Back in London, where it has just started raining. Lately it's been cold-hot-cold-hot-cold here.
For the last while, I was feeling pretty motivationless; it was easy to fall back on just being, and being on the internet. Now Alex is visiting, and we've been dashing around like crazy trying to fit southern England into two weeks.
I was looking after the neighbors' plants for the first few days of that two weeks, and walking with Maria. One of those days I auditioned for the new Universal Studios Japan theme park, but didn't get it. Another day we visited the Science Museum, which is a fascinating place. On Thursday we visited the Monster Supply Shop in Hoxton, which is run by the Ministry of Stories (http://www.ministryofstories.org/) and afterwards went to a talk by an experimental musician at the London Hackspace around the corner. We also bought very cheap musical instruments from a shop and attempted to change them so that they worked. I got back into soldering after not doing it for who knows how long.
On Saturday I was completely free, and we went to the Brighton Mini Maker's Faire. That was pretty good, and there were all kinds of things going on. I got some more ideas for the robots I want to make. Brighton was beautiful and sunny, too sunny in fact, as we had no sunglasses. The sunset was stunning, doubly so because we were sitting on the beach watching it reflected in the water. Then, after it got dark, we walked along Brighton Pier, eating candy floss (that's cotton candy) and flying saucer sweets. Then it was the maker faire afterparty, which had a theramin, one-dimensional pong (you had to use your "paddle" when the "ball" came close to you along a string of lights), and a lazer light show. Amazing what you can do with electricity, isn't it.
Was it the next day? It was the next day, because it was Sunday, when we went to Swindon to stay with our aunt Babcia and attend little Maria's first birthday party--she's the baby that our cousin's grandson has had with his Brazillian girlfriend Carolina. The whole thing was very pink. We also went to Highworth, to visit our long-running foster parents and their children and grandchildren, who are no longer small but are in fact adults now. Madness. They all seem to be doing pretty well, other than their step-grandson Jake who apparently is a bit troubled.
The next day we took a bus out to Broad Hinton, to see a crop circle next to Hackpen Hill. (this one: http://tinyurl.com/bwofp6o) There was a white horse across the road from it, made of chalk on a hillside, as well. Another beautiful experience. Followed almost immediately by coming back to London to see what we thought would be a Real Tuesday Weld concert, but turned out to be a lecture about the Victorian practice of taking photographs of dead people. The main guy from The Real Tuesday Weld was there, though, and he was very nice. The venue I wasn't too crazy about, though, because it mostly sold taxidermied animals.
We've been back to the hackspace quite a bit. Alex is very knowledgeable about robots and electronics, and has a nice cushy job out in San Francisco doing customer service for a small company concerned with robots. Yesterday, we went to Portobello Road and the South Bank, where they had sadly cleared up the rainbow sandpits that had been put up for the Olympics. Then it was back to the hackspace again. Today is my day of rest, since I've been sneezing frequently and my feet are very tired from all that walking! Alex is in Swindon again, visiting the hackspace there. And tomorrow, who knows what we will do, but I've planned dinner for all of us. Maybe it will be less hectic, as it is her last day here.
