(Slap)Happy Holidaze

It's the most wonderful time of the year... made even stupendouser by visits from old friends, a child who now "gets" and completely loves our Festival of Lights, and of course the knowledge that come this time next year, we'll be a party of four.

Where do I start? In England, Christmas is celebrated pretty much throughout the entire month of December (and the stores have been stocking decorations and specials since before Halloween!) but first let me back up to OUR first celebration of the season, a Griswoldian Anglo-Frenchy-Quebequoise-Virginian Thanksgiving.

That's right, our wacky Parisian-dwelling friends –2 families of 'em – were devoted and deranged enough to trek by plane, train, and automobile (literally - Seattle Family flew and Virginia Family drove to the "car chunnel" and then on to Bath). I can now answer "can eleven people be adequately housed in our Great Pulteney abode?" in the affirmative. It was a tight squeeze, and I can't say anyone got much sleep, but for Virginia Mom's pumpkin chiffon pie and Seattle Mom's Midwestern Cheesy Potatoes, it was worth it (normally I would just use initials for these ladies, but they are both "M" which is going to get too confusing over the next several paragraphs).

The 48-hour extravaganza included: a crazy Pub Night Out for the harried husbands, from which they returned asking "now, which novels, besides Sense and Sensibility, did Jane Austen write?" and a subsequent late-night "word association" game suggested by Quebequoise Husband (who had frontloaded the Pub Night with several scotches) which took us from "Shogun" to "Guns and Roses" to "Slash" to "Interesting Hats", an attempted trip to Horse World which ended abruptly at the front door when each and every child stepped out in full weather gear and slipped on the ice that had cruelly formed overnight, a hot water heater that petered out around 11:00 a.m. on Fake Thanksgiving Morning (Saturday), before 2/3 of the house had showered –making for a delightfully-scented dinner – an oven that refused to thoroughly cook root vegetables while blistering our bewildered British turkey, a poor, lone Boy Child who begged for "less princesses, more fighting" and, at the end, a houseful of sniffling, hacking adults who had caught every horrid virus borne by the fruits of our collective loins.

Dry bird? Ripe-smelling guests? Jeff still found plenty to toast.

So what if the turkey tasted like it had cryogenically suspended since The First Thanksgiving? So what if we forgot to tell our children anything about what Thanksgiving means or why we celebrate, and just plunked them down in a corner of the kitchen at an undinnerlike 3 p.m., ordering them to "eat four bites of turkey or no dessert!" So what if Quebequoise Dad mocked our Thanksgiving night viewing selection, "Love Actually," only to collapse in tears during the Portuguese proposal scene? So what if everyone returned to their respective homes in need of industrial-strength antibiotics?

It's Thanksgiving, damnit, and we Americans will have our Midwestern Cheesy Potatoes and Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce no matter what the cost (for the cranberries, about $6/can!). Seriously, we love our crazy copains and are, indeed, thankful that they were brave enough to make the trip.

Twins Molly and Josie reunited (and sitting together in Josie's chair. Could you die?)

Cocobaby - in perhaps the cutest Hipstamatic photo ever taken

We'd scarcely recovered from T-day when the onslaught of Chrimbo Parties began. I squeezed both my bulging belly and increasingly bodacious booty into a fancy new dress, which had fit so beautifully in my first trimester, for Jeff's office holiday party. British Office Christmas Parties... for a broad descriptor, I find myself truly at a loss.

Unlike most U.S. holiday parties, especially in this economy, the British seem to spare no expense in creating boozy, bizarre festivities. The soiree, held in a huge tent at the Bath Racecourses, was two parts child's birthday party and three parts Monty Python, with an "oxygen bar," a karaoke room, face painting, masseuses, a giant snowman and reindeer who both engaged in disturbing and provocative dancing with a scantily clad Christmas fairy, and a mechanical bull. I can't believe I didn't bring my camera, and could only capture these magical, Dickensian moments with my iPhone.

My Marlboro Man lasted six seconds. That's right, seconds.

The Stalactite Theme that would make Martha Stewart's head explode.

Apparently "Emphysema Patient" is, in Britain, a festive holiday look

Remember (cue the tambourines) I am observing all of these shenanigans sober.

Lest we forget, throughout these various Christian-themed affairs we Jews celebrated our own winter festival of Chanukah. It was quite different from any we had celebrated in either New York City (obviously!) or Paris. There was no giant menorah-lighting, no gelt or dreidels in the stores. But we did our best to bring Chanukah to the Brits.

I was so kindly invited to Josie's nursery for a presentation about the holiday, and was genuinely impressed not only by these three-year-old's attention spans, but by their enthusiasm in honoring and celebrating another culture. I fell in love with this school all over again!

Our Menorah Finger Paintings!

