Photo of the Week... plus, what we've been up

From Photo of the Week

OK, we haven't put up a photo for weeks. The truth is, there just haven't been any good pictures. Here's a May Day jamboree we saw while out on a Saturday.

What else have we been up to?

The main thing is, the weather has turned nice. We went to a barbeque last weekend (all vegetarians except for Grace - too bad for her). We also laid out in the St. James park a few weeks ago, and then again yesterday. When its summer in London, laying out in the park with a book just becomes a great default activity.

Also, I've been heading out to some concerts with some friends. Both were really cheap concerts from bands that barely have an album out (or, in some cases, don't).

Meanwhile, I've given notice at my work that I'll be leaving in September to do the MSc in economics at the London School of Economics. I'm really looking forward to it. It's a one-year, full-time course.

We don't really have any plans for this week, but the next week we'll probably go up to Oxford to visit Nicole, a friend from Iowa who's studying there. We haven't visited all year, and it's gotten so late that we figured we should just wait until her exams were over. We've never been to Oxford, so it'll be good to see Cambridge's arch-nemesis.

Then, the week after that, we're heading up to Edinburgh to flatsit for two weeks. The first three days we have some friends coming up to visit, and then my parents and sister are coming up for another week. This will be the longest vacation I've taken in years that wasn't to Iowa!

Later this summer, we're going to Germany with Keith, probably for about a week. We've decided to focus on Munich and Bavaria - the alps, castles, and beer gardens!

But today, it's very quiet. We've been inside taking it easy, and now we're going to take a walk. Our original plans to go into town were derailed when my bank - HSBC - had some kind of system-wide breakdown, meaning we can't use our debit cards! ATMs, online shopping, debiting - it's all broken! And it's a Sunday so we can't go into the bank branch. Anyway, hopefully its fixed by now. I guess I'll just have to buy some sunglasses next weekend.