in 200 meters turn...

How far is a meter? You'd think that by now I would have figured it out. This morning I dropped Dan and Em at work. Well, Dan drove, dropped Em and then drove on to his office where he proceeded to give me directions back to France. Needless to say I wasn't able to follow his directions and I ended up on the road to Zurich. Before things got too far out of hand I turned on the trusty SatNav, got off the motorway and found my way back into Basel. I still had no idea where I was as I desperately tried to follow the directions provided by the nice yet indignant voice coming from the dash. After more than one wrong turn, partly due to the fact that I still can't properly measure a meter as I'm driving, I started to recognize a few of the streets. I finally got to a street from which I knew I could get home without the help of the SatNav. I happily turned it off and decided I needed a reward for surviving my unintentional tour of Basel. I stopped at my favorite patisserie and I am now enjoying a tasty gourmandise. It's great to be back in France.

in the light of day

Have you ever noticed how different things are in the light of day. Last Christmas I flew to Kyiv to visit my sister and her husband. When I booked the flights I didn't really take note of the fact that I would only have about an hour to change flights in London. It wasn't until after everything was all booked and set that I realized my mistake. There was nothing I could do. I then had to deal with Terminal 5. When I landed in London on my way to Kyiv it was early in the morning. Once I made it through passport control and security my flight was in final boarding, that's when I started running. I ran through the terminal, past the fancy shops and celebrity restaurants (Gordon Ramsey has a place) and made it just in time for my flight. Coming back it was evening when I landed and again, after the mess with passport control and security I once again had to run to make my plane. Needless to say I didn't see much.

Today I found myself once again in Terminal 5. It was mid afternoon and the place was full of people. The terminal itself is very new and full of shops and restaurants that I didn't have time to even glance at last time through. The place was crowded with flights being called constantly, "flight 548 to Rome, flight 623 to Chicago, flight 885 to Santiago". If you want to feel like you are at the center of the world just go to Terminal 5 at Heathrow and catch a plane to anywhere.

lazy days

Have you ever noticed how things seem to slow down the month of August? I was walking the dogs the other day and I noticed that the need to walk fast and get the task over with was gone. There was no push to hurry and return to the house to move on to the next item on my list. I thought it was because I'd just returned to a small sleepy village after spending a week in busy London but the more I thought about it the more I realized that many of the Augusts of my memory play the same way.

Everything seems to slow down even though many are burdened with the preparations of returning to school, we all want to stop and savor the last few moments before it all begins again. The excitement and even fear for some of starting a new school year is overshadowed by the simple need to relax one more hour or finish that last novel before the rush of academic reading.

Even for those not returning to school there is a seemingly unexplainable need to pause and enjoy. I remember the first fall after I graduated from University. The flurry of preparation was missing but the need to enjoy the freedom was still there. Perhaps it's biological, knowing that in a few short months the sun and warm weather will be almost a figment of our imagination. A need to bottle it all up if only to be able to return to the peaceful memories in five months time. Maybe it is the ridiculous hot weather that causes us to slow down. Knowing that the slower we move the less we may sweat. Could it be that simple?

the wheels on the bus

After almost a month in the UK I returned to France last night. I will admit, I was sad to say goodbye to the land of fish and chips, wrong side of the road driving and caramel digestives. I had a fabulous time exploring and spending time with family.

The first two and a half weeks I spent with the family at the pub, The Jolly Sailor, in Orford. While there I learned how to go crabbing, the goodness, yet heaviness, of pub food and how to pull a pint. I will admit that pulling pints was one of the coolest things I did. I only felt comfortable behind the bar in the afternoon when the bar was pretty much empty and the occasional patron didn't mind that I really didn't know what I was doing.

On the 5th I left Orford and headed for London. It was really just a pit stop on my way to Bath to visit my brother. It was great to go back to Bath. I love going some place for the second time. It still has the new and exciting feeling about it with a since of the unknown but you can feel comfortable enough to take chances and explore. My brother and his wife just moved into a new apartment right in the center of Bath about a 3 minute walk away from the city center. Annabelle and Dave were in England because Dave was there for work and they came down on the Saturday and we had a mini Utley family reunion. Miia was of course adorable and loving all the attention. We went to the Roman Baths and took a long walk through the Botanical Gardens enjoying the amazing weather. I love the immediate joking and laughter that happens when members of my family get together.

