Blades

We skate the day before Christmas at Kew Gardens, which is otherwise closed to the public. Eitan is reasonably confident while Madeleine bull-sure: she races onto the ice, legs flying and arms flopping. Sonnet and I take turns circling the rink and holding them up, which in my case is a house of cards. Sonnet's Alaska meant icy summers while I mostly missed the winter time - without much regret, I may add. At some stage the circling becomes a race and Madeleine cracks the whip: "Faster dad! F-A-S-T-E-R !" It all ends in tears, of course, and hot chocolate.

Before the rink, I re-union with Arthur for a three hour walk along the Thames covering Richmond to Petersham. He is in town to give his belated good-byes after returning to the US in March, departing in a flurry of packing and construction. Arthur finished the redesign of his penthouse in about one month - following several years work where he single handedly reconstructed the electrics. Yes, he is an engineer employed by TRW (now Northrop Grumman) for nearly 30 years. His skills have taken him from satellites to communications, where he helped build the UK's police radio mobile communications network, among other things. And now Washington D.C. building the missile defense shield. Arthur and I met in '97 around running before his knees gave out and injuries caught up with us both. Now, as then, we hike London covering various locations and subjects - Author's generous and curious soul allows me to ask the sciences questions I missed at Berkeley and Brown.