We attended a lovely Chanukah party at our new synagogue, and hosted Aussie friends Sarah and Michael and kids for a latke party, where we obsessively listened to the Maccabeats (the song in everyone's Chanukah playlist this year!) and overate!

But there's no escaping Christmas in England - not even at Josie's nursery, which staged an impressive Nativity play. Josie played the Letter Q, and we had practiced her line – "Q is for quiet by the manger's bed" for weeks. A typically antsy 3-year-old, she sat waiting her turn, squirming impatiently on a bench. About 45 seconds before she was to go on, she fell backwards off the bench, whacking her head and drawing gasps from the crowd.

Not wanting to spoil the play, she held back from wailing, and after a brief but impassioned pep talk from moi, she was able to go on! Here's the line (sadly was so verklempt whilst attempting to film that I cut her head off!) with some other additional cute footage:



Last weekend the festivities continued with the annual hypercelebration of my anniversaire, held for the second year in a row in Londontown. We trained up early on Saturday, lunched in Hyde Park with family friends, visited Kensington Palace – the royal apartments are closed for renovation, with a modern art installation of "missing seven princesses" in its place. Cool, if a bit weird, like this Vivienne Westwood bit:



We followed the tour with a stop by Harrod's for a visit to the toy department, where we wandered, goggle -eyed through the aisles of excess, bought Josie an adorable soft play house and accidentally shoplifted a Dora doll in the bottom of the stroller (sorry Mr. Al-Fayed!). Mayfair has become "our" London neighborhood, so it was back to the Park Lane to change for dinner. Our beloved Swedish babysitter's sister Juliette lives in London, so she came over to babysit while Jeff and I headed out for a birthday date!

We went to Trafalgar Square to see the carolers, window-shopped, and collapsed at a lovely corner table at The Square restaurant for a delicious and seemingly endless meal (literally, we had to say, "the check please, and please don't bring us any more food." They ignored us and brought us turkish delight and homemade salted caramel truffles).

I know, lame tree, but apparently the original was burned by protesters on Friday.

Sunday we popped up early for a delicious breakfast (French toast, bien sur) and had just enough time for Jeff's dream London activity: the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. He begs to go every time, and as our eventual destination for the afternoon was the theater across the street (for Peppa Pig's Party, a surprise for Josie), I couldn't say no. Yes, we had to shield our preschooler's eyes from 2/3 of the traumatic exhibits, but it apparently fulfilled his wildest expectations.

My fave: Princess Diana constructed completely from dryer lint

The biggest news of our holiday season, of course, was the big reveal: the gender of Baby Rothman Deuxieme. Most importantly, of course, the 20-week scan looked lovely, no apparent problems, the "nicest baby" the tech had seen in a long time, and.... ta-da!


It's a boy!

No, you can't tell from the picture, we had to take her word for it. But she was 95% certain! (they'll never say 100%) So.... Josie and I won the pool (I've known it was a boy all along, thanks to very different pregnancy symptoms). Despite a few seconds of buyer's remorse ("hmmm, I think I'd like a sister instead"), Josie is very excited and so are we.

Thursday Josie and I are off to Michigan for Christmas – Jeff will follow on the 23rd and then we'll all zip over to New Jersey for New Year's. Happy happy to everyone, and remember: Q is for quiet by the manger's bed!

Bonne Annee, mes amis!

Retour à Paris

Gosh, it's hard to believe that it's been nearly seven months since we decamped the City of Light for our newly adopted and already-beloved Bath. Paris has for us already become that camp friend you swore you'd write every day and visit the following week.... but visit we finally did, last weekend.

The impetus was my friend C's surprise 40th birthday shindig. The surprise's utter success can really only be attributed to me, since during our Devon weekend in August I suggested she supplement her 40th birthday getaway in Spain with a spiffy soiree in Paris, then continued to badger her by e-mail over the next four weeks with nagging inquiries as to the planning of said fête . Then, I had to spend the next three months awkwardly dodging her e-mails and pretending we were not coming to Paris anytime in the near future, and certainly not the weekend of November 20.

The trip across the Channel should have been a breeze, jet due to various lame excuses (which do, somehow, sound less irritating and faux in French) cited by ground crew, was delayed for over an hour. Add a forty-minute wait at CDG for our sad and tattered MacLaren poussette (yup, still sounds dirty) and an extremely trafficky commute into Paris, and it was around 4:30 by the time we rolled up to the fabulously campy, Art Deco Hotel Lutetia – just fifty yards from our old apartment on Boulevard Raspail (gotta love kids and their special senses of time and place – when we asked Josie what she was most looking forward to about the trip, she said "Going to my old apartment and playing with all my toys.").

