Normally the first major holiday of the year, ushering in the British springtime, met stoically with rain, gale force winds and even a hurricane but this time it is mild with only two-days of the four-day bank-holiday weekend washed out.
Madeleine is working on her final-year dissertation at Manchester, which means, over the two-week Easter break while at home, she is out the door by 9AM with backpack on and computer fully charged. Her subject, suicide and self-harm in UK prisons, a serious one that demands examination. She is crunching data over the last 20 years tho not meeting any of the in-mates. The hypothesis is that inmate anxiety has become worse in confinement as investment in incarceration facilities and mental services has declined during the survey period.
Admittedly the sports drinks are for exertions of 90 minutes or more and , since my workouts are about an hour, they don't really do much. The aim is to find the ones that don't make me sick for longer efforts. To judge, c half-way through a training session I guzzle the full litre and see what happens. So far, I like the Coke best.
The Fixx opened for The Police's "Synchronicity" tour in 1983 and at the peak of their powers. Their album, Reach The Beach, is one of the few I listen to from soup to nuts every few years or so. The others ? Pink Floyd's Animals and The Wall; Beatles Let It Be and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; Koyaanisqatsi; Prince's 1999 and Sign O The Times. Green Day "American Idiot". Not that many.
In other news, Eitan has settled in to his life in Washington DC, living in a brownstone with four other young people and working 9-5 at the Progressive Campaign. Having scant news I consider to be a good thing.
Leaving Astorg has allowed me a lot of time in Northern California, a place I love.
Eitan has relocated to Washington DC to intern at Crossroads Campaigns, a non-profit organisation advising on progressive elections across the US. I believe he would wish to join a congressional or senate race following the internship - this is the year to fight fascism in America.
Madeleine, in her final semester at Manchester, is working on her dissertation which reports on anxiety and depression in UK prisons.
Kim, however, is a veteran and there are stretches of the river which are fantastical and make me think of Huckleberry and Jim going down the Mississippi River, pulled by the water flow. We always swim West of Teddington Lock, where the river is fresh-water from a source near Oxford vs. East of the lock which is salt-water tidal (and passes through the center of London). On cleanliness, the Thames was declared a dead river in 1981. Today, there are otters and a dolphin sited only yesterday; there is talk of the ancient salmon-runs coming back.
In winter, the Thames can go as low as 1C requiring wetsuits, gloves, booties and a thermal hat ("skins", the Brits call it). We always swim in two's otherwise dangerous from cold or boats (rowers, propeller, sometimes barges). Spring and summertime the temps will reach 16-18C. Whenever it rains we have to be extra careful about the current which can run 2-3 knots and impossible to swim against.
In short, the river has a personality that is worth getting to know.
Eric is busy at his non-profit software company that neither me nor Roger understand but he is the lead engineer in an organisation that started in the maths department of Arizona and now employs >70 people and backed by the Milken Family Foundation. He is making a lot of money and works from home and can do whatever he wants, which is about right for his temperament.
Of course now a professional military dissolves personal responsibility - what, me worry? - while young people today are aghast at what is happening in Gaza (though no opinion, it seems, about Ukraine or Kashgar). I recall the middle-age father of a college girlfriend (Republican) informing me: "I' am God damn proud to see bombs dropping on Iraq and using the US military force correctly, for once." And so it goes.
The food ? Fabulous. The son orders for me.
Sonnet spends the weekend in Manchester with Madeleine, leaving me and Eitan and the dog to fend for ourselves. Pizza it is and non-alcoholic beer for me (I am informed that my snoring presently comprimises Sonnet's sleep during an intense work period on the Naomi Cambell exhibition so I have cut out alcohol and deserts before bed and now wear a nose strip at night to smooth out the breathing. Oh, and sleeping on my side, no moving.)
Eitan has accepted an internship with Crossroads Campaigns, a political consultancy providing "essential services" to progressive political campaigns, civic engagement enterprises and nonprofits. Eitan would like to join one of the actual campaigns, in The Year To Fight Fascism in the United States, and this could be a nice launching pad. He moves to Washington DC in a couple of weeks.
Madeleine returns to Manchester today for the final term and her dissertation which focuses on mental anxiety in UK prisons (our gal is a psychology major). It has been a difficult time with Aiden's death.
Sonnet is in the crunch for Naomi, her next exhibition, opening in June. The book, published by the V&A press with her name on it, finalised at the type-setters last week with all hands on deck for a final review including Eitan (who was sly enough to charge £15/ hour but could have had more).
For me, it is swim, swim, swim. Up at 6am and sometimes 2x a day.
John is a stylish kid in a 1950s way - it's a sharp look that he carries exceedingly well. He is a culture vulture with a mind for detail and we discuss film, theatre, art and modern writers he finds interesting. It is super insightful to dial into a 20 years old's mind. Biden? for instance (John has British and American passports). John is not a big fan as Biden promised to serve one term to set the ship right and not run for a second term. This, he feels, betrays the commitment made to his generation.
Joining in are Dave's partner Laura and son Dexter, who has photographic memory and interested in video games and the San Francisco 49ers following after Dad's obsession. Bella has a two-year automatic post uni visa and is looking for work in the West End, supporting herself with a non-theatre job in the meantime.
Dave, for his part, is teaching jazz at a privileged school in the East Bay where not one kid has heard of Duke Ellington and the moms ensuring their children receive a bit of cultural diversity for the college application - God help the educator who grants anything less than an 'A.'
Man, how the skyline has changed since 1997 and it continues to do so: at night, red warning lights dot the cityscape as new buildings go up and up, the St Paul's rule be damned (until maybe 2008 no building in central London could obstruct the view, or be taller than, St Paul's dome).
Sonnet and I spend the weekend at the Rathfinny Wine Estate in the South Downs of Sussex which offers some of the world's very best sparkling white wines due, in part, to a warming climate. The grounds are lovely and isolated, surrounded by the vineyards, of course, which spread across a number of valleys not far from the seaside.
Our weekend comes to an abrupt shocking end upon learning the terrible news that Madeleine's friend Aiden has passed in his sleep likely from an epileptic seizure. We are heartbroken.
Eitan and I , and a roomful of old age pensioners, have coffee at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park, protected by the Crown Estate and once home to Bertrand Russell. The southwest views of the Thames Valley are lovely on any day and especially when clear and cold, like today.
While difficult to see the grade, the below photo presents a steep hill from river level to the highest point in the park where Eitan once did Sunday hill-runs when in training ("brutal", he now says).
