"Your leave and favor to return to France"

 When Notre Dame burned in 2019, J and I were struck with particular horror. We had been in the building the previous summer on our first trip to France. We'd toured the crypt, we'd attended a vespers service, and we'd both been deeply moved by both the weight of history before our eyes and the very real, very live reading of the psalm about "nations gathering in the temple" as tourists made their way around the sanctuary. 

Cathedral architecture is one of those subjects like sailing or astronomy that seems to consume those who get a taste of it and can lead them to laying out enormous sums of money for obscure pleasures that other people would probably regard as punishments, like standing in line to climb a narrow staircase just to look at some dusty rafters somewhere in the north of England in winter.

I'm aware that I'm curious.

But I'm genuinely curious, informed about the architecture or not, to see the inside of Notre Dame again. And I also want to hear a grand cathedral service again. 

I found a great free app (after several failed attempts to load a massive pdf document on my kindle) that is basically an index of the Liber Usualis. It's a calendar-referenced library of the entire chant tradition of Western Christianity, and it's become an every day part of my morning. 

I am (mostly) reading chant notation fluently now, and am even working on a service at church where we'll have all plainsong instead of congregational singing by rewriting the service music in a way that the choir can guide a Presbyterian congregation through the day's chants in modern notation. (It helps that we can project Latin translations on our big screen.)

It's evident from the re-opening photos that Notre Dame will be different the next time we see it. But, like so many other aspects of life in France, the modern update is still enchanted with magic of the past. And we can't wait to see it and hear it again.

“But where was this?” “My Lord, upon the platform where we watch.”

Last weekend I took Owen and Felix to the bay. It was late afternoon and already almost dark, but Felix has gone full throttle into birding over the past month and I wanted to show him some of the waterfowl before the bay freezes over. 

We hiked up one our regular Lucien Morin park routes but then turned back north to climb to the top of a hill that overlooks Empire Boulevard and the bay where we would usually go down into the wetlands and the park. We were skirting the top of the ridge between K2 Brewing and BarBill, and even as the sun continued to sink we could see hundreds of gulls sitting out on the mud flats where the water had gone down and left the winter ooze behind.

It was cold and windy up as high as we were, but Felix dutifully searched with his binoculars and his Junior Birder book while Owen poked around in the scrubby brush with his metal detector. 

I helped Felix find some ducks, identify a couple of gull species, and then pulled out my telescope. The boys were climbing up and down the dirt escarpments now, and Owen was whooping with excitement about having found a cross carved into an old stump. (I think he was enjoying the echo that his voice made in the hollow space before the tree line started.)

“Hey boys, come look at this!”

I had looked right past them the first time I looked over the area, but smack in my telescope now were two bald eagles perched on some grounded driftwood. 

Owen shrieked so loud that I was afraid he’d scare them off. Felix immediately looked for the bald eagles in his Birder book. 

“Dad, guess what! There’s something for you to know! I think that one of those bald eagles…is a genitive bald eagle!” 

“A genitive bald eagle?”

“Yeah, you can see its head isn’t all the way white yet, but it isn’t a baby anymore either. Yup, it’s a genitive.” 

“Oh, you mean a juvenile—“

“You’re right, Felix! It is a genitive bald eagle. I LOVE HAVING ADVENTURES!!!”

"You cannot speak of reason to the Dane And lose your voice"

Owen and Felix aren't particularly interested in their own school, but they love to do James' work.

James is in the second book of a Logic course called "Critical Thinking." Logic used to be his favorite subject, back when he just had to solve a logic puzzle every day. Then we started this formal course and entered the world of contrapositives and double negations. He doesn't it like it quite so much anymore.

But Owen and Felix love it. Whenever James and I are working on logic they stop attending to whatever it is that they are supposed to be working on and listen in to his problems.

"Evaluate the following advertisement: Harry Handsome, the movie actor, is shown slapping SMELLY after-shave lotion on. Four beautiful women come up and put their arms around him. "We just can't resist a man who uses SMELLY!" says one of the women."

James: "Is this from my propaganda techniques section?"

Owen: "It's an assumption contrary to fact!"

Felix: "NO! It's a substitution of a contrary fact!"

(Correct answer: It's the propaganda technique of Transfer, and not Testimonial, because Harry Handsome never actually says anything.)