Starving (I had fantasized about a leisurely lunch at my favorite tartine restaurant on the Rue Cherche-Midi and failed to pack any snacks of substance) and more than a little bedraggled, Josie and I rushed right over to my friend E's beautiful penthouse apartment for a play and catch-up with her daughter, Josie's faithful copine CW and bouncing Baby Brains. Then a mad dash through the magical Grande Epicerie for sorts of staples, from foie gras to truffle butter to cranberry sauce (for next week's Thanksgiving to Remember). Thankfully we've stayed in touch with one of our fabulous babysitters, who offered to pitch in both evenings and watch Josie; we were thus able to venture back out for a magic Paris date night.

Magic Paris Date Night as a tourist doesn't, as it turns out, go so differently from Date Night as a Paris native. All the best-laid plans go by the wayside. First I'd been determined to whisk Jeff over to his favorite gallery, the Grand Palais, for the much-lauded Monet exhibit. Strike One, as the exhibit is sold out through its entire run (until March!). I was somewhat placated with the discovery that Paris Photo, a fabulous photography expo, was again running in the Carrousel de Louvre. So off we went. But teetering slowly in my cute Paris-night-out shoes, dawdling to goggle dreamily at the Seine, the romantic buildings, the Tuileries in the moonlight, we didn't roll up to the Louvre until nearly 8pm. And what time did Paris Photo close? You got it – 8pm.

Our utter failure to absorb any culture did present, however, an opportunity to visit another Parisian landmark we'd missed during our two-year stay: Cafe Marly. Date Night was saved as we sat, gazing out the steamy windows at I.M. Pei's pyramid and dozens of snogging couples and sipping champagne (only sips for moi, don't worry!).

The nighttime view from Cafe Marly. I did not take this picture.

The day was capped off by an exquisite and always-entertaining evening with E and her dashing, irreverent husband H. After a typically long, large, three-course meal including venison, squid, sea bream and duck at the delicious L'Epi Dupin, we (after nearly being bounced out for lewd gestures and worse jokes) retired to the Lutetia's cruise-ship bar for a nightcap; but Jeff and H brought along their two-man show. One might not guess that slightly foppish Belgians and New Jersey Jews share uncannily similar –read: raunchy – senses of humor, but this is, in fact, the case; evenings with E and H always end up with many laughs, more than a few tears, and the inevitable bending of several laws of morality (during our farewell dinner at Josephine "Chez Dumonnet," to cite one example, H tortured our waiter, Jeff tortured the French language, and I somehow landed in a meat locker with the cute sous chef).

After days of foreboding forecasts from weather.com, we awoke on Saturday to a sunny, cloudless sky. We were determined to squish all our favorite things into the next eight hours and I daresay we did pretty dang well. After breakfast at our neighborhood Pain Quotidien, where we bumped into not one but two families we knew, we trekked back across the Seine so Josie could run around the Louvre courtyard.

Then we gave Josie the run of the rest of the day; she wanted to go to the "Toy Store" so we sauntered over to the fabulous Galeries Lafayette (pausing to remark that the reasons for our mutual weight gain upon moving to Bath were becoming quite clear, as it wasn't yet 11 a.m. and we'd already walked several miles) where Josie delighted at the store's lovely, weird, totally-French Christmas displays. Inside a pleasant saleswoman spent ten minutes helping me, totally rusty Francais and all, find several gifts (Paris, how you've grown!) and an impeccable, imperial French maman shushed Josie severely for playing the display toy piano too exuberantly (ahhh Paris... you haven't changed a bit!).

Rockette Dancers in leather dominatrix masks...Christmas in Paris.

Laden with overpriced toys –including a large stuffed Snoopy for Le Deuxieme (plush Snoopies are very hard to find!) – we then hopped onto the subway to Trocadero, rounding the nautical museum for the money shot of the Eiffel Tower. The look on Josie's face was absolutely priceless; beaming, she jumped out of the stroller to give the Tower her signature "hug." If there is one symbol that ties our family and Josie's memories to Paris it will be that controversial pile of twisted iron (I for one, still absolutely love it too).

Josie and her 2 favorite bods of steel

After another hour of frantic shopping (Josie clothes, more food and candy, baby gifts) and a quick primp, it was off to the Event of the Year, C's fab and fashionable party. C's culinarily gifted husband J had truly outdone himself, with a foot-long hors d'oeuvres menu and an extremely comprehensive cocktail list that included both "appletini" and "apple martini" – as a forced teetotaler I wasn't able to fully investigate the difference between the two.

Stuffed painfully back into my "cute shoes" – my feet had expanded to twice their normal size after all that walking – I managed to catch up with all of my crazy, beautiful Parisienne copines. Jeffrey happily drank for both of us, making his way down and back up the cocktail menu and sneaking off with Seattle M's wacky French Canadian husband to smoke "cigarillos". Something tells me, however, that this bromance may be a bit one-sided:

So then this one time, at math camp...

Angels, on the other hand, always stick together.

