The drought in London, England is so severe that there was a dust devil over the weekend in Greenwich Park in an area that is usually covered in grass.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/08/12/one-liner-wednesday-just-me-2/
When B retired, we had planned to travel more.
More trips to London to see the UK branch of the family.
More mid-week getaways to the Finger Lakes or New England, avoiding the busier weekends and high seasons, now that B didn’t have to work Monday through Friday. Visits to friends and relatives.
We have been doing more travelling, but not in the way we had anticipated.
Instead, we have been doing a lot of medical travelling. A couple of trips to NYC to see the interventional radiologist and do some specialized testing. A trip to Providence, RI at the end of last month to meet with a specialized neurosurgeon. We will return there this fall for surgery. I might need to find an out-of-town nephrologist…
We are hoping that, by next spring, I may be recovered enough to travel for fun again.
It will give me something to dream about as I’m recovering…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Concsiousness Saturday this week is “travel.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/08/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-8-2026/
March 17th is observed by Catholics around the world – and everyone who is of Irish heritage or who just wants to join the celebration – as St. Patrick’s Day.
My late father-in-law was an elementary school principal in western Massachusetts for many years and observed March 17th as Evacuation Day, the day in 1776 when the British evacuated their soldiers, some loyalists, and their ships from Boston, ending a 332-day siege. This year marks the semiquincentennial of that event.
At school, he would announce the day over the intercom in morning announcements. As computers and dot matrix printers appeared later in his tenure as principal, he designed an Evacuation Day card.
He would also buy Evacuation Day flowers for his wife, a bit of an inside joke as she also was of Irish heritage so March 17th was St. Patrick’s Day for her. After he passed away in 2005, we took up the family tradition of Evacuation Day flowers, sending them to Grandma and also featuring them in our home.
Now, we give Evacuation Day flowers to our daughters, which is even more ironic now that one of them lives in London with daughters of her own who will, no doubt, have a different perspective on this history.
Wishing you all a great day, whether you observe St. Patrick’s Day, Evacuation Day, or just another Tuesday today!
About the photo: This is a picture of my dad, known here as Paco, taken in Ireland in 2019 when my sisters took him on his first-and-only trip there when he was 94. He was of Irish heritage and had wanted to visit but wouldn’t go without our mom who didn’t fly. The trip happened in October after her death in May and, though we couldn’t have known then, just months before COVID-19 became an international pandemic. Paco passed away in September, 2021, so it was indeed the “luck of the Irish” that he was able to see Ireland in the brief window in which it was possible.
Paco’s middle name was Patrick.
While visiting the London contingent of our family, we often rode by a JFK Special School. For people from the United States, JFK commonly refers to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy but we assumed that these schools must refer to a different JFK.
Our daughter and son-in-law, though, told us that the school program is named after President Kennedy. The schools are for students with special needs and recognize the Kennedy family’s involvement in the development of education for those with special needs. While there are some stand-alone schools for those with the most complex needs, many of the JFK programs are now within schools where students are mainstreamed.
President Kennedy signed some of the first legislation to assist people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities. Many members of the Kennedy family across several generations have been involved in helping those with these conditions, most notably JFK’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who worked through the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation for many years and founded the Special Olympics. Rosemary Kennedy, another sister in their large family, had been born with an intellectual disability and is thought to have inspired Eunice in her work.
It’s great to know that so much good has come from the work of the Kennedy family, not just in the US but across the world.
This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/01/05/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-5th-2026/
After a rough 2025 for many of us, I hope that the new year will bring an increase in peace, security, freedom, and safety for each person.
We began our new year’s celebration yesterday with a midday dinner with son-in-law L’s parents. So much delicious food!
We opted to return to our hotel early in the evening before things got rowdy. We figured we could watch the festivities in Central London on the television if we managed to stay awake. I’m sure at E and L’s new home in East London there will be a lot of banging on pots and pans at midnight, along with personal fireworks. Granddaughters ABC and JG napped in the afternoon so they could be awake for the arrival of 2026.
They followed the Filipino tradition of having a bowl of 12 different, round fruits to welcome the new year.
This marks the first post for Just Jot It January 2026, an initiative organized by Linda Hill of the “Life in progress” blog. You are welcome to join in the fun at any point and can find details on her blog. I’ll write a bit more about it as the month goes on.
Happy New Year, Everyone!
Spouse B, daughter T, and I are spending the holidays in London with daughter E, her spouse L, and granddaughters, 8-year-old ABC and 5-year-old JG. The photo above is of ABC and JG’s bedroom window decoration at dusk on Christmas Eve. Dusk comes early in London this time of year!
This is an exciting Christmas for our London contingent because they just moved into their first house of their own a couple of months ago.
Christmas Eve day was largely dedicated to finishing up gift preparation and baking cookies. B and E made lasagna for dinner, a nod to the Italian side of our family and the many years we made lasagna for Christmas dinner to accommodate E and T singing in the choir on Christmas morning because the lasagna could be assembled the day before and baked after church. For dessert, we had cookies and pandoro, an Italian sweet bread which is covered in powdered sugar and baked in a mold so that it can be cut in slices and arranged to look like a Christmas tree. This was not part of the Italian Christmas tradition that made it across the ocean to the US but it was so delicious that we will try to order it next year.