Owen and Felix are both convinced that they are great logicians, partly because they really HAVE picked up on some of the technical bits of language about propositions that have evaded James. They hunt for fallacies in the wider world (apparently so far as Junior Choir rehearsal) and happily point them out to unsuspecting adults. 

If you are challenged by a shrill and self-righteous junior logician, please feel free to remind them that their argument is a Red Herring from the schoolwork that they are supposed to be doing.

"Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart"

 I finally caught the cold that the boys have been passing around, and just in time for the 24 hours that J and I to ourselves this weekend.

We soldiered on through despite my shivers and sneezes, and most of our Christmas shopping is now done. 

I'm turning around now to take a shower and get into a suit so that I can play a Messiah in a cold church.

If you are going to bed at 7 PM with a mug of tea tonight, please enjoy it for me.

"Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black"

 I almost don't need a tailcoat anymore. One of the groups that I play with most regularly has just abolished the dress code stipulation of tails for Masterworks concerts, and my regular job in Syracuse has been "all-black" only ever since I joined.

(Confusingly, they call it concert black, which used to mean "short tuxedo, white dress shirt, and black bow tie"...but apparently not anymore.)

Orchestra dress codes are labyrinths of complex and contradictory information, mostly designed to punish young women who might be more attractive than the older women who write the dress code rules.

The men's side is simpler, and we usually only need remember whether we're supposed to be wearing a black button up shirt (most often, in my case) or a white button-up shirt. Some groups enforce the details more rigorously than others, but a black suit and black dress shoes gets you 90% of the way there for most work.

In the increasingly blurred gender boundaries of the modern workplace, however, we are switching more and more to Option 1 and Option 2 dress codes, which don't specify traditional male/female boundaries. And (this is largely a good thing) the fussier dress police are agreeing that it's simplest for everyone just to dress in black.

But not this time of year. Holiday Pops means pops of red. For me, it's a flannel tartan tie. I have a few other red ties as well, and maybe even a red cummerbund buried in the arm of a tuxedo sleeve somewhere. It's nice to have something a little more colorful than just "black" to wear to work now and again. 

(Especially when you are going to work all day every day for the foreseeable future...)

"If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Which happily foreknowing may avoid"

The email to Kindle feature is one of the best features that I've discovered about my e-Reader. 

Each Kindle device apparently has its own designated email address, and you can send yourself PDF documents that you don't want to attempt to read on a laptop/phone to be perused at leisure (here meaning, during movements when the trumpets are marked "tacet") with your kindle on your stand.

I've downloaded a few reference books, I downloaded all of the Ian Fleming Bond novels (they aren't very good) a few years ago, and am currently working my way through a biological study of Irondequoit Bay (which is immensely practical) and an old guide to triangulating your position at sea. (Which will hopefully never be practical.)

But the big read right now is the 2025 Mandate for Leadership document, commonly called Project 2025. It is horrifying. It is an astounding exercise in thinking in an alternative reality. It is consistent, organized, and would be incalculably damaging to the country I hope my boys will inherit.

If there is one small silver lining about this incoming President, it is that he appears to be utterly ignoring the recommendations in this document and appointing his friends, cronies, and flatterers instead of the very sincere and capable politicians who would actually be capable of making the Project 2025 agenda happen.

"Whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week"

 I am riding the thruway for the foreseeable future. I'm not complaining about it, because it's good to have the work. Basically every day from now until Christmas (I do get Thanksgiving off) I'll be driving somewhere to play a concert, and very often driving to two places to do multiple concerts. (Buffalo and Syracuse are just close enough to be able to get from an afternoon show in one place to an evening show in the other.)

So, I am sorry that I am not available to get together for Christmas drinks or invite you over for a cup of coffee. I'm driving somewhere, or sitting on stage somewhere, or finally back home and have fallen asleep still in my suit collapsed in the chair.

There are many things that I'll miss about the next few weeks. I'll miss participating in the Christmas decorating with the boys, and I'll miss pretty much all of the upcoming Bills games. I'll miss my wife, who hopefully can still recognize me on Christmas morning, and I'll also miss the days when it wasn't dark before 5 pm. 