Sunday morning we awoke to a comforting and more typically November Paris drizzle, and after packing popped out to my ultimate Parisian happy place... the Marche Biologique. Holding hands, Josie and I meandered dreamily through the corridor of culinary wonders: pudgy potirons, fleshy, fresh squids, pungent handmade soaps, and of course, potato pancakes, which Jeff gamely volunteered to procure from his age-old nemesis. Same old play, same old lines.

Jeff: Trois galettes des pommes de terre, s'il vous plait.
Cranky Potato Pancake Man: Would you like them hot?
Jeff: Oui.
Cranky Potato Pancake Man: So, no bag?
Jeff: I would like them in a bag, please.
Cranky Potato Man: So you are not going to eat them now?
Jeff: Yes, I am going to eat them now.
(Five minutes later, we find Jeff clutching three steaming pancakes sans sac)


But my favorite organic farm stand owner was as predictably nice as Potato Man was cranky, insisting we take three juicing oranges for free (when all we were buying were three clementines totaling 1 Euro 50!). As vigorously as I defend English cuisine and English grocery stores (adore Waitrose), there is really nothing to replace the Marche Biologique. I nearly burst into tears (again) remembering other rainy mornings, and the often unfamiliar items I'd bring home to assemble delicious Sunday night dinners: chestnuts, bavettes de boeuf, lamb shanks, farm-fresh eggs, runny, smelly cheeses.

In fact I'd say 30% of this trip was spent wandering around misty-eyed – with nostalgia, largely for our initial few months and how difficult everything was. Two years ago I was still a relatively new mom, and had left a comfortable suburban life, with everything I might need just a short car ride to Target away, for a completely strange neighborhood and a major language barrier, suddenly having to procure every necessity on foot – pushing stroller – on elevators, on buses, on metro lines requiring carrying said stroller down death-defying staircases.

I sniffled for the lonely Thanksgiving when I cooked a chicken and Jeff's favorite sweet potatoes, for the Christmas the three of us wandered the Marais and then ate a dinner completely assembled from Picard (the amazing frozen foods store). The difficulty of it all really helped me grow and stretch as a person – and our little family formed an even tighter bond than we might otherwise have.

The locals were sometimes rude. The private French lessons were excruciating. The existence often felt isolated. But I loved every minute of it. Paris, je t'aime.

Bath Bun in the Oven

Right, so that's one of many future jokes that we now-Brits will surely make and you otherlings won't get. Welcome to my daily existence in England! Life is a series of head-scratching jokes, of nodding and pretending I fully get the jocularity spake by one of my new countrymen.

Bath buns are rich, sweet rounds of dough with lumps of sugar baked into the bottom and more crushed sugar sprinkled on top after baking. Dating back to 1763, and introduced to accompany the Bath waters as part of a regimen healing ailments from gout to impetigo, they are still made and consumed daily here in Bath, at famous institutions like Sally Lunn's.

But all this, really, is to say that the Davidson-Rothmans are expecting a new addition to the family! That's right, I'm knocked up. Expecting. In the Family Way. I'm just about 17 weeks, which puts Le Deux's ETA at April 25. That's right - the first little Taurus in the combined Rothman-Davidson clan (right...? thinking fast thinking fast). Yes, I'm fairly sure that's right.

AnyWHO (see, pregnancy brain has already set in) it's been a weird few months, as the British health care system is a bit, shall we say, laissez-faire compared to either the French or American systems. Since we arrived in the UK six months ago I've been happily trotting in and out of doctor's appointments, by myself or with Josie - never signing anything, never paying anything. This is all well and good until you're nearly 38, possibly pregnant and desperate for answers. After peeing on several sticks at Club Med, sort-of-seeing-faint-lines-but-not-sure, we landed back in England in early August and I gleefully booked a blood test at the clinic down the street. However, when I arrived the lovely midwives goggled at me like I had just asked to be injected with meerkat poo. Blood tests, they informed me, are not routinely performed, but I was welcome to pee on stick #14, then "carry on" and they would see me back at week 8.

Being a neurotic New Yorker that was simply unacceptable, so fast-forward through 6 days of frantic phone calls, stalking of mysterious obstetricians (not routinely seen here as part of early pregnancy either) to week 7 when I was able to obtain an early sonogram and see that li'l beating heart. That breathtaking day would carry me through five weeks of knocked-down-by-a-lorry exhaustion and why-did-I-do-that-tequila-shot-after-three-beers-and-six-Vodka-Collins nausea.

But now, happily settled into my second trimester, I'm feeling terrific (though "carry on" will never be my favorite medical philosophy). My energy is back, I've enrolled in prenatal yoga and started wandering the cute shopping streets of Bath for all the necessities I will have to re-purchase because our darling and perfectly preserved bouncer, swing, Bumbo seat, activity mat and the rest are huddled dejectedly in our attic in Nyack. In three weeks or so we'll find out whether Le Deux is a BGR2, or a BBR. Woohoo!

