I hope we made the most of our summer, because it it GONE. The days are getting shorter, the sun seems to be taking longer and longer breaks behind the clouds, and the summer clothes have been sold, making room for the drab winter clothes that they wear. Black is the next black. Everyone in Manchester wears A LOT of it. It would depress me to have so little color in my wardrobe. Even my summer clothes looked out of place here because I like to wear yellow and green, pink and blue!
Unfortunately I have no photos to post this time because my camera battery died, and it seems silly to buy a new one with only a week left. Brendan and I are leaving on Sunday and Bill will leave the following Saturday. We made the most of our last weekend, though. We took the train to London to see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the O2 stadium. I felt a little deja vu as this was the same exhibit that toured the US about 30 years ago, about the time that my youngest brother was born. There was a huge publicity blitz and lots of excitement surrounding it. London is the only place in Europe to see the exhibit this time around, and Brendan loved it, so we were fortunate to get there. They didn't have the burial mask or his mummy, as we had hoped, but it was still very interesting. They had several of the personal effects, like an intricate inlaid dagger that was placed in the folds of his wrappings, near his hand to protect him in the afterlife, and some beautiful jewelry that adorned his body. The one fact that I came away with that was startling to me is that by the time Tutankhamun came to the throne, the pyramids in Giza were already 1000 years old!
London seems so familiar to us. We've been a least half a dozen times now, and still love to come back. It's funny to see the first-time tourists riding in the top of the open-top sightseeing buses, huddled under umbrellas and wearing disposable ponchos, determined to see the sights even though it's raining buckets. We were there once.
We stayed in a wonderful hotel just off of Trafalgar Square, which we walked to several times a day to watch the Olympic coverage on the giant Plasma wall that obscured Lord Nelson's monument. No one could get near the lions, much less climb them. But the atmosphere was festive. There were even live performances throughout the weekend.
Now, summer really does feel like it's coming to a close, because we're focused on getting back to Texas, registering Brendan for school, buying school supplies and new clothes. He'd rather stay in Manchester. He's enjoyed being a junior couch potato, playing Wii and watching the Olympics all day. I did manage to get him interested in a book about young James Bond, which he's almost completed - one for the whole summer (shameful!). He wants to get the sequel, so that's a good sign. I'm ready for him to get back to school and I can't wait to see how he takes to athletics. He wants to run track, which is only one season out of the year. Maybe he'll decide to take up another sport as the time comes around (hopefully not football).
He'll have a lot of anxiety around the first few days of school. Unfortunately, he has to go to a different middle school due to rezoning. It's a bigger campus at an older school since this used to be the only High School for the whole district. Fortunately, many students from his old school have to move, too, so he will know some of the kids, but he's fretting about finding classes and getting there on time. I need to download a map for him and maybe walk the halls when he gets his schedule.
Lord, give me patience and understanding, and give him courage and confidence. And please heal Bill's sciatica soon.
