It's an Exciting World

On Monday Sean invited me out to an escape room. It was decently well done, but most of the challenge was in finding the objects hidden behind things.

Tuesday I went to work from Regents Park, because it was so nice outside. I got a lot done and enjoyed walking in some parts of the park I hadn’t been around before. Wednesday I worked from Pancras Square Library.

I went back for some volunteering on Thursday as well, and went over time by about an hour as there was a bit of a line and I didn’t want to leave them hanging.

On Saturday, Zaheer and Zahira came to Kings Cross with two of their friends from Texas. It was great hanging out, and I finally went inside Word on the Water. It was pretty much as expected, and I was a little surprised by the number of books that I had already read out of their collection.

Since we didn’t get to do our dive trip due to weather, we chose to have a last minute day trip to Cambridge. We missed our train on the way out because the Victoria line was suspended going north from Kings Cross. We managed to catch a train about 30 minutes later, plus some taxi and uber we made it to our punting tour just on time. It was neat to see the colleges and go around town. Steph and I agreed that the downtown was nicer than Oxford, with a cuter small town vibe. We walked to see the apple tree that was grown from a cutting of the famous Isaac Newton apple tree in front of Trinity College. For lunch we had a garden afternoon tea by the river, which was a lovely location, but the food was just ok. We then did the tour of the Kings College Chapel, which was impressive. We finished out the tour with a stop by the Fitzwilliam Museum and botanic garden, and a stop before the train at a Mexican restaurant MEXUK.

London Weekly 192

August 31, 2026 0

Slow Week

On Monday I went to Zaheer’s to play some games and Zahira made some delicious food as well. Zaheer cooked a delicious kabab and Zahira made a tasty salad. I appreciate their efforts and ability to cook. We played a few different games, some StartCraft II and a top down coop shooter on rails.

Tuesday was our anniversary and we went to a restaurant in Islington that had been on our list for the longest time, The Tamil Prince. It had really good roti, and is somewhere we’d like to go again.

Wednesday Steph and I went to a Jian Bing restaurant. Jian Bing is a type of food that I had in China and really liked; it is a crepe like pancake wrapped around lots of veggies egg and a crispy starch. The one here was different, but still good.

Thursday I went to volunteer at Swiss Cottage. It was a little slow, but that is fine as I was able to get work done on my computer for most of the time.

On Saturday there was a big picnic in Regents Park for Eden’s birthday. I enjoyed spending the time with everyone there, and hung out for about four hours.

London Weekly 191

August 31, 2026 0

Dry and Sunny

It was another dry week with gorgeous weather, albeit overly hot. I worked Tuesday from the British Library, and Wednesday from along the canal in Angel.

Wednesday, Steph and I enjoyed watching the partial eclipse from the balcony. I got a good setup for a pinhole projection.

On Thursday, Steph took a cool stop into the theatre to see the new Spiderman movie. It was great and we enjoyed being out of the heat.

On Friday I went to work from Regents Park, and enjoyed it.

Sunday was a Mercato performance with Ready Singer One. Then that evening Steph and I went to Bone Daddies for some great Ramen. We stopped by some arcades afterwards and played an interesting variant of air hockey. We played some pinball, then headed back home.

London Weekly 190

August 27, 2026 0

Chill Week in the Heat

It was a hot week in London as the drought continued. The weather was nice to be outside in the mornings, and a little to hot in the afternoons and evenings. It was difficult to sleep some nights due to the heat.

Monday I donated blood, which was pretty easy. Then I worked outside for part of the day.

Tuesday Zaheer came over and we played some Good Job. It was a lot of fun. We jumped around in the levels until eventually the game froze.

Wednesday Arya arrived, then she and Steph headed to the caves.

I was originally supposed to start back at Meta this week, but due to their layoffs they weren’t able to hire me. Instead I met up with some people about what could be next. Stacie and Aaron were the main two and they each had their own things going on. I’ll try something again with Aaron and see how it goes this time.

On the weekend I spend Saturday at the RAF museum, which was larger and denser than I was expecting. It is another one of the amazing free London museums. They had six hangers that were packed full of all sorts of planes, some of which they had to take the wings or other larger parts off to fit them in with the other exhibits.

Sunday I went ice skating with the choir folks, at Becca’s invitation. It was a lot of fun. My time roller blading growing up helped me a lot in being able to ice skate well, and I was probably the best out of the group. Afterwards I walked down to Hyde Park with a meal deal for a nice dinner outside under some trees.