Josie is taking this news, like everything else in her life (we're moving to Paris! eat this, it's called a crepe! we're going to go everywhere on something called a Metro! hey, this is your new music preschool! we're moving to England! put on these special shoes called Wellies! try this, it's Marmite!) in stride. We picked the perfect moment –at the Neston Farm Shop, where a mother piggy foraged with her 6 little piggies for lunch – to tell her she was going to be a big sister. "Wow," she said. "Can I go play on that wooden tractor?" (Road Runner sound effects)

Yup, that's pretty much how Mommy is feeling these days.

We've actually been getting out and enjoying lots of nature this fall. Our trip to Neston's Farm Shop was followed by last weekend's delightful afternoon at Horse World. A home for rescued horses and other farm animals, Horse World boasts all the best aspects of British family fun. Live animals. Interactivity. An indoor playground. Cafeteria with tea and fattening treats. Check, check, and check! The staff are terrific and really let the kids participate in feeding and grooming. Josie loved bringing lunch to "her" horse, Gracie.

Hey, are those Cheerios? Do you maybe feel like sharing?

Gracie is one of the worst neglect and cruelty cases Horse World had ever encountered. After hearing a softened version of Gracie's story, Josie wanted to "help her." Luckily, Horse World offers an adoption program, so Josie's Chanukah contribution will help feed and take care of Gracie for at least a little while this year!

I can't wait to adopt you. Do you want to sleep in my room? Do you like Snow White?

After feeding Gracie, trucking through a freezing and mucky "family nature trail," meeting a ferret, and eating a traditional British lunch of "jacket potato" and baked beans, it was off to the indoor play area, complete with GIANT SLIDES! To her father's delight, and my chest-clutching terror, the girl has no fear.















Speaking of fear, another Hallowe'en came and went, celebrated in style with spooky fun for kids and parents alike. Thanks to my friend A, who counseled with games and decorations, we made spooky hand puppets, did a cake walk, a treasure hunt, ate a ton of sugar and finished with a dance party. Josie dressed as Peppa Pig, though for the girl who loves to live in costume, she surprisingly only wanted to wear it for about ten minutes. We can only think the additional weight encumbered her search for treasure and speed during the cake walk.

Peppa and the Very Hungry Caterpillar

Having now hosted two parties in Bath, I've learned to skip the foie gras, save the fancy cheese, forget the fondue. What do the Brits go nuts for chez nous? Seven-layer dip! "What is this heavenly concoction?" they inquire. All allegiances to chutneys, curries, and the like go right out the window the second they sample that perfect bite of beans, cheese, olives, tomatoes, guacamole, creme fraiche (you can take the girl out of Paris...) and scallions. There – if you didn't have the recipe, now you do! Just don't try to dip in for yourself whilst any Great Pulteney Street residents tarry about – you could lose a finger.

The weather here is finally transitioning into what portends to be a long, chilly, and damp winter. However, if the thermometer inches above 40 we remain determined to spend weekends enjoying the beautiful English countryside. You'll likely sense a theme here; this past weekend we took advantage of a sunny if brisk morning to explore the Bath City Farm, a working and completely open farm inside Bath's City Limits. You can hunt for eggs in the chicken coop, pet the goats, even help muck out the pigpen (um....pass). I do think we have a real animal lover on our hands....


Next weekend we're off to Paris for our first return visit (can't wait!); and the following weekend our American-Parisian friends the Bells and Gagnon-Joneses (and their 4 children) are coming for a belated Thanksgiving. Hilarity will surely ensue, so check back for preggo pics, Midwestern cheesy potatoes, and many wacky anecdotes along the general theme of overeating/undersleeping.

I know, ma chère... it's so easy to fall in love with an ass.

Autumn Leaves

I realize it's been a perhaps unforgivable lapse in time since my last post, but things have been crazy around here -- we are officially an overprogrammed yuppie family. And loving it.

The biggest change around here is that Josie started a new school - she's going every morning to the Royal High School for Girls' nursery. She wears a uniform, has different activities every day – cookery, French, music, art, gym and ballet – and absolutely loves it. I felt a bit guilty when I realized most girls are only going 2-3 mornings a week, but her teachers assure me she has the energy for everyday learning and is benefiting greatly from the variety in activities (and playmates!).

Hey world, check me out.

So every morning, she dons the uniform, picks up her "soupcase," and trots off with Daddy to "little girls' school." She eats lunch in the lunchroom every day with her friends and is generally getting more grown-up every day. This school is amazing; I wish I could have gone when I were three... or four... or twenty. It runs through high school and is completely focused on leadership, independent thinking, and well-roundedness (yes, even in the nursery!). Josie can already identify every number and letter, and is learning to put small words together with help. She can print her name (kind of) and loves painting, drawing, and of course putting on princess dresses (oy, vey!). I am certainly getting my exercise, as the school sits atop a mile-long steep and steady hill (of course I couldn't keep her in the preschool next DOOR, not when there's a 45-degree hill to be scaled daily!)

