Bronx Zoo Rules Mapquest Sucks

Hi
So after following mapquest's shitty directions to Bronx Zoo which took us to some local park in the Bronx and nowhere near the zoo, then a scale of 8 out of ten argument about the necessity of sat nav in our car, we finally came upon Bronx Zoo and had a great day. Spencer met up with his swim buddy, Ivan and together they had so much fun.

It's really one of New York's great attractions for kids. Spence had a blast running around with Ivan and it was all a bit too much for Margaux. Here are some of our highlights.
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Boxed Wine

A few people have asked me about my interest in boxed wine.

I will share this with you shortly.

Smelly Knackered Mums

Yesterday my friend Rachel and her two kids came over for a play date. Rachel is a fellow Brit from Liverpool. We met in 1989 when we both came over to Washington DC to be Au Pairs. Fast forward twenty years later, and we are both in living in Brooklyn, married to Americans with a boy and girl each. What I love about her is that we both don't have to make a huge effort when we get together, it's just as is. We've known each other long enough to know that when we need to pull it together we will, but who has the time to get spruced up to go to the swings? Getting two kids out of the door is hard enough.

After both lamenting that neither of us had showered, neither of us had slept (teething, colds, nightmares) and that we were both waaay overdue a hair colour (but who has the time?). We trundled off to the park, kids in tow to find a slew of other mum's that looked all the in the same boat as us. There was one slummy mummy who was drop dead gorgeous, but most every other parent there looked as bleary eyed as we did.

It was a comforting thing. Meanwhile, I still have yet to shower.

Happy Columbus Day! We are off to Bronx Zoo.

Forty years old and driving on a Learner's Permit?!

Last week, I finally bit the bullet and tried to get a New York State drivers license. Now I consider myself a pretty damn good driver, I passed my test in England at the ripe old age of 17 and have been driving in the States since 1989. I've received only two speeding tickets, both in the same summer balmy evening in South Caroline, in 1989 and on the same highway, 20 minutes apart (you would have thought I would have slowed down after the first pulling over, but clearly had did not).

I went online to the DMV, and was dismayed to learn that in the beautiful state of New York, British licenses AREN'T recognised (yet Canadian ones are?!) and I had to start from scratch.

It involved a drive to Coney Island, land of the hot dog, an interminable wait to get a number, an even longer wait to await that number being called, which led you to another room where I was subjected to a 20 minute multiple choice test. Now I haven't taken a test in about 20 years so I do admit to struggling a bit. Waiting for the results took one hour and twenty minutes (I do not jest), I PASSED (thank heaven, I got four wrong out of 20, you are allowed up to six wrong), then another endless queue to get my photo taken, only to discover I was in the wrong queue! By now my patience was running quite thin (as yours might be if reading this!) Hopped into the correct lane - 20 minutes or so later and voila - my mug was pictured. ANOTHER wait to pay (about 40 minutes this time) and a total of 4 hours and 35 minutes later I was out of there and crawling back on the BQE to pay the sitter who watched my children so I could go through this torture. $60 to the sitter, $80 for my permit, $20 parking and $20 to replace my book, Three Cups of Tea that is sitting somewhere in the Coney Island Department of Motor Vehicles.

I wish I could say this was the end of getting a New York license, but alas it's not. I now have to attend a FIVE hour seminar at a US Auto School, and then schedule an actual road test. I hate to sound so American but 'Are you EFFIN kidding me"???!! What about the 23 years I have been driving so far - does this account for nothing? Apparently, frustratingly, not!

It's raining rubble

Hi All

I guess it's what comes with living in a 100 year old building in Brooklyn. We live in a building that has retail space below, our apartment on one floor and just one other apartment above us, then the roof. The apartment upstairs has been vacant for a while since our dear friends B,B and V moved out in June (we miss you guys so much!)

Three girls moved in about two weeks ago and we hadn't met them yet. We were about to in not the most conservative of ways.

Monday morning, one of three girls took a shower, and in the process, our ceiling collapsed in our bathroom. Joe was working already so I left the kids watching Yo Gabba Gabba, halloween edition for the hundred and eighth time and bolted upstairs to make a fast introduction.

This poor stranger answers her door to my incessant banging wrapped in just a towel with me hastily explaining to please not flush toilets/wash hands or take showers until we got the problem sorted. Welcome to Greenpoint!!

Our dodgy Russian landlord dismissed it as a leaky shower in their apartment and came round to fix it with a replacement shower head (whhaaaattttt?!) Now I ain't no plumber but my limited plumbing experience told me this wasn't anything to do with shower heads. After many heated words, he finally agreed to a real plumber to come round who replaced the pipes and in the process almost killed himself working with water gushing down on him and exposed live wires threatening his time on earth at any given moment. I fear electrical problems to emerge shortly.

It was a week of mayhem - video to follow as simple words words can't convey the destruction that was. Anyway, we came out unscathed the only thing to take a battering were Spencer and Margaux's rubber duckeys who were last seen making a run for it.

Despite all this mess, there was one extremely positive aspect to come from this and that was that we got to meet our new neighbours, despite the circumstance. We got to know them all pretty damn fast having to share the one bathroom in the hall that isn't connected to this shady polish plumbing.

They all seem like wonderful girls and we can't wait to share this kooky building with them.

Bye Bye Fire Truck Bed

We decided to get Spencer another bed as this Fire Truck bed was basically a disaster. We moved him into it on his second birthday, and he has probably spent a total of five nights in it (crawling into ours practically every night and major tears if we tried to move him back). Also, I wasn't sure it would take my weight along with his and was constantly fearful of a collapse!

August in the Jersey Shore and Hamptons

No complaints here. A week in the Jersey Shore at Avalon, where Joe spent his summers lifeguarding as a hormone raged teenager/college student and a couple of days in the Hamptons with our friends Seth and Judy and their two adorable little men, Charlie and Nate.