London Weekly 189

August 14, 2026 0

Seven Sisters Hike

Monday was a sick day this week, but I was better and back at it on Tuesday. I went to do the Digital Inclusion volunteering, then joined Pavel, Anel, and Steph at the Royal Academy of Arts. They had their Summer Exhibition, which isn’t just showing art, but also selling it. It was interesting to see what is considered the best art of London currently, and the prices that go along with it. Some of the paintings and sculptures were reasonably priced, but some where absurd. That evening was a triple choir rehearsal, and then we had a fun after rehearsal trivia game that was fun.

Wednesday I worked from Pancras Square Library, then Steph and I went to Hampstead Heath to pick some blackberries. It was a lovely walk around the heath. Friday I worked from the British Library.

Saturday I did a hike from Brighton to Eastbourne, about 30km (24m). It was a full day with getting on the train to Brighton at 7:40 am, then walking along the beach for several hours. The sun was intense with zero shade for most of the hike. It wasn’t even that nice of a hike for the first two thirds, since it was more boardwalk and concrete and rock. The change came when I forded the Cuckmere river. The last third was along grassy cliffs, at the Seven Sisters. That was a lovely hike. There is a lighthouse there that I would possibly want to stay in that is an BnB. I got on the train home from Eastbourne around 8:33pm and was sore from the hiking.

Sunday was a chill day doing some chores around the house and recovering from the hike. In the evening we have a short but nice book club discussion on Vespertine. It is one of the better done YA novels, partly because there isn’t really any romance in it and partly because of the great world building.

London Weekly 188

August 2, 2026 0

A Few Nice Hikes

This week was lovely in London. I spent a lot of it outside either on the balcony or going places and working from there.

Monday I went to Cheshunt, where I last left off on the hike of the Lea Valley. I did a circuitous route, with a number of stops along the way with my folding chair and just working from the trail. I grabbed some food at a pub that was right on the canal, and then caught the train back from Broxbourne. I went to choir and we sang through Jenny of Oldstones, which is the baritone ‘solo’ for all the baritones.

Tuesday I went to work from the British Library, and got a lot of good work done there. Thursday we went to the Luminescence show at Westminster Cathedral, which was really good. It had a live choir and the mapping was by far the best I’ve seen for projection mapped spaces.

Friday I had Paul from choir over, and we just chatted a good bit. I had about 7 people planned to come over for karaoke, but 4 our them backed out last minute and two were no shows. I should plan more in advance for these events.

Saturday I decided to hike Regents Canal, but the part I hadn’t before. I hiked from Paddington to Alperton, which included the canal overpass over the freeway. It is strange to see the water going over the freeway.

Sunday was chill and Steph got back from her caving trip. We ended going out to Hoppers for some relaxing dinner and drinks. It is the perfect weather out this week, but I fear next week will be extra hot again.

London Weekly 187

July 26, 2026 0

Lords, and Ladies of Paris

Started this week with a nice Choir rehearsal on Monday.

Then on Tuesday I was invited to the House of Lords to help present on the Camden Digital Inclusion efforts as part of a larger presentation on UK digital efforts. It was interesting to see what their specific goals were and how they were defining success on such a broad and hard to define area. I was able to talk with some of the other stakeholders there and enjoyed it.

Thursday evening, Steph and I headed to Paris. We got in pretty late so just went straight to the hotel, which was really nice. We stayed in a hotel we had been to before, but Steph got an especially interesting futuristic room. It had AC which we turned way down and really enjoyed as sleeping over the past week in the heat had been hard at home.

Friday I joined Tina and Amit going into the Paris Catacombs. It is the old quarries that were used to build the structures around Paris, and they are insanely extensive. In the mid 1700’s they were getting to be too extensive and some started to collapse so they began to just prop them up and monitor all the excavations. Then they decided to move many of the bones and cemeteries down to this one section, which now houses millions of people’s worth of bones. Each section is from a specific cemetery and the walls are built of the larger bones with the smaller ones piled behind them. It was interesting and the presentation of the whole space was really well done with location based audio clips. It was also a hard set of tickets to get as the tickets go on sale one week ahead of time, for each time slot.

Afterwards Tina had to run to get to a rehearsal for her dances, but Amit and I were able to wander some more. We walked up to the Luxembourg Gardens and sat and talked next to a really fancy fountain. It was a lovely walk. We then met up with Tina near the Eiffel Tower. We walked the park, then decided to climb the stairs up. You can only go about halfway up by the stairs, and we were happy with that. The way down was much faster. We went back to the hotels for a quick rest, and AC. Then we met for a really nice dinner with Steph, Amit, and myself. With Tina heading off to a gala. Then after it got pretty late Amit went climbing while Steph and I got another really nice night of sleep in the AC.

