September mourn...

Hey, Summer? It's Bath. Ever planning on heading this way?

If you somehow missed the Weather Channel analysis, the sailboats blowing over during Olympic squalls, the complete absence of any tan lines on Prince Harry's backside in Vegas, let me fill you in.

This was the worst.summer.ever.

If it wasn't raining, it was drizzling. If it wasn't drizzling, it was misting. If it wasn't misting, it was cloudy, and we were quickly slathering on the Nair and pulling on the short shorts because hot damn, it wasn't raining!

Apparently "Europe" also got some of this bad weather (I recently picked up on a tour of Bath Abbey that Britons don't consider themselves part of Europe. This turned into an argument with my husband who demanded to know which continent Hawaii was in. North America? No? I really drank too much in college) but we really, really got it something awful.

We did catch a bit of Olympic fever -- watched loads of diving, swimming, gymnastics, you know, everything that took place inside and wasn't cancelled or postponed 5 times. Josie in particular LOVED the Olympics. When she started school last week she informed the school administrator that when she grows up she's going to be an Olympian and compete in Diving, Cycling, Gymnastics and Speed-Walking. (um, what? BTW who knew that my year-plus of stroller walking in the Palisades Center could have prepared me for Olympic Gold?!?!)

Oh, quick aside - Josie's school had a mini-Olympics this week, and she killed!  She medaled in 5 events, pretty much everything but bean-bag-on-head-relay. She has a really round head. Check out her hurdling event, in which her hurdles are three times the height of everyone else's!

Anyhoo, back to August....while we were feeling the Olympic fever, and rooting for both Team GB and the Americans, we still took the first chance we got to bolt the sodden United Kingdom for sunny Stockholm.

Stockholm, where do I start?  Amazing. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, just get there. Especially if you have kids as it is the most kid-friendly place ever. And especially if you do NOT have kids b/c it has multiple Michelin-starred restaurants and some kind of IceHotel bar where everything I guess is made out of ice and has hot and cold running vodka. Alas, I will never find out.

Stockholm -- another European destination so expensive you have not only pass go, you also have to pretend everything is priced in Monopoly money. That said, there are deals to be had -- no one under 12 gets charged for anything, and Jeff and I bought a $225 "Stockholm Card" that got us into absolutely every museum, every attraction, every public transportation mode for the entire week. We also had free breakfast at our hotel, though we unfortunately didn't realize that until the day we checked out. 

Yes, that's Tony Bennett sitting behind Hugo. 

I bet he knew brekkie was free.

Our trip started with a teary-but-happy reunion with Josefin "Nonny" Noren Almen, our Swedish babysitter from Paris. We spent the first 2 days in Stockholm with Nonny as our guide, seeing the completely amazing Junibacken, or Pippi Longstocking World, the Gamla Stan, or Old Town, and lots and lots and lots of sun.

Josie and Nonny reunited

 
Our own little Pippi

Villa Villekulla in the amazing Pippi museum

There was a music festival happening on one of the islands, so one night Bjork was singing right into our hotel window. That was pretty freaking cool.

Oh, we also did a self-guided "Millenium" tour which was also pretty cool. We had coffees at the bar where Blomkvist eats all his hundreds of sandwiches. We walked around the uber cool "Solder" neighborhoods.  We'd gone from the original Ville Villekulla to V. Kulla.

It's Berger. Nielssen's been shot!

After a right-wing shooting everyone needs a sandwich and coffee

A lucky thing about Stockholm is we avoided some of those triple-digit restaurant bills by mooching off of friends, like the wonderful amazing Bergmans who have known me literally before I was born, and the Deckers, fellow American expats living the Socialist Dream, who had us to their gorgeous home in the 'burbs for a gorgeous roast chicken and a great play for Josie with their two adorable daughters. 
 
With Maj, Ulf, and their adorable grandson Tom, we toured the outdoor museum, Skansen, toured Stockholm by boat and had an amazing home-cooked Swedish meal (oh, their daughters Carin and Sissi whom I have known since THEY were born, and Sissi's husband Daniel, were there for the last one too).