But there are some consolations. I have hours of audiobooks ready to listen to on the thruway, and I've never felt more ready to notice the natural features of the drive. There are plenty of miles of driving in Upstate New York that are flat, featureless, and grim. But when driving in daylight I've spent years cataloging a list (I keep the actual physical copy of it in my book) of the features of I-90. 

Did you know, for example, that there are some ruined stone arches just visible through the treeline at mile marker 296? Or that you can find egrets on the eastern side of the Montezuma preserve at marker 313? There is an enormous stand of Norway spruce on the north side of mile 408, and there are innumerable creeks (Flint, Black, Tonawanda, White Bottom) that pass under the thruway that become more interesting once their names are known. The same with the farms--like Meadville, Dendis, and Del-Mar, that I learned to look for once I knew their names.

I've tried to treat the drive like a a London Cabbie learning "The Knowledge." It all has to be memorized and internalized, and once it's been ingrained through a hundred repetitions you all of a sudden know the rhythm of the city. (Or, in my case, the 128 mile straight line.)

The next four weeks are going to be largely awful. But there is some joy and interest even in the most boring part of the task.

“For he himself is subject to his birth”

 James is 13 today, and he is just about the greatest kid. I don’t know of any older brother who punched his little brothers less, even when they definitely deserved it. He is gentle, considerate, and sincere. Your heart hurts for him when you think about him entering the outside world.

His heart hearts for itself too. He likes having a birthday, but he doesn’t like being reminded of how old he is turning or hearing that he is getting taller or being called “grown up.” I think he just wants to stay a child. 

And he can’t. Just as our 40th birthdays are starting to loom forward, so our oldest son is confronting his own coming-of-age. The thing about James is that however his Bildungsroman takes shape, he will be a great hero. He is already that mix of formed and unformed parts out of which an interesting, likable, and noble grown-up can be formed. 

He has been a great kid, and as it gets less and less accurate to call him a kid I have every confidence that he will continue to be a great James. 

As he learned this week, “he himself is subject to his birth” uses an intensive, and not a reflexive pronoun. We had fun (grammar is EVER so much fun) diagramming sample sentences, including the (incorrect) reflexive sentence, “Why does that Poky Little Puppy feel sorry for hisself? He should just get some strawberry shortcake at Memwins.”

Of all the grammar controversies, however, the biggest dust-up was Owen’s objection to the truth of the statement “Mom herself is the most beautiful woman in the world.” 

He is apparently campaigning to receive (for himself) the smallest slice of birthday cake. 

"Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Extorted treasure in the womb of earth..."

 Owen got a metal detector for his birthday and our yard may never recover. 

We did the tutorial (several coins, a sheet of aluminum foil) so that he could practice finding different types of metal and I showed him how toggle the various controls so that he could blah blah blah blah I'm making you wait so that you can't use this thing yet and it has fun buttons blah blah blah.

(This is, based on how he's currently using it, what Owen heard while I explained how the different modes.)

He's found SO much treasure. Even before he needed the shovel he found about a dozen matchbox cars that had been left outside and grown over from the summer. But then he got the shovel out and started to dig up the wealth of centuries.

There was a rusty old hook and eyelet, a massive (4 inch) iron pipe that was perhaps a bit of irrigation? (It was angled down and filled with water.

Then he found what I assume was some sort of old electrical line and pulled up a solid twelve feet of it from various points in the yard.

"Don't worry, Dad, I'm filling in all of the holes that I make!"

There were some bits of wire and some other treasures as well. At some point I found it was easiest not to look directly at the digging, so they might've found something truly valuable that I just haven't heard about yet. But they are running out of lawn, and they need NEW places to dig. 

"Dad, can we go to the lake today?"

"When are we going to Albion today?"

"Do our neighbors need anything found in their yards?"

"You come most carefully upon your hour..."

 You can be many things in a professional orchestra, but you can't ever be late.

That's true in the sense that you have to play in tempo as well, but even more than keeping time you must show up on time for rehearsals and concerts. And five minutes beforehand is not on time.

It actually is contractually late in most places to be there only five minutes ahead of time. You're required by your work rules to be in your seat, prepared to play, and in proper dress code five minutes before the service is scheduled to start. 

This ethic isn't enforced through the work rules, though. It's an unspoken culture that gets ingrained in you from the very beginning. You MUST be on time. For most people that means being in the building a half-hour before the "shift" starts. 