Parisian Third Birthday Gown

Of course, school has not been all sunshine and song – I was pulled aside a couple of weeks ago, and asked if Josie had had an unfortunate experience with clowns. Seems that during a clown story with accompanying clown puppet, Josie had become "quite upset" and tried to rip the clown off the bewildered teacher's hand. (thinking back, thinking back...Josie: I don't like clowns. Mommy: Neither do I! Clowns are damn scary in my opinion. Ooooops). Josie and I spent the weekend designing and coloring "Cute Clowns," and discussing how clowns are funny and nice and are never waiting under your bed to strangle you or living in sewers from which they snatch unsuspecting children with sharp-clawed lizard hands to devour with slimy, razor-fangs.

Josie turned three October 5 and we celebrated in grand fashion - no clowns – Popa and Hanna flew over for the occasion, which was very lucky and special. We took Josie to see her first real play, called "Room on the Broom," and based on a kids' book by Julia Donaldson, a British author we've come to adore, followed by a lovely lunch at our favorite cafe on the river. Dinner was meatloaf and noodles, as requested, followed once again by - yup, you guessed it - Elmo cake.


I was pretty psyched about her "big gift," which was this fabulous Melissa and Doug puppet theater. She was pretty surprised (she would have been far more surprised if she had seen us struggling to put it together at midnight the night before), and once she got over her fear of the mustachioed policeman puppet, she was ready to jump in and puppeteer!


We've had a busy fall otherwise - we celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at our new synagogue in Bristol - a really welcome discovery for these wandering Jews! The congregation is filled with young families, some of whom live in Bath, and a few children Josie's age! We were invited to a lovely Sukkot tea at one of the member's houses and have gotten together on the weekend with a different family. We had felt a bit isolated Jewishly (our love of the Marais, our own Jewish friends, and L'As du Falafel aside!) in Paris, so this is a real positive development for us! Shana Tovah!

We've also made it out to the countryside a couple of times; Jeff took his parents to the lovely Cotswolds to Lacock Abbey, and last weekend we headed out to my favorite place in the area thus far, the Court Gardens, in a futile search for pumpkins. None o' those big orange squashes, but about fifty different kinds of apples, which they let us take home and eat!

Crazy 'bout dem apples

So, this wouldn't be a wacky Rothvidson update without some kind of video tribute, and today's post is no different. Today we bring you Josie's very First School Recital Performance, staged as part of the Royal High Junior School's Autumn Festival. Josie (front and center, in stripes) won raves for her performance of "Autumn Leaves," but halfway through Old MacDonald she fell prey to a Lady Gaga-esque accessory snafu and broke the fourth wall a bit. Take it away, Josie!

Avon Calling! Our first UK summer's Top Ten

Ahoy, mateys. Now that our (largely pirate-themed, as you'll read, to the delight of our little Peter Pan devotee) summer is over, I thought I'd provide a summary of our first few months in Britain's bucolic Avon Valley. At various moments, 'twas nostalgic, academic, neolithic, soporific, sophomoric – but generally fantastic. Without further adieu, the...

Summer 2010: The Best of Bath

1) Althorp. Need I say more? Okay, fine, I will. Althorp is the childhood home of the late HRH Diana, Princess of Wales. The stately family home, now overseen by Diana's brother Charles, the current Earl Spencer, is located about three hours northwest of Bath, so I dragged DH and daughter on my lifelong-awaited pilgrimage. Both were terrific sports. The house is undergoing renovations and should be even lovelier when complete. The grounds now contain a small exhibit to Diana's life - notes she wrote in her youth, lots of family photos, jewelry, which Josie loved, the condolence books sent from around the world after her death (which means E and I are in there, somewhere) and DRESSES. When I saw the wedding dress in its full splendor, I confess I teared up a bit.


The People's Princess is buried at Althorp, in an island in the middle of a lake on the property. I spent a few moments walking around the island. The house itself was pretty amazing as well. I spent the most precious moments, of course, in the much-maligned Althorp gift shop buying up everything that wasn't nailed down.


Of course, the wedding at the B and B where we stayed, which went until 1 a.m., with a DJ blasting peaceful, dream-inducing ditties like "Brick House" and "Mambo #9", would be in the top ten worst moments in our English summer... but that, as they say in "Tales from the Riverbank," Hammy, is another story.

