The weather has been that bad, it really has. JK Rowling said in one of her online question & answers sessions that "we were having a Dementor driven summer this year" and she is right. It made heading back to California and Montana for almost four weeks seem like quite a smart move. Anyway, every day the forecast says, "Rain for the next three days, but nice after that …" Every day! It never gets to the "nice after that"!
BTW, Harry Potter 7 was amazing, especially considering I did not like Harry Potter 1 very much and so didn't read 2 through 6 until finally I had heard from Madeline and Sue too many times "Boy, the movie was missing so much important stuff from the book!" So Harry Potter 2 thru 6 just got better and better, ending with the best of them all, the last.
At the end of school last year was Sports Day. Jason has been getting taller and faster and better at sports, and he won some races this time around. I think he can't believe it, he's so proud:
Madeline won every race she was in, something like 6, including two with me. Boy are we competitive, we Payne/Yehs. The first race with Madeline I fell on my ass trying to stop after having missed a "checkpoint" in the race - we still won but at times Madeline's feet were not touching the ground. No pictures I'm afraid.
Before we left for California we said goodbye to Vicky, the kids' Chinese tutor from our neighborhood. She was perfect for the kids for keeping their Chinese going, but unfortunately she had the poor manners to graduate from high school, and so she won't be living in our neighborhood anymore:
She also likes PCs running Windows, but there's only so much influence I can have over a teenage girl, a sign of things to come I assume. (At least she listened to me about not getting Vista …)
Half Moon Bay
Well, once in California we had to see Steve and the cousins, so off we went to Half Moon Bay for a BBQ lunch. Fantastic, and as you can see, quite gray, a lot like England. Perhaps we were trying to soften the transition, blah blah. We spent the whole day there on the beach, and we were pretty wiped by the time we got home. As you can see, we had no fun:
Lots of frisbee:
Calvin and Jason both have natural forehand throws, pretty rare for frisbee:
Let's pile on the dads:
Everything was fine until Colby lost his head:
but Madeline and Uncle Steve decided to make the most of it:
The Ranch in Montana
On our friend's ranch in Montana we got treated to some entertaining storms in the late afternoon. These are my first attempts at shooting lightnings. The daytime one is about a 4 second exposure - the longest I could achieve at ISO 100, and F 22:
Some cloud formations, hard to capture I thought:
The darker ones were a lot longer. Sadly I missed a fantastic shot because I had the lens wide-open and not properly focused. Still there's something nice about the coloring of this shot:
This was taken after midnight:
The main attractions at the ranch, besides cooking grand meals and all eating together, are the horses:
and the rope swing at a near-by lake. Madeline goes off the middle platform to get her height. The top platform is too scary for most, including me and Maddie, made more so by the fact that one of the mothers fell off it in spectacular fashion that first day …
Here Jason has an audience:
This is just to show you that got in on the action as well. I love that thing:
At the beginning of the week we were there meals were for 35 or so people. Huge productions in their huge kitchen where very serious work is done at all times:
This next one was taken two years ago when we were there the first time but I think it captures the spirit:
After the big meals made by the adults, the kids were split into two groups to do the cleaning up. Some of them got into the idea of "waiting on the adults" with water, desserts, clearing the plates, etc. They were very cute.
The innocent looking photograph needs a story. First the picture:
There are two main facial expressions in this shot. Towards the far end of the table the expressions are of hilarity, and this is because of what I said just before I took the picture. Those people are largely drunk at this time. The other dominant expression is that of shock and/or disapproval, and this is also because of what I said just before the shot. Basically, people were being a bit of a pain and I was behind the camera for a good thirty seconds trying to get the right shot. So finally I said, "OK! Everybody FUCKING SMILE!" Unfortunately, what I didn't realize was that during those 30 seconds while I was being the camera, Madeline had walked up right beside Sue waiting for me to take the shot … I think you'll agree that the facial expressions make complete sense at this point.
One unexpected treat on the last day on the ranch was Madeline got a chance to try riding a mini-bike:
I got in on the action as well:
Later Madeline and I were able to go off together, riding in one of the pastures. We didn't go nuts but it was still a great experience for her. It made me want to go out and … you know … get a ranch of our own.
Here's the last photo from the ranch, the last dinner, a smaller crowd. I was really hoping to catch the first planet in the sky (Venus) in the background. It wasn't until later that I worked out all the reasons why I couldn't get the planet in on the photo. You might be surprised to find that this photo has a 4 second exposure time:
This was the 4th attempt at the shot. The first three failed because nobody believed me when I said, "OK, keep still. The camera is going to flash, and then it's going to sit there, and then it's going to flash again, and then you need to wait a second. DON'T MOVE!" Finally the last one they really listened to me, and I think the result came out quite nicely.
So here's the deal on California
Last winter I went back for almost a week to our house in California. It was cold, drafty and dark (because … you know … it was winter time). I thought to myself, "This is cold, drafty and dark, but our place in London is warm, not drafty, and very dark …" I wasn't sure what I saw in our house in California. All the construction going on around it didn't help either.
However, going back in the summer changed everything. It was warm, sunny, the construction on one side was largely complete, quite, well-located, relaxing. When we get back to California we'll fix the minor problems with the house and stay, or so I think right now anyway. And if we do, we'll have nice parties every month with all the money we're saving from not living in London anymore, and YOU'RE invited!
Here's the deal on London
London is a great place. There's a fair amount of nastiness going on but I assume it's just part of being in a big city. We have watched the evening news a few times lately and it's just like in the states, all negative, bad stuff that just makes you paranoid (or me, anyway). When you live in the burbs you can say to yourself, "This kinda stuff won't happen here" but when you live in the middle of a huge city, you kinda can't use that line on yourself anymore. Still, millions of people live here, I may as well be one of them.
Coming back in the middle of the summer was a little hard, with so many people still out of town doing their vacations. I am looking forward to school starting again. Then I can get back into my routine of drinking in the pub and picking up the kids after school, with the added twist that I brought my bullwhip back to London with me, and intend to take it to the Heath ;-)