It's a good way to do business. Even when the unthinkable happens (traffic jam on the thruway, all the parking spots full in the garage) and you are rushing in twenty minutes later than usual you are still technically "on time."

But it's a very different world than the one that my students live in.

"I forgot." 

"The coffee line was really long."

"I couldn't find my music."

"I was talking to another professor."

But they finally got one up on me yesterday, or at least one of them did. I was ten entire minutes late to my first student's lesson. (Childcare handoff delayed due to traffic.) 

I've lost the moral high ground with that one. 

What art thou that usurps't this time of night?

 I've found transcendent inner peace.

The problem is that you can only get it at 4 in the morning.

I had a nice two week stretch of almost no evening concerts/rehearsals, and J and I both flipped our sleep schedules around so that we were in bed before 9 and getting up early. Very early.

We've been setting our alarms for 5:30, and I actually ended up downstairs at more like 4:30 most of last week. It's dark, cold, and completely silent.

It's amazing. There are no children around anywhere. No one is actively making any messes. I don't need to adjudicate any disputes over football card ownership. No one is spilling anything. No one is shouting. No one is banging away at Axel F on the piano. 

(We did the Kirkin' of the Tartan at church last week, and when I heard the bagpipes start to wheeze up I realized that I was expecting to hear Axel F. I've formed a conditioned response to obnoxiously loud noise and that lick.)

I pull an Americano, read the psalms for the day, and then write, read, and draw in my notebook. I do composition exercises in French and Greek. I sometimes pull on a coat and boots and see what planets are up outside with my telescope. I learn things about the moon, birds, plants, grammar, anatomy, Hebrew, and geology. The sheer silence is like soaking in a hot bath, even though it is very much the opposite of hot from my chair by the library window in mid-November.

A few nights ago I woke up and realized it was 3:30. I turned back over to go to sleep and then thought to myself--"I could read for an extra two hours if I got up now."

And I did. It's not at all like reading once the kids are in bed. They've used me up by that point. I can still think, but my ears are full of their noise and storm.

In the dark hours of the morning there hasn't been a single sound made yet, except for the grinding of beans and the hiss of the kettle.

J is loving it too. (Well, she doesn't love it, but she loves having her workout done before she sees any children.) We eat breakfast together and no one complains about the food or spills it down their front or uses their shirt as a napkin.

And then someone appears. (It's always Owen.) And he plays his morning Axel F. And we're happy to see him. I think we're more ready for him when we've had the quiet hours before he came down, and not after.

I don't think we can keep this up. I'm going to be playing too many concerts when I won't even get home until 11 or midnight.

But I think I am officially a morning person...

Double To-Dos

 Today is a long double day, a day on which I have a morning rehearsal and then seven hours of sitting around while waiting for the evening concert. 

I normally plan around these days and save unpleasant and tedious busywork for the time between that I can put my head down and plow through without either being distracted by small children or sacrificing family time for. 

The last few doubles have all had significant chunks of time dedicated to learning Dorico, the new music notation software that has replaced the (now-defunct) Finale. This was big news a few months ago among my composing/arranging friends, and I've been working through the tutorials for close to a month now.

The first day of it went very poorly. But it turns out that old dogs can at least partly get their heads around new tricks, and I just finished transcribing the final few bars of Dorico's "practice" composition. I might nearly be ready to write some actual choral music on the software. (One of the to-dos for my November long double is to figure out and write whatever it is that my choir is supposed to be doing for their Christmas music service.

I'm also sorting star charts and trying to get a fix on where I can find Algol tonight with Clifford. If you don't live at my house you might not be aware that we adopted a big red friend over the summer. Clifford is my 8" Dobsonian telescope, an admittedly large but powerful and impressive astronomy tool. The boys and I have checked out lunar craters, comets, planets, planetary moons, and deep space nebulae with Clifford on clear nights. Tonight I'll be back late and am going to attempt to "split" a binary star that is apparently simple to find. We'll see. Clifford lives in the shed that we built (also new over the summer) because not everyone thought he was an appropriate in-the-house object.

More time was devoted to punching the October budget numbers into Excel. Since Mint has been discontinued (hopefully to some happy software heaven in the company of Finale) I've had to learn how to do our budget all by hand. 

