Homeward UK

Yesterday was the day that the last gasp attempts to keep me in the States really finished. We are heading back to the UK.

Walking to school

George and I walked down to Bell school today, for possibly the last time in Chappaqua. It was sad. It has been wonderful walking down with George. I don't know how often it will happen in the UK. We beat the bus more than it beat us. We gave the little waterfall a points score everyday, we sang "lurder, lurder, downtown lurder" and "sweaty pants" and we saw the funny 'L' shape carved in the tarmac. We also saw the building and relandscaping of the area by the duck pond and the river. I shall miss this.

The Rovers

"Chappaqua Rovers. That’s us. 2007-2008 Chappaqua’s travel soccer team, C team. This is our team photo. We are proud of how we played, that we got 3rd place in our league. But that’s not important. We played well, always getting better. Or at least I thought I got a lot better. Our team looked like it knew when to dribble, pass, get open. In our games we played like a team. I am proud to be on this team for my last American team." George

The Quaker House

I decided to go to the Quaker Meeting House. I have wanted to go for a while. Partly because it is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, buildings in Chappaqua but mainly because I was interesting in going to a Quaker meeting. I had been going occasionally to the Congregational Church where Charlie goes to nursery school but inspite of a absolutely brilliant sermons by the priest and the stillness of the short periods for reflection, I was getting a little bored of all the other 'stuff'. I knew Quakerism put some emphasis on personal reflection in the meetings so I stopped in one day on a cycle ride to ask a couple of questions. I liked the answers and thought I might like to go to a meeting. There is no alter as such, and no obvious 'preist', and very little other' stuff'. The benches are laid our in a rectangluar shape, with no obvious 'head' of the room. At the first meeting I attended we sat in silence for almost 50 minutes before anyone said anything. It was both very liberating and disciplined. I liked it.

Charlie's Graduation

Charlie graduated from Play Care. These are pictures of his graduation day.

Tom's Trip

Tom Handley came for a week. It was quite an adventure, and I think he had a good time. In Chappaqua it was BBQs, swim club, cycling (rather a long cycle in fact!), playing great with the boys, Ben and Jerry's, and Dunkin' Donuts. Tom was also around for Memorial Day so we went to went down for the Parade. Here are some pictures of this visit:

A couple of shots from the Memorial Day Parade. Firstly, Tom and Jill with the Taubs: Johnathan being George's coach in this team this year. Secondly, Ollie with his cub scouts; Alexanda Stasko to his left.

Tom also had a couple of trips into the city. He came in with me, and with Jill. He bought some cool sneakers, shorts and a t-shirt.

I wish I had thought of asking him to post a couple of entries on the blog with some photos as it would be signficantly better than this post.