We should have seen the Sleepless Night from Hell coming
when I caught the bridesmaids practicing their breakin' moves

2) Salcombe. How lucky to have British chums still living in Paris, who a) still want to be friends though I've left France, b) vacation in the U.K., and c) invite us to vacation with them in the U.K.! My dear friend C, in inviting Josie and me to join their last bank holiday weekend in Salcombe, Devon, promised me the "Martha's Vineyard of England." She's not yet been to the Vineyard, but never mind, she was partly right, partly off – but in all the right ways. Salcombe is much smaller than the Vineyard, more like I picture Nantucket to be. Charming, narrow streets, cute, preppy shops, lots of fish-and-chip shacks. It was the perfect way to end the summer: crabbing, shopping, cooking lovely meals and drinking wine over delicious views of the harbor, taking the "ferry" (a 7-8 person dinghy) to the huge, sandy beaches to build sand castles and – if you are completely insane like Josie Diana – even swim!

Fifty-degree water? Practically a hot tub!

3) Sudeley Castle. Second only to my obsession with Princess Diana is my obsession with the Tudor family history. The Other Boleyn Girl, Elizabeth, The Tudors, I read and watch them all religiously. So, as my sister-in-law J and I pored over the National Trust guidebook for a fun castle to visit with the kids, I leapt upon Sudeley Castle, where Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's last bride (Joely Richardson, for fans of The Tudors) lived, with Elizabeth I and Lady Jane Grey as her wards, after the death of the old tyrant. We packed into 2 cars and set off for an afternoon of history and beauty - and Sudeley did not disappoint. The castle was actually built in medieval times, destroyed after Katherine Parr's death by Oliver Cromwell's armies, and rebuilt in Georgian times. You can still see parts of the original castle, its crumbling walls rising over breathtaking gardens:


And, of course, the Chapel where Katherine Parr lies in rest:


Rounding out the Sudeley afternoon was a fascinating tour of the house and grounds, chock-full of Elizabethan history, as well as the background of the quirky gentry currently residing there, and a fabulous playground complete with wooden castle and tower, giant slides and ice-cream truck! A "highly recommend" on the English castle circuit.

4) Stonehenge and Avebury. We've all heard the disses on Stonehenge. "It's too commercialized." "Tourist trap." "Once you get there it's just a bunch of rocks." But you know what, it's great to visit a place like Stonehenge with the low expectations borne of someone else's hardened cynicism. The place is freaking cool. I was only able to sporadically listen to the audioguide (someone had to keep an eager two-year-old away from the stones) but what I heard was anthropologically interesting, physically baffling (how did they move the stones so far?) and not just a bit creepy. Plus, archaeologists are constantly making new discoveries in the surrounding countryside to add to the story!

As far as visual wonders go, I would rate it up there with Pisa. You think, "ahhh, what's another prehistoric site, druids or no druids..." and then, wham! You see the stones, you feel the chill of the early morning air, and it all feels so...mystical.



Avebury is a lesser-known, lightly-patrolled (no audioguides, no ticket-takers, stone-hugging COMPLETELY allowed) group of stones a short distance from Stonehenge. We were instructed to walk through on our own and see if we felt drawn to a particular stone. I'll spare you the shot of the anatomically-shaped stone Jeff was "drawn to." But it was fun being able to pose the kids precariously on 5000-year-old neolithic monuments.



5) Bowood Manor. A stately home. Meticulously groomed gardens. A pirate ship playscape for kids. Trampolines for the under-5s. In other words, literally something to please everyone. Bowood is typical of the hundreds of historic estates around the U.K. – many of which were seized by the British Army during World War II and damaged beyond the family's ability to repair and retain them – transformed into family funlands. I only picked Bowood for our first Sunday out as a family by closing my eyes, flipping through a guidebook and choosing at random. It was a great day, and – as we watched Josie bounce joyfully on a trampoline, order around other sailors, clamber through a soft-play obstacle course, and inhale a three-course lunch in the sunshine – made us extremely happy to have moved to such a family-friendly country.

Lichen-y Lions...

...and Pirate Playscapes. Love the English countryside!

6) Bath Food and Wine Festival. An enthusiastic and repeated attendee of the "Salon Saveurs" in Paris, I had low expectations for Southwest England's gastronomic exposition. But, like most assumptions about British cuisine, that was wrong! It was certainly small (about 1/5 the size of Paris' fancy food show) and highly focused (cheddar, sausages, tandoori, ale) but it was great being able to take Jeff for once – and we had fun trying all the regional specialties. We even stocked up on fancy olive oil, chutneys, and cheeses. It was a beautiful afternoon, and sans Josie we were able to relax, enjoy a lamb burger with pear cider, and listen to live music.

7) Longleat Manor. How can any red-blooded family looking for a Sunday outing refuse a "Medieval Wonderland and Safari Park?" And so we found ourselves trucking one morning toward Longleat Manor. Owned by the aging "Lord Bath," who is apparently "barking mad," Longleat is a onetime family estate, now completely renovated and Disneyized, complete with maze, bounce house, miniature railroad, and - yes - two prides of lions which have lived and bred successfully here in the Avon valley since 1966. This was my second "drive-through safari" (we'll also leave the famous Davidson African Lion Safari-Toronto story for another time) and, I have to say, scenes like this are pretty cool!