I also have a bunch of reading projects at the moment--finishing up book 6 of the Iliad, reading a history of the Assyrian empire, and a play in French. But even with all of the reading I brought and a couple of drawing projects, I think I might run out of work before I run out of afternoon.

And if that's the case, I might be just fine to sit out in the sunshine and do absolutely nothing. Winter is coming, and in not too many more weeks I might be snowed into this coffee shop on a long double. But for today there's sunshine and just the right amount of not quite enough to do.

Boethius, De Institutione Musica

(Boethius, had he lived in the modern world, would have been a conductor...) 

Nunc illud est intuendum, quod omnis ars omnisque etiam disciplina honorabiliorem naturaliter habeat rationem quam artificium, quod manu atque opere exercetur artificis. Multo enim est maius atque auctius scire, quod quisque faciat, quam ipsum illud efficere, quod sciat; etenim artificium corporale quasi serviens famulatur, ratio vero quasi domina imperat. Et nisi manus secundum id, quod ratio sancit, efficiat, frustra sit. Quanto igitur praeclarior est scientia musicae in cognitione rationis quam in opere efficiendi atque actu! Tantum scilicet, quatntum corpus mente superatur; quod scilicet rationis expers servitio degit. Illa vero imperat atque ad rectum deducit. Quod nisi eius pareatur imperio, expers opus rationis titubabit. Unde fit, ut speculatio rationis operandi actu non egeat, manuum vero opera nulla sint, nisi ratione ducantur. Iam vero quanta sit gloria meritumque rationis, hinc itellegi potest, quod ceteri ut ita dicam corporales artifices non ex disciplina sed ex ipsis potius instrumentis cepere vocabula. Nam citharoedus ex cithara, auloedu ex tibia, ceterique suorum instrumentorum vocabulis nuncupantur. Is vero est musicus, qui ratione perpensa canendi scientiam non servitio operis sed imperio speculationis adsumpsit. Quod scilicet in aedificiorum bellorumque opere videmus, in contraria scilicet nuncupatione vocabuli. Eorum namque nominibus vel aedificia inscribuntur vel ducuntur triumphi, quorum imperio ac ratione instituta sunt, non quorum opere servitioque perfecta. Tria igitur genera sunt, quae circa artem musicam versantur. Unum genus est, quod instrumentis agitur, aliud fingit carmina, tertium, quod instrumentorum opus carmenque diiudicat. Sed illud quidem, quod in instrumentis positum est ibique totam operam consumit, ut sunt citharoedi quique organo ceterisque musicae instrumentis artificium probant, a musicae scientiae intellectu seiuncti sunt, quoniam famulantur, ut dictum est; nec quicquam afferunt rationis, sed sunt totius speculationis expertes. Secundum vero musicam agentium genus poetarum est, quod non potius speculatione ac ratione, quam naturali quodam instinctu fertur ad carmen. Atque idcirco hoc quoque genus a musica segregandum est. Tertium est, quod iudicandi peritiam sumit, ut rythmos cantilenasque totumque carmen possit perpendere. Quod scilicet quoniam totum in ratione ac speculatione positum est, hoc proprie musicae deputabitur, isque est musicus, cui adest facultas secundum speculationem rationemve propositam ac musicae conventientem de modis ac rythmis deque generibus cantilenarum ac de permixtionibus ac de omnibus, de quibus posterius explicandum est, ac de poetarum carminibus iudicandi.

Now this ought to be understood, that every art and still every honorable discipline naturally would prefer reason to mere mechanical skill which by the hand and work of artisans is practiced. For it is much better and and more important to know what someone else makes, than to be able to make something which someone else understands; for even as mechanical skill labors like a slave, reason likewise rules as a mistress. And unless that hand acts according to what reason sanctions it basically acts in vain. 

How much more beautiful, therefore, is the conception of music in rational understanding than composition and performance! It is clearly as much superior as the mind is superior to the body; since clearly one lacking reason is in servitude. But reason orders and guides to what is correct, since unless reason's authority is obeyed the work (lacking reason) falters.

It happens, therefore, that critical thinking does not require the act of making, but that the mechanical works would be nothing unless they are guided by reason. Therefore how much more be the glory and merit of reason is understood in this, that those that I have thus named "mechanically skilled" not from their discipline but from their instruments themselves take their titles.