Saturday we grabbed a quick breakfast and met Tina, Amit, and Karen at the Dior museum. The women went through the museum while Amit and I walked around the Champs De Mars. We met them and went to a place that served Parisian cuisine. Then we went to the Jardins du Trocadéro across from the Eiffel tower. We went back to our hotels for a rest then met for dinner and drinks. At the end of the evening we got ready for a very early train back to the UK.

We got back and I quickly made my way to Merkato Mayfair to sing with choir. I got there late, but still had a great time. We went for a picnic afterwards, which was lovely. Steph and I went to see the Odessey that evening, and it was a great show to see in theaters.

London Weekly 186

July 26, 2026 0

Choir and Brussels

I had another choir heavy week, with Monday evening at the Witches of Eastwick performance that Maggie was in. Then on Tuesday I met with the other Digital Champion volunteers before heading to play games with Zaheer. We had a great time playing some LLM based games. The first was one that I’ve been looking at for a while called “Suck Up” where you are a vampire and have to convince the people to invite you into their house.

Wednesday I went to choir rehearsal and it was sweltering. I was happy that we are doing a Baritone focussed peice, which is pretty rare.

Then on Thursday we had the Ice Wharf AGM and went over all the specifics of Ice Wharf and I got voted onto the Board. I’m looking forward to doing the work, and making the flat complex stay as amazing as it already is.

Friday morning, Steph and I jumped on a train to Brussels. It was convenient to just head to St. Pancras and take the train across. It wasn’t cheap, but it was pretty easy.

Friday in Brussels was mainly on my own as I went to the Sewer Museum which was fascinating and I got to walk along the underground river that goes through Brussels. Then I went to the Musical Instruments museum which was an amazing building with so many amazing instruments from all over the world. They had a guide that would play the sounds that the instruments would make. I had calls with the family, and then met up with Steph after she finished work. We went to dinner at a decent fry place and then grabbed a beer at the Delirium Bar.

Saturday was a bunch of the Art Nouveau houses and museums: Hotel Solvay, Horta Museum, Maison Hannon. We started the day with really nice Belgian waffles. They were really good, with only Tina’s waffles being better. I managed to spill the powdered sugar all down my pants and looked a mess most of the day. Hotel Solvay was by far the most impressive art nouveau house. It had so much going on and it was all flawlessly integrated together. The best example of that was the stair banister coming down and turning into a wooden vine that entangled with the ironwork lamp next to the bottom of the stairs. The whole house was like that with the forms flowing together and meeting the next section of wall or ceiling with organic shapes. They also had a bunch of stained glass that wasn’t exterior windows, but some were ceiling lighting systems and some were interior separation.

After the art nouveau houses went to a nice park, then split up. I continued to the Train World museum, which was pretty nice. I went through the museum and then met Steph for dinner. We ended the evening at Beer World, which is in an amazing building, but so strangely kitchy and touristy. It is also clear that they were really stretching to fill up the space they were given for beer world. It was a somewhat surreal experience.

Sunday we slept in then went to the military museum. It was the opposite of Beer World, where it was big, but full of all sorts of objects and information. It also was clear that it didn’t have as much recent funding as Beer World as it needed a lot of work and it didn’t look like it was ongoing. The exhibits were still amazing with the planes and helicopters. I liked the info on the antarctic expeditions. I also liked going up onto the roof of the big arches. It was a well done museum. We didn’t do much with the last few hours in Brussels besides wander the downtown a little. Then we jumped back on the train to London.

London Weekly 185

July 13, 2026 0

A Chill Week

Not too much going on this week. Monday was choir rehearsal.

Tuesday Steph and I went to a fancy party at Fortnum and Mason for her wealth management group. The food was decent, and the drinks were good. We didn’t stay long. We weren’t the youngest couple there, but I think only one couple was younger.

Then on Wednesday I spent the evening doing StartX interviews. Thursday I tried to volunteer, but I showed up to give a presentation on parental controls and nobody showed up for the presentation.

The weekend was pretty chill with Felicity’s BDay in Greenwich and then Book Club on Sunday. The book had a moderate amount to talk about, but wasn’t the best conversation book.

London Weekly 184