Hey, could I trouble you for a...Camel Lite?

After visiting giraffes, rare birds, zebras, and the famous Lions, we barely completed Longleat's extremely difficult, completely traumatizing maze. But we can't wait to go back (we bought the complete package ticket, of course!) for the Adventure Castle, Teacup Ride, and "Old Joe's Mine," a fun-filled adventure starring a colony of free flying Egyptian fruit bats. Boy, these Brits know how to show the kids a good time!

8) Notting Hill. Everyone blames Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts for turning this charming corner of London into yet another mecca for camera-wielding tourists. It's also a bit far from the center of town, so we skipped it on our last London trip. However, this time I was sure to book ample time on Saturday, so that we could hit the famed Portobello Road Antique Market and have a fab gastropub lunch. With our trusty Swedish babysitter Josefin was at the ready, Jeff and I set off. When you first climb out of the Notting Hill Gate tube station, you might think "so, what's the big deal?" I mean, sure, you can see a house where George Orwell once lived:


And I, ever the rom-com geek, was busily snapping away at every blue door in the nabe, in case it were Hugh the Bumbling Travel Bookshop Owner's (when I got back to Bath I learned via IMDB that the door has long since been painted a different color in order to deter dorks like me from staring in their windows looking for Spike in his wetsuit). But I digress... the market. Well, when you finally wind around that last corner onto Portobello Road, you see what all the fuss is about. Within ten minutes I had bought a 1952 Coronation Tobacco Tin with a terrific, kitschy colorized image of QE2, new ceramic knobs for our desk, a porcelain jug spotted with English roses, and various bizarre tchotchkes for family. The place is mind-blowing. There have to be hundreds of stalls selling antique silver, Persian rugs, old prints, vintage clothing – it would take you ten Saturdays to see them all.

Look at that awesome door!

Of course, 75% of what we actually bought was totally sham-tique. But it all looks terrific in our apartment! Then, starved from all the ducking, poking and bargaining, we collapsed in a lovely gastropub recommended by Frommer's (that guy never steers me wrong when it comes to restuarants) called Bumpkin. I only made one Crude American Faux-Pas, asking our server if they sold the adorable "Country" tee-shirt she was wearing (I mean, come on – every New York joint from Zabar's to Tortilla Flats sells tee-shirts) . Flustered, she stammered that I could probably buy hers, as her shift was ending in an hour, but...

Hugh, you were not here... except in my dreams. Got the latest Grisham?

9) Bath Fringe Festival, notably "Treasure Island." The Bath Fringe Festival provides an "alternative" celebration to the mainstream Bath International Music Festival. "The Fringe," as those-in-the-know call it, includes Funky Puppet Shows, drumming workshops, independent film screenings, and, apparently, homegrown theater productions like "Treasure Island," a moving production staged at various locations in nearby Sydney Gardens.

We started in one of the Garden's belvederes (look that up), watching Young Jim and Mrs. Hawkins suffer at the hands of Billy Bones the Pirate. Then the presumptive Captain, who wishes to hire a ship and look for the treasure, entered stage left and delivered his lines in a BOOMING VOICE. Well, in such an uncontrolled environment (kids and parents scrunched together on stinky cushions on a concrete floor), you can't, well, control the environment. One four-year-old finally shouted, "Stop yelling!" And OMG, it clearly took every acting chop the poor blowhard Captain had to keep from cracking up. I actually thought the acting was excellent, and tried to picture where and how these fringey people rehearsed a two-hour play! After the third act, held in a clearing about 20 yards away, the Captain called intermission and opened the treasure chest, which was actually a fully-stocked bar, with various ales and soft drinks. We looked at the pirates and sailors sharing a brew with Stroller Dads and said to each other, "This is Bath."

Let's find the bloody treasure so we can all have a pint!

10) The Lions of Bath. Like the cows of Chicago, the police dogs of Boston, and the bulls of New York, Bath has its own – now annual – public street art festival. This year, various businesses sponsored "Lions of Bath," which were scattered all over the city. Thus, every tromp through town running errands with Josie turned into a journey of thrilling discovery. My friend C will love the Cath Kidston lion, while I loved the jewelry-store-sponsored "Lion, Witch and Wardrobe."

Kath Kidston Lion

Floral Lion in Parade Gardens -- how cool is that?

Alas, summer is over, but as few parents admit, in the end that's a good thing. The kids are back in school – Josie started nursery at a fabulous all-girls' school, but that's for the next post – and we have a bit of sanity back. But as our first summer in England proved, sanity is highly overrated.

Why couldn't the pirate graduate from first grade? Because he only knew one letter... "ARRRRRRR!"