For they are "guitarists" from the guitar, "flutists" from the flute, and all the others are named by their own instruments. But the musician is he which takes for himself the knowledge of judging performance not by the servility of work but by the power of analysis.

Of course we see this in the work of architecture and of warfare. For buildings are inscribed and triumphs are led with the names of those by whose power are reason they were guided, not with the names of those by whose hands the work and the battles were completed.

Therefore there are three sorts which work about the art of music. The first type is those who perform on instruments, another which compose songs, and the third are those which judge the performers and the composers. But those to whom performance is given and whose whole work is consumed by it, such as the guitarists and those which on the organ or on other musical instruments ply their trade, are cut off from the understanding of musical knowledge; as was said earlier, they are practically servants. None of them use any reason, but they are entirely without the capacity for thought.

The second type of those making music is of the poets, which are not led by reason and critical thinking so much as by a certain innate instinct to composition. And therefore this type is also separate from the true musicians.

The third type is this, which acquire an expertise in judging, so that they are able to evaluate rhythms and songs and entire compositions. Since clearly this class is wholly grounded in reason and critical thought, it alone is uniquely named the "musical" type, and he is a musician to whom is present the skill to criticize and reason about modes and rhythms and about genres of songs and harmonies, about which has all been explained, and for judging the music of composers.

Owen on Shakespeare

 This is from my son Owen. He has asked me to make it a blog.

This is a poem called "Shakespeare at its worst"

In our park, Chimpanzees they hast none

I watchethed the birds migrate

They hath escapthed to warmer weather

And achieve nothingeth

Methinks I knoweth nothing about velocity. Eth.

They ought to just use a freight train. Eth.

London Trip 2024

 Tuesday, August 13th

Drove from Hanover down to Dulles and parked remotely. (One of the big hotels near the airport.) James deeply concerned about the possibility of long security queues, body searches, and forgetting luggage or passports. He might have actually been a little disappointed that it all went so smoothly. Those Diary of a Wimpy Kid books prepared him to run from TSA security or something. Easy and excited conversation bubbling between everyone on the trip down. Found food and coffee with over two hours until departure, alternated long walks around the terminal. James and I tried to match obscure country flags with names. He is better at this than I am.

Waiting for the shuttle from the hotel to the airport.

Finally on a plane!

James was nervous about riding a plane. (He flew to Atlanta as an infant, and hadn't been on one since.) Held his breath and clenched his hands through takeoff, then settled in easily with Despicable Me and many episodes of The Book of Boba Fett on the iPad. I read my Kindle and J never had a working TV screen in front of her. (James and I did both offer to switch, but the flight attendant promised she'd reset it any minute now...)

Wednesday, August 14th

Arrived at Heathrow at 7 AM local time, which felt like midnight to our bodies. Easy passage through Passport Control (just a scan of our passport) and then several trains to get connected to the Underground. Our Airbnb was in Islington, so we didn't need to change lines from the airport. About an hour ride (managed to stay awake), and then the hairiest hour or so of the trip for direction-finding since we didn't have any cell service and the offline maps hadn't downloaded correctly. Managed to find our key drop and then got pointed in the right direction to find our flat. J and James immediately sacked out, I went out again and tracked down some basic provisions from a Waitrose about 1/2 mile away with newly downloaded offline maps.

James was pretty much cooked for the rest of the day, but we all did get up and walk down to Camden Market to find a dinner out. Had some "Mesopotamian" ice cream (apparently made with orchids to give it an unusually stretchy/stable texture) and a shawarma wrap. James inhaled chicken and chips, J found a healthy grain bowl. 

Doom Bar from the can once back. (Cheers, Strike.) Everyone in bed by 8. Up in the middle of the night, but managed 8 hours in pieces.

"The Cornish beer tasted of home, peace, and long-gone security."

Breakfast at the flat

The view from our flat. (3rd story) The spire is St. Luke's.

Everyone is just trying to stay awake until 7 pm.

J didn't order any, but the man running the shop gave her a free sample and then came outside to find us and gave her a free dish. Confirmation that she DOES look great after 36 straight hours of traveling with hardly any sleep.