When E and T were young, every Christmas, my parents would give them Fonatanini creche figures. E’s figures were being stored in our basement but, now that she and L have their own home, we took the opportunity to bring them out to them. Here they are on the mantel, with a zebra addition courtesy of ABC and JG!
My parents, known here as Nana and Paco, have both passed away. They both got to know ABC, their first great-grandchild when she lived in the US for her first couple of years before moving permanently to London. Paco got to meet JG just once, when they were able to make the trip over from London a few weeks before he died. I love, though, that the creche figures they gave to E are part of their first Christmas in their new home. It feels as though they are blessing the house and their dear family.
I’m writing this early Christmas morning. Our plans include 8:30 Christmas mass, followed by gift exchange and an afternoon dinner at L’s parents with 20-some family gathering.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and wishes for peace and joy to all!
My family is travelling for the holidays. Due to our current health status, daughter T and I both qualified to have wheelchair assistance at the airports, which was a huge help, especially because we flew out of one big airport, Newark, and into another, Heathrow. Bonus: we got through security and customs through expidited lines. Second bonus: spouse B got to come along with us so we could move through the whole process together.
I’m very grateful for the help. This experience makes the prospect of future travel much less daunting.
(Photo is from a prior holiday trip to London. We are scheduled to go on a holiday lights bus tour later in the month, so more London lights photos may be forthcoming.)
Belatedly sharing a bit more about our February visit to see our daughter E, son-in-law L, and granddaughters ABC and JG.
Most of the visit was spending time with the family at our rental home in their East London neighborhood. There were games and make-believe, reading, puzzles, drawing, watching BBC children’s programs, especially Swashbuckle, eating, napping, and even a couple of sleepovers for ABC and JG.
Our nod to the girls’ being on half-term break from school was a visit to the Tower of London. Given that we had a 3- and 6-year-old in tow, it wasn’t the most comprehensive visit, but we did see the Crown Jewels, the White Tower, and more cannons and armor than I’ve seen in the rest of my life combined.
ABC and JG were not enamored of the ravens.
London winters are much milder than here in the Northeast US, so daffodils were blooming at our rental house, even though it was only mid-February.
There was the excitement of ABC losing her fifth baby tooth. Of course, the Tooth Fairy arrived on schedule!
Mostly, though, the trip was a time for me, B, and T to be Nana, Grandpa, and Auntie. Because of the distance and infrequency of visits, we aren’t sure when we will be able to see them again, so it’s nice to have a remembrance of some snuggling time.
(In the photo at the top of the post, ABC’s bear is wearing a Binghamton Rumble Ponies hat. The Rumble Ponies are the AA baseball club of the New York Mets. Bear is trying on ABC’s cap.)
(Photo: ABC’s bear wearing a Binghamton Rumble Ponies cap)
Spouse B, daughter T, and I are in London this week visiting daughter E, son-in-law L, and granddaughters ABC and JG for half-term break. This first half of the week, both E and L are working, so our main goal is taking care of ABC and JG so they can do that.
The last time we were together in person was April when they came to our home in the US. Although we do video calls, they can’t really capture the changes that happen. JG, now 3 and attending full-day nursery school is chatting up a storm! She loves making puzzles, zooming around our rental house near their home, and following the lead of 6-year-old ABC, who likes or tolerates it most of the time. ABC, now in year 2 at school, is reading well and a master of make-believe. She can make up songs and lyrics on the spot, taking after her musically-and-literary-accomplished parents. ABC also enjoys dance and art.
I love watching B being Grandpa, playing games, reading stories, preparing meals and snacks, and dozing off during naptime. T is an involved auntie, playing endless games of hide-and-seek and whatever make-believe ABC has invented and giving gentle hugs, in deference to her still-healing shoulder.
My favorite thing is just being here as family. With the ocean between us, it’s a rare gift to snuggle on the couch, especially with JG who was born during the early part of the pandemic and whom we didn’t get to meet in person until she was a year old. Such a different grandparenting experience than with ABC who lived with us in the US until she was two.
For JG, I’m just Nana. ABC, though, remembers her Great-Nana, who passed away in 2019.
I miss my parents and wish I could be as good a grandparent as they were with E and T.
Update to my COVID post from earlier in the week: Those Nerdy Girls newest post tells us that, using wastewater surveillance, current estimates are that 5% of people in the United States are currently infected with COVID, the largest proportion since the initial Omicron wave two years ago. In the United Kingdom, JN.1 caused a similar wave just before Christmas, with London having an even higher infected rate of almost 6%.
Those Nerdy Girls remind us that about 1,500 people in the United States are dying from COVID every week, making COVID much deadlier than the flu. They also remind us that the COVID vaccine that became available in September ’23 is effective against JN.1 and urge people to receive it if they haven’t already. They also remind people that masking, ventilation, testing, and staying home when you are sick help in avoiding spread not only of COVID but also flu and other viruses.
Please do what you can to keep yourself and others safe and healthy!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find our more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/01/18/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-18th-2024/
Joanne Corey 