 Tom, Josie and Hugo enjoying an International 

Delight - Ice cream - at Skansen

 My second trip on Ulf's Boat, the CarMajSis

Some other highlights:

 Josie in Gnome Man's Land

 Drottningholm Palace

Future Geniuses with Current Doofus 

 Absolut Cute at the "SpiritMuseum"

 Narrowest street in Sweden

 Sad to go

Here is how I know this was our best trip ever. While I consistently plan excellent vacations, around Day 5 Josie always expresses her strong desire to go home and sleep in her own bed and play with her Polly Pockets. When on Friday we told her it was our last day in Stockholm there were tears! Real tears! It may have been because she knew she would never see the sun again until next May or June, but I also just think it's a magical, incomparable, totally fun place. It's super-cosmopolitan, a great blend of modernity and history, sunny (when it's sunny), warm in summer (if it's sunny), super-liberal (there were Gay Pride flags flying from every museum, theater, government building, etc).

But we did have to go back to rainy dreary England, and we did, in time for the end of the Olympics (you know we were deep in Olympics withdrawal when Jeff tried to change the channel from Speed-walking and Josie shrieked, "Hey, I was really enjoying that!")

Thanks to St. Claire we muddled through the school-free month without too much collateral damage. We closed the summer with a jaunt back over to Cornwall, to the same kid-friendly hotel we visited with Anne and Lew in May. I booked this bank holiday weekend literally at the checkout desk last May, thinking "August Bank Holiday Weekend will be gorgeous, surely, and there's a Regatta, how perfect!"

As you either know or can guess, I was yet again.... wrong. We did have one lovely summer's eve, which thankfully we seized to go crabbing on the docks. We caught quite a few crabs ourselves, and escaped a complete horror film when the kids next to us set all 5,329 of their crabs free -- on the dock -- at once:

Although, Josie herself had a bit of a tough time saying goodbye...

The rest of the weekend was basically a soggy mess. We did check out a cool shipwreck museum with yet more Titanic memorabilia - along with two 17th-century schooners. We had lots of lovely meals and cream teas and local lagers, but mostly just had to dodge the bucketing rain. **SIGH**

On September 5th Josie woke us by bouncing into our bed at 6:45 a.m. proclaiming, "this is the day I've been waiting for my entire life."  The first day of school - of "Reception" which I guess is like kindergarten though the curriculum - reading, writing, phonics, basic maths, cookery, swimming, gym, ballet, science - looks more like first grade. She has a new uniform and a new outlook on life, though she has proclaimed her new class "absolutely exhausting."  It's really amazing to see how quick she is learning, though she would still rather draw and watch Peppa Pig than do her homework!

We trekked to London to see E, C, Baby Brains and Belgian Dad for C's 5th birthday. We got to see E and Belgian Dad's fabulous new Maida Vale house, enjoy a becoming-habitual roast chicken lunch, toss back a few glasses of champagne, dance to Jessie J and collapse in a heap on the train home. Always so much fun to hang with those crazy Belgiafranglaisers.

 Happy Birthday Mademoiselle C!

We also had a great visit from "Chelle and Butch" aka Michelle and Rich, which included lots of fun sightseeing, local beers, killer curry and an awesome raclette spread. It is a rare friend who is up for all of those elements in one weekend.... which why Michelle is and will always be my girl. We had a great time and Josie always LOVES having an extra man to boss around!

Michelle lounges in Parade Gardens

And last but not least, I got to try my hand at Stage Mothering when I took Hugo to London to film a commercial for Cow and Gate, a baby food company at which my husband may or may not allegedly work. There were dozens and hundreds of adorable children there so Hugo may well end up on the cutting room floor, but we had fun anyway!

In a couple of weeks the whole crazy mishbucah, including Nom, Pee-Pa, Anne and Lew descend for Josie's 5th birthday and our joint 40th birthday -- as one of our guests has pointed out, our "collective octogenarian celebration."  OUCH.

There's a small presidential election coming up as well on November 6th so I may be a bit swamped but will try to check in at least with some pics!  Cheerio!

I'll leave you with some Austen Powers - the JA Festival started this week and all of Bath becomes a Georgian Playland!

Sweet Janes