"Take a picture for Felix"

The canal at Camden Market

Dinner outdoors

Market fare

Thursday, August 15th

The first real day. James up around 10, and we had breakfast together in the flat. Took the Tube to Tower Hill and found the old Roman wall right away, then did the Tower of London Beefeater tour. The host (Yeoman Darren) was one of the highlights of the trip. It was an hour of continuous Dad jokes about medieval history. Found out at the end of his tour that his military background was actually as a musician (flute) in one of the bands. Walked through the St. Peter ad Vincula chapel after the tour, then did the entire White Tower. Skipped the Crown Jewels line (thanks for the heads up to Calvin) and Beauchamp Tower to find coffee and food. Ate by the Thames, crossed Tower Bridge, and found the Borough Market. (The note I have in my little writing pad is "J in paradise.") James had a mango smoothie, J bought a fancy jar of olive oil. Went to Waitrose again and did pizza and Prosecco at the flat for supper.

cum Trajano

Roman remains

The organ in St. Peter's chapel. Lord Wellington very much in evidence here.

One of the tower ravens.

The White Tower

Some of the armoury.

Jameses

Incongruous modern art in an 11th century building

Something to do with Taylor Swift.

James on the Thames

Crossing Tower Bridge

Glad to be out of the crush of people packed into the Tower sites

HMS Belfast

Not exactly ubiquitous anymore, but we did see some phone booths

Mango lassi. This kid missed his smoothies while we were away

Cozy dinner in the evening

Friday, August 16th

Slow morning (lots of reading), and then took a double decker bus to Tottenham Court Road. (Was surprised to find that James and J both preferred the bus to the tube!) Celebrating throughout that J was in shoes that held up to walking all day. Found Denmark Street and the Flying Horse, but they were not serving food. Made our way into Soho and ate pub food at the Three Greyhounds. Some people very nearly hangry by the time we ate. Went to the British Museum, which was hot and overcrowded but absolutely amazing. Did most of the Egyptian architecture, the Parthenon marbles, Egyptian mummies, and made a glancing pass through Greek coins, Cyprus, European coins, clocks, and the Sutton Hoo treasures. Took a walk with J in the evening to replenish stock of seltzer water.

On Denmark Street

Formerly the Tottenham

James' burger at the pub

J's fish and chips

Unexpectedly found an Amorino and relived some Paris memories

Summer in Soho

Library goals

The Rosetta Stone

The plaque says "Statue of Roy"

James found a cat

We were criminally rushed. Could've spent weeks in there. For some reason there are a bunch of cool photos that I took of the Astrolabe and the Sutton Hoo treasures that aren't showing up on Google photos. Will upload them later if I can figure out how to make it work.

Tash the Inexorable

Saturday, August 17th

This was J's great day. We were at the Borough Market all afternoon and basically just walked around buying food, splitting it three ways, and eating it. It was incredibly hot and crowded, so there was a short 45 minute respite in Southwark Cathedral. One small adventure that we had was finding that our toilet was running continuously that morning. I did a few of the small tricks that I knew to address it, but the actual plumbing for the flush mechanism was tiled off inside the wall. We messaged the flat owner about it, and she said this had never happened before. I promised myself (and James and J) that I would not spend any part of our vacation fixing a toilet. It ran all day when we were gone, but them somehow healed itself overnight. 

"If this is a land where toilets fix themselves, we are MOVING here." 

Not pictured in the food crawl are the loaf of sourdough potato and garlic bread, the pain au chocolate, and the strawberry soft serve.

Black Pig sandwiches

The line for these was bigger than the audience for most concerts I play

Sturnus vulgaris. It pooped on the sleeve of my white shirt.

Three minutes-old incredible donuts. (Especially the creme brûlée one)

We chanced upon a knitting circle

Peace in the midst of a sea of humanity

James was a great sport about the food crawl

Paella and sparkling rose. I took photos of the paella process, but they are somehow missing again...

Introverting

Choir rehearsal started about halfway through the escape

Replica of the Golden Hinge, Francis Drake's vessel for circumnavigating the globe

James with a bow chaser. (A long 9?)

In the Great Cabin

Up by the bowsprit. Not allowed on the rigging. 

Back for even more food--salt beef sandwiches.

