more spring

More bits of spring from around the neighborhood on 25 April, the day after Bea's birth. Bella and papa took these photos while on a supply run for mom. No matter how much you prepare, something's always missing. On the way, there was a kite flying in Quicks Road Park that was absolutely worth stopping for.

back to the office

On Monday the 11th, with some reluctance, I returned to work. Work. As I walked through the door I met what seemed to be the smell of a bar at closing time. Not quite the greeting one expects from a semi-Georigian Bloomsbury terrace. I soon learned that the chemical aroma was the result of strict swine flu policy and vigilant sanitation. In this manner, I was quickly reassured that the English world kept spinning while I was away at home.

In a cute instance of projection, the cavalcade of BBC News's swine flue stories included one on 2 May asking whether or not Mexico over-reacted to the whole outbreak. It probably wasn't worth asking whether or not Britain did, as the answer was too obvious. To see for yourself, run a search for 'swine flu' on BBC News's website.

Given the number of bacteriological maladies transmitted in Mexico on any given day, the pandemonium about a swine-flu pandemic just seems rather more like the latest crack in the sky to observed by our favorite earth-bound fowl.

regarding henry

On Saturday 9 May, we visited Hampton Court Palace. 2009 is the fifth centenary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne, and Bella was invited by the Historical Society to give her perspective on the good king and the female gender. These photos were compiled during the delivery of her address in the orangerie and the q&a that followed in the garden. Sorry if you missed it.

on the water

Last Friday, the 8th, we travelled 22 miles up the Thames from Westminster to Hampton in a little passenger barge. It was our first venture out as a family. There was lots of weather, lots of birds, and lots of scenery.

Though modernization delivered the Thames from all kinds of unimaginable forms of pollution, the river has also lost much of its ceturies-old vitality and become difficult to appreciate as anything more than an ephemeral tourist "experience." It is also more than a little ironic that London, dynamo of the global industrial economy, enjoys one of the only major water bodies to actually benefit from industrialization. Typical.

Bella loved the boat so much that in the evening we were trying to devise a scheme for opening floating child-care centers. We'll see. Lots of images below:

The river.


The gardens at Hampton Court Palace, at the end of our boat trip.

one for the file

A really interesting story in the Boston Globe two weeks ago about baby brain function.

steady as she grows

One change we have been able to document during these first two weeks has been the diminishing elvishness of Bea's ears. Compare the following three images:

This first image was taken on 24 April just hours after Bea's birth. On the upper right part of the ear, at the part farthest from the auditory canal, the top curve resolves in a small point before undulating down towards the neck line and then curving around in the direction of the nose. This whole area of the ear is also noticably flat.

Eight days later, as this photo shows, the profile of Bea's outer ear has gotten rounder and the curling along its periphery has increased from before.

Finally, by 4 May, the elvish pointiness is gone and instead Bea's head is now adorned with curves, curls, and two lovely looping human ears.

After consulting a diagram of the outer ear, it looks as if maybe it took a few days after Bea's birth for her scaphae to curl into what is considered their normal configuration. Growing, growing, growing.

westminster

The Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood in Westminster remains unfinished after opening in 1903. It houses, among other things, the remains of St. John Southworth, a heroic but little-known English priest and martyr.

The vast clerestories and vaulted ceilings of the building are bare brick and still waiting to receive the revetment and mosaics that were designed for them. Helen didn't mind the incompleteness though, perhaps because she is still under construction as well. Here she is dancing on the steps.

hay unos ojos

On Monday last, her tenth day of life, Bea gave me her stare. Bella gave a similar one and I now wonder whether every father gets this sort of shake down from his newborn. Both Bella and Bea gave only one, and both did so very early. I can only describe it as looking into the deepest, vastest light possible, and living to say thank you.