12 july, 2012, tale of two cities

Between home, work and the trust, I have been absolutely submerged these last weeks, hardly able to breathe. The effect was amplified as my hungarian niece has been staying, and so we filled our weekends first with a long-planned trip to paris, and then an impromptu one to london. The french spur was a very good session I had at the oecd, and then the family was reunited for a sunny long weekend as unashamed tourists climbing the eiffel tower, taking a boat up and down the seine, visiting notre dame and eating ice cream on the ile de la cite. The kids loved the place but less the touristy bits, so on the last day we split and I went to science city, which was actually very interesting and fun. London was much the same: up the london eye, along the thames, parliament, hampstead, the natural history museum, for them the tower of london, cocktails and the mousetrap, and for us legoland and in particular, their latest obsession, the new star wars exhibition which was less exhibition, more shop, so didn't get away scot free. And lots of rain. All quality time though, great fun, but absolutely exhausting weekends between exhausting weeks - and we're off again this weekend, although to the closer shores of crosby beach. Time really at a premium.