaayyyy back, and had been a real-live one for centuries, for the sale of various food stuffs, including fish.  So, where do you get lunch?  Of course!

At a place called Fish!  And what did we eat?  Do I have to say it?!

On to the Tower!  The Tower of London!  But first a battleship on the way.

Oh, and one of the many architectural wonders of the City, this one nicknamed 'The Shards' for its sharp pinnacles.

Right then, on to the Tower!

What a place!  Luckily, the nice young lady at the entrance (making it 100% of Londoners who were nice and helpful) said, "If I were you, I'd head to the Crown Jewels right now!"  We did.

Holy guacamole!  They were the real thing!  And it was all in an area entered and exited through bank-vault doors!  And there were serious-looking guys with real guns!

And the diamonds were real!  And real big!!

And boy did we luck out listening to the nice young lady!  Within thirty minutes the line went back to Heathrow airport.  Like, pick up your bags from carousel #3 and get in line and bring a lunch.

The rest of the Tower complex was full of gloomy rooms where famous people and doomed wives of certain kings awaited their unfortunate fates.  I'm not sure, but I think that for about a millennium, an invitation to the Tower of London was one that you'd RSVP with "Thanks, but I've got to wash my hair that day," and then you'd leave town quickly.

London Bridge was NOT falling down, putting the lie to that nursery song.  I had to bribe Paula with food to let me walk across it.

We also visited Kensington Palace that day, 

and learned all about Queen Victoria, who was born and grew up there, and all of the intrigues and complications that led to her ascension to the throne at age eighteen.  Paula thought it was cool seeing the staircase upon which Victoria first laid eyes on Albert, and to read her journal entry about it.  

Anyway, enough of that mushy stuff.  They also had really cool cannons!  And various royals still live there but apparently had no interest in meeting us.  At least that day.

So, if you are a mega-gardening nerd type, what is the center of your gardening universe?  Correct.  Kew Gardens, or rather the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.  

We enjoyed hanging around all day, especially Paula.  The gardens were magnificent, and the greenhouses ('conservatories' to you gardening snobs) were especially cool.

Paula chatted with several of the staff, who seemed delighted to talk.  She compared waders with one of them working on the water lilies, who thought it was great that her romantic-type husband had given her a pair for Christmas for cleaning out her pond.

The summer flowers were being changed out for the cool-weather ones.  Paula just stood there and muttered "Wow!" admitting to severe dirt envy.

All good things end, and we finally have to return to reality, such as it is.  We have had a great time and have come to several conclusions:

1.  England, at least London, is a civilized place.  Pedestrians are not targets.  (see "South America, hazards of walking")

2.  English people are friendly, helpful and kind.  Except for that one that chased us out of somewhere we didn't belong at St. Paul's Cathedral.  I guess those barrier rope thingies are there for a reason.

3.  English food is actually good.  We had great Italian, Afro-Portuguese, Indian and Vietnamese meals.  Hold it.  Never mind.  That wasn't English food.  

4.  English police are polite and low key.  Even that one that shouted, "Get OFF the bike, sir," and knocked a guy off his bicycle who was mistakenly crossing in to the no-go zone at the opening of Parliament.  

We hope that you get over there some time and have as great a time as we did.

Dave & Paula 

We're really not supposed to be here.

I'll try to make this simple.  Our daughter Ashley, the one that lives in Uzbekistan, is due to deliver her seventh near the end of October.  She had planned to spend her three months (six weeks before and six weeks after delivery) in London.  She invited us to come over and get her away from the kids a bit while waiting to deliver, so we found cheap, non-refundable tickets for $527 each.  After all, what could go wrong?!
The State Department, that's what.  They changed their mind, deciding that she couldn't stay by herself in London with all those kids.  Soooo, she's now in Raleigh, and since it was going to cost $500 each to change our tickets, we're in London.

And that's not bad!  OK, the weather may not be optimal.

That really is the forecast, and yeah, it's been kind of rainy and windy, but with the proper clothing

it's really not a big deal.  

We've been doing the big tourist things, like the London Eye, excuse me, the Coca-Cola London Eye, the great big Ferris-type wheel on the Thames across from Parliament. 

And definitely Westminster Abbey, including the audio tour narration by Jeremy Irons (see "Lion King; Scar").

And of course, if you visit London, you HAVE to see the Queen, right?  No, really, we were walking down the street, and motorcycle police started blocking the side streets, and a little motorcade came by, and there she was, in the back seat of a Big Bentley.  Really!

I'll have to admit that I was so dumbstruck that I forgot to ask her what she thought about Boris Johnson and Brexit, and our guy on our side of the Atlantic, and...anyway, it was kind of cool.  

In non-shocking news, Paula has figured out how to travel on the Underground (the subway) and the buses and trains.  We've enjoyed meeting many of the other folks of London and rubbing shoulders (and other parts) with them.

We also got to meet a bunch of protesters and polite (no, really) London police, as the Extinction Rebellion environmental folks got all wound up while we were here.  We watched the police politely (no, really) help them gather their ragged tents and flags and weird bird costumes and whatever out of Hyde Park, and later herd them into Trafalgar Square and politely surround them.

I had to wonder what Lord Nelson, the fellow on the column and the national hero of the Battle of Trafalgar would have thought about the tattooed folks wearing large chicken and pink octopus costumes and running around banging drums and waving signs around his feet. 

So, a lot of our sightseeing involved bumping in to things as we walked around.  This is Scotland Yard, and those are Extinction Rebellion protesters in strange red robes standing motionless in a line in front of an equally motionless line of polite calm London police.  I don't know who blinked first.  

Here's a closeup of the costumes:

Kind of cool, huh?  I tried to get one as a kind of, you know, souvenir of our trip, but they said no dice.  And I asked Paula for some white makeup and some red lipstick, and after dope slapping me, she also said no dice.  Some people have no sense of fun tourism.  Sheesh.  

We came across another great big building, and lo and behold - Buckingham Palace!

or so someone told us with a shocked look on her face.  We knocked, but again, no dice.

We bumped into all sorts of good food, from Afro-Portuguese chicken

to fast food sushi

to kitchenette Italian, 

and everything in between.

All right, I'll admit that not all of our exploring has been that random.  We visited St. Paul's Cathedral, and although Paula insisted that it should be St. Paula's, they didn't think that was amusing, and insisted otherwise.  

We did the audio tour, then "raced" up the 528 steps to the small outside walkway near the top and caught the great view, and perhaps a cold from the wind and rain.

While riding the tube (the subway) we came across a poster for a popular play in town,

and decided that not only was the poster's language inappropriate, but that instead, we'd study the book itself, so we went to church today at the Hyde Park Chapel.

I have no doubt that our visit there was far more enriching than the play in question.  The building also houses the Church's Visitor Center for London, and the England London Mission office.  

Covering our religious bets, we also attended the St. Paula's Cathedral Evensong service this afternoon, which was beautiful not only for the music, but also for the magnificence of the edifice.

So even though we're really not supposed to be here, so far so good.  There are other things that we hope to bump in to in the next couple of days.  

We hope that all of your inopportune travels turn out to be so rewarding.

Dave & Paula