Sunday Annabelle and I headed into London for our week-o-fun. It was fantastic. Since we had a whole week and we had both been there previously we didn't feel the need to rush around seeing everything. There were certain things we wanted to see or do but for the most part our days were relaxed. We walked all over London though. We went to the British Museum and the National Gallery. We saw the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. We went shopping on Oxford and Regent's Streets and wandered through Hyde Park. A major highlight was going to Buckingham Palace on Saturday. The Queen is in Scotland for the summer so the State Rooms are open to the public. It was amazing, so beautiful and ornate. We were in the last group to go through for the day so we took our time and we were able to spend time in the rooms without the massive crowds. Which, considering there were crowds everywhere (mostly Italians), was pretty cool. We also went up in the London Eye right after sunset, gorgeous. I loved being able to do all of this with my sister. Since moving to Europe all of my trips so far are done alone and to be able to experience all of this with my sister made it even more enjoyable and exciting.

Vacations are fabulous. There is always the constant pull of wanting to stay away but missing home all at the same time. For now I am glad to be back in France. I can rest up from my vacation and get ready for the school year to start and the children to get back into a routine.

how to go crabbing

Harry and Jack took me crabbing at the quay yesterday. I will admit that I have been looking forward to going crabbing since they told me about it weeks ago. I will admit I had a slight obsession with it as something that I've never done before and something that I wasn't sure I would ever have the opportunity to do again. There are a few things needed prior to the expedition.

1. a bucket
2. string
3. a weight
4. a small netted bag
5. this is the most important...bacon

So with all these tools of the trade in tow we headed down to the quay. Apparently bacon is the bait of choice. Everyone on the dock had some. In all honesty I would never even begin to be able to guess what sort of bait would be needed so bacon seemed logical to me. OK to start, fill the bucket half way up with water from the sea, second put a bit of bacon in the netted bag that has the weight attached to it and make sure it all is firmly attached to the string. Lower the bag in the water just off the dock. Make sure it settles into the seaweed, that is where the crabs like to hid. Finally wait. The waiting part is the hard part. We were sitting on the concrete quay and I didn't bring anything to sit on or anything to hold my attention unless you count making sure the boys didn't fall in.

After waiting for what was probably only about 5 minutes or so Harry pulled up the string and there was a crab attached to the bag! We didn't have the bucket handy so as soon as we got the crab up to the quay he let go of the bag and scampered to the edge and jumped back in. No worries though, we got back to the task and soon we caught another crab and this time we managed to get it into the bucket. It was quite satisfying to have caught a crab. We poked around some more and ended up catching a second crab. Like with the first we missed the bucket but I decided I was going to go after it. I managed to pick it up while avoiding the claws and put it in the bucket. By now Jack had already given up and gone back to the cottage so Harry and I took the cabs back to show him and then we returned them to whence they came.

It was quite a fun adventure. I think next time I will bring something to sit on as well as a book or something to do while I wait for the crabs to take the bait!

Got Speedo?

A few weeks ago I took the kids to a swimming pool here in France. The pool is over in Saint Louis and before we went I was informed that the boys had to wear Speedos. Apparently it is practically French law that in any public swimming pool boys have to wear a Speedo. I was told that it had to deal with hygiene. I don't care if they cure illness there are some men in the world that should not be allowed to wear Speedos. It doesn't matter how fit you think you are, don't even go there.

There were two types of Speedos being worn.

Type A:
Type B:Now the boys weren't thrilled that they had to wear a Speedo in the first place so of course they went with type A...actually, to be honest, I'm not sure either of them own the second type. With young boys it doesn't matter much but for older, balding, gross looking men they just shouldn't be allowed out if their only option is a Speedo.

schools out for the summer!

Today is the last day of school for the kids. I used to love the last day of school. There was always a lot of anticipation for the coming summer holiday and even a bit of sadness with the closing of another year. Oddly enough as I sit here writing this, I can't really remember any of my last days of school. I can remember some events from middle school, the excitement of finishing the 6th grade, pure joy of finishing the 8th grade, but it seems that once I went to high school the dread of finals as well as the eagerness to be done outweighed the anticipation of that last day. As a senior there was no final bell as our finals were held a week before the rest of the schools and in many cases there was no actual final, just a paper or a project to be completed.

The same thing happened in college. For most as soon as that last final and completed it was an immediate departure from campus saying goodbye to whom you could when you could. I think it is so funny that when in elementary school we made such a big deal out of the last day, weeping a tearful goodbye to a friend that we would soon see again and swearing that we would spend an amazingly fun summer together as many times as possible and as it would end up you would see them twice and survive just fine. There was so much drama and many a crisis growing up. I suppose it is a testament to growing up when you can complete a school year without being nominated for a Tony Award.

I am so glad that there are easily notable moments for growing up. Being able to look back on things seeing the ways that I have changed helps my self-esteem when I think I am going nowhere fast. Life is a constant flux of new replacing old. I recently read a fantastic column about change (shameless plug for my mom's last column) and in it Heraclitus was quoted as saying "Change is the only constant". That, I would most definitely have to agree with. Embrace change and let it work in your life.