England: Sevenoaks, London, Southampton

We arrived on Saturday, August 17th to Heathrow, where we were met and brought home by Margaret and David Killingray, good friends who are also academics and who moved heaven and earth to host our large family (including moving out of their own home to a neighbor's house for four days).  From Sevenoaks, we explored locally, went into London twice, and then left for Southampton on the 21st.

When you move a large family across the ocean, it often looks like a paramilitary operation from the logistics point of view.  Here is our luggage, lined up and waiting, after we were the last to get through the UK emigration line thanks to a necessary card for each family member (rather than one card for the whole gang)

Kids on the Tube.  Really very normal kids.  Really.

"All advertising advertises advertising" - Marshall McLuhan

At the Sevenoaks family fair day, Oliver got a homemade wooden tent-peg mallet made before his very eyes using the old methods, which was fascinating to watch

Genevieve learned (and loved) to play badminton in the Killingray's back yard

And swings!

"Not that one, Daddy.  Let me try again!"

Japanese youth today, pretending to be Westerners

At the Imperial War Museum

Ollie, Jazzie, Walkie, standing tall at a train stop

Entrance to the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum

An American bird at a British museum

Lancaster bomber, aka a "dambuster"

Riding the banisters

Schuchardt kids, smallest to tallest in front of the British Museum

At the British Museum, with the Parthenon friezes

Children in color in a black and white museum

And... Action!

Dad, Genevieve, with Jasper pulling off the perfect photo bomb

One, two, three...

JUMP!

That night, I met my friend and colleague Brian Brock for drinks and dinner at the Princess Louise, one of his old haunts

An original Banksy in Sevenoaks?  Could it be?

We did

Some sluggishness at the Victoria Station

Genevieve in Southampton

Good children waiting for parents to buy dinner at Marks and Spencer

Who knew that Jane Austen showed up in Southampton?

Rachel knew