Burlington Ontario, May 2025

A week or so after getting back from the Holland, SE Asia & England trip, I flew up to Toronto and drove out to Burlington Ontario to spend some time visiting my Auntie Ann in hospital. Ann is the matriarch of my side of the family - 90 years old, with a wit she could cut herself on, and until recently still living independently. Ann had a fall back in March and broke her upper right arm and has been in hospital since - first to heal and then to do physical therapy to recover her strength after being immobile for so long.

I love my Auntie Ann and thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to spend some extended time with her. Also it gave a bit of a break to my cousins, Julie, Susan and David, who have made sure between them that Ann has had at least one visitor for several hours every day. Ann and I had a great time talking, going for walks around the hospital (me pushing the wheelchair) and playing Quiddler. This was precious time indeed.

Burlington is a beautiful city on the shore of Lake Ontario about an hour's drive from Toronto, so when I wasn't at the hospital I could enjoy long walks along the shoreline and sampling the city's many good restaurants. Towards the end of the trip I got to visit Julie and her husband Randy, and then the day before I flew home I had dinner at Susan's. David was out of town, but we made up for that with video calls.

And did I mention that the food was good?!

New York May 2025

While in London towards the end of this mega trip, I learned that KLM had canceled my flight home. So I took my refund and started shopping around for routes home. I found I could take Jetblue from Heathrow to JFK on Wednesday May 7 and then Delta home on Thursday afternoon. So what to do with one solo evening in New York City? Have dinner with my friend Duane of course! Duane picked The Clam in the West Village, which turned out to be terrific. Cocktails, seafood, crisp white wine and great company - thank you KLM!

Thursday I arrived home, happy with this long trip and very happy to be home with Laura!

London May 2025

From Chipping Norton I returned to London for Sunday May 4 through Tuesday May 6.

Sunday evening I met up with Paul and Laurence again, this time at Laurence's favorite Korean restaurant - Bulgogi in Notting Hill Gate. Laurence brought his extended family with him and a good time was once again had by all.

Monday was a bank holiday in England and I took a day trip out to Wickford to spend the day with Irene, Sarah, James and Kelly. They took me to the Festival Leisure Park which has a great selection of restaurants, plus crazy golf, pool tables and lots of other amusements. We had a great lunch in Wagamamas and then we played all the available games like we were teenagers again! It turns out that Irene has a bit of a hole in one habit at crazy golf!

Tuesday, I had arranged to meet a very good friend of mine from my Marconi days - Paul Carnell. We seem to manage to meet up every 10 years or so to drink beer, break bread and reminisce. Paul was kind enough to come into London to meet me and after a couple of pints in the Jack Horner on Tottenham Court Road, we moved to the excellent Sicilian restaurant next door to my hotel: Bricco e Bacco. I had eaten lunch there the previous week and looked forward to going back as their specialty is dry aged steaks on the bone for two people to share. Paul seemed to enjoy being the victim of this experiment. As usual we pledged to not let another 10 years go by without meeting up, and now that I am retired there is no excuse.