Sunday, August 18th

We didn't have anything on the schedule today except for a 3:45 dinner reservation (for a traditional Sunday roast) at Blacklock, so we decided to take a long walk in the morning. We'd been taking public transportation to get into the heart of the city for every other trip, but made the 3-ish mile walk down to Covent Garden by foot. Despite trouble finding bathrooms we had a lovely time poking through the souvenir stalls and James found the Pooky he'd been looking for. We walked back and had to hurry to get changed into our Sunday best, then took the tube down to Philpot Lane for a roast. We hadn't eaten lunch on purpose, and then there was a long wait for our table. We ordered some drinks, and then received some more drinks when the waitress realized that our order hadn't gone into the kitchen. But then the food came and it was incredible. 

J popped in to the Church of the Holy Ghost to say the collect, but we otherwise skipped Sunday AM church

Heading up the spiral staircase at the Moomin Store in Covent Garden

Little My

I did not get a souvenir on this trip. But I stood in front of these old brass telescopes for a long time...

A year ago I ordered a martini in France and was given a tumbler of vermouth with a little gin splashed in, half a lemon peel, and ice cubes. I got some closure for that drink at Sunday dinner.

We're really happy but also really hungry.

Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, duck fat potatoes, roasted veggies. It was glorious.

Monday, August 19th

Today was the Eye day. This was the first and most important item on James' to-do list, and the line/process for it was formidable. Incredibly, we hadn't actually seen the Eye at any point yet--the curves of the Thames and the skyline kept it obscured. But Monday was all about the iconic views of the Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. After James and J rode the Eye (I did a big circuit up to the Millennium Bridge and back while they did the ride) we all walked the South Bank up to Blackfriars Bridge and then headed back towards Parliament along Fleet Street and the Strand. We read for a bit in Hyde Park, snacked on nuts and fruit, then grabbed a pint and the use of some bathrooms at The Two Chairmen. Then it was 5 and time for Evensong at Westminster Abbey. We were all impressed with how quickly a tourist attraction became a functional house of worship. J agreed to watch the first episode of Slow Horses that night once we were back and was immediately hooked. 

First glimpse of the Eye

First glimpse of Big Ben/Parliament

"I think they copied this from Big Bentley in Cars 2..."

View from underneath the Eye

Meanwhile, I went off to find Boadicea

And to see where Wardle/Ekwenski/Murphy all work...

Battle of Britain memorial

First pass through Trafalgar Square

(Dead) Lions

England expects that every man shall do his duty...

Meanwhile, James and J were very high

Very, very high up

And they found me waiting for them

Thinking of Aunt Martha...

The hall of justice

There were bird droppings all over Dr. Johnson

Thinking of Jane

James and any cat

Watching the Horse Guards from Hyde Park

J craving beauty and taking pictures

James craving something else, and turtling

Time for evensong

Our last glimpse before heading down into Westminster station

Tuesday, August 20th

Our last full day, and James was pretty much done at this point. The final "have to do" item on our agenda was to get the boys' LEGO passports stamped, so I walked back down to Bloomsbury while James and J spent the morning at the flat. I came back up through Mayfair/Regent's Park and had such a nice time of it that we all went to the park in the afternoon. Told that he could choose whatever in London he wanted for dinner that night, James opted for the same chicken and chips that he'd had the previous Wednesday, so we went home via Camden Market. (And I had really good duck lo mein.)

Quidditch statue

A two-story LEGO Big Ben

And a close to life-size LEGO double decker bus

Chinatown in Soho

The statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus

Did not buy a suit. But had fun window shopping

No riots. Fortunately, in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.

Regent's Park

Prepped for the last adventure out

We always find an Aldi when adventuring

Reading at the park

We basically just all took turns walking the circuit 

James insisted we take a picture of this panda for Owen's benefit

J's red curry at Camden Market

My duck lo mein

And a strawberries and cream for dessert

Wednesday, August 21st 

We had enough time in the morning after cleaning the flat to go out to a local diner and get a traditional English breakfast, and then took the Piccadilly line to Heathrow. And that was it! We spent 8 hours on the plane watching Slow Horses, then stood in a line, stood in another line, stood in another line, took a shuttle to the hotel, and finally got our van. We were back in Hanover before midnight.

It was a lot of things, as a trip. I don't know if it was what James expected. But he's definitely going to remember it. Owen and Felix were very happy to see us. And James was SO happy to see them. He lit up every time we FaceTimed them, and if nothing else, going to London told him a lot about how much he loves being home with his brothers. And we are glad to be back with them too.