A dream come true-ish
A long overdue update from London
This week, we celebrated Caleb’s last day of year nine in his London school. The other two will finish soon, and then we’ll head home to North Carolina for about a month. More than any other year, I am astonished at how different we all are at the end from where we were at the beginning. We had massive ice cream sundaes at Fortnum & Mason last night, but I feel like this year deserves Champagne!
Dinner outside tonight in our little “garden”
I opened Substack this morning and could hardly believe that my last post was in the summer of 2021, still in the midst of COVID! The post I thought I made in September is still in the drafts folder, unfinished. Reading my own posts felt like measuring the kids’ heights against the wall and being stunned at how much they’ve grown. Sometimes we don’t notice the incremental changes— we need to step back to see the growth.
Both in 2021, when I named our dream of moving to London, and again in September, when I described our first week or two here, I was naively optimistic and had visions of grandeur. The true reason I didn’t write again was that I couldn’t. I wanted to document the process and share along the way, but it was too hard. After we visited London in summer 2021, we set balls in motion that picked up speed. We didn’t know how it would all play out, and I was probably afraid of public humiliation if nothing came together or I chickened out. In the end, amazing, even miraculous things happened and we did actually move to London in August, 2022. The past ten months have been the most challenging of my entire life. They have been the best and the worst, the most difficult and the most rewarding. Each one of us has been stretched and grown in crazy ways. I have so many stories to tell, but I haven’t been ready or able. I had the greatest intentions of living vulnerably and writing regularly, but I’ve discovered that I’m actually a slow processor. I don’t know how to be present and live in the moment and describe what is happening at the same time. And some days I’ve just been trying to hold it all together, didn’t really want anyone to know how hard it was!
Now that we’re finishing the school year, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I have just a little bit of space to think and breathe, and it’s a good time to finally share a bit more about our year. I think I’ll go backwards, and offer a snapshot of where we are now (and some actual pictures), then post the draft I meant to share in September so you can look back with me!
Waiting for the train outside Kensington Olympia
In December, we moved Caleb to a new school that has turned out to be just perfect. It is small and friendly, and the staff values academics, arts and wellbeing equally. It’s also right next to the train station! Until last week, Caleb and Caroline would leave at 7:47, in order to walk to the station to catch the 7:55 overground train. Caleb has a strange delight in cutting it close, so he often dilly dallies long enough to have to run to catch his sister. Fortunately, there is an 8:04, but then Caroline might not make the 8:13 train she connects to for her school! We’ve been here long enough that it feels normal now to plan my day around Citymapper’s expected transit times. External factors such as train strikes and signal failures remind us often of the limits of our control. Jack is enjoying his last few weeks of the later primary school start time. He is often still asleep when his siblings leave and saunter down around 8:15, generally moaning about how much he hates wearing a uniform. It’s a daily insult to him, and we love PE days when he can wear the casual PE kit which includes his regular trainers (running shoes) instead of the despised formal school shoes. He has been leaving the house later and later, pushing it as late as 8:40, to scoot from where we live around Olympia station, along Kensington High Street, and down Earls Court Road to arrive by 8:55. He diligently texts us that he has arrived and then leaves his phone in the main office where he picks it up again after school, one of my favorite restrictions!
On one hand, life here is quite mundane. However, it's funny the novel things that become normal…Friday was an “own clothes” day, when students could donate two pounds or bring a bottle of wine for an upcoming fundraiser in order to avoid wearing a uniform. Charles saw the Duke of Edinburgh on his way to attend church in Westminster Abbey on Wednesday, Caroline met a friend to see Six in the West End on Thursday, and today I walked by Captain America on the way home from church (Comic-Con). Yesterday we rented Santander bikes down the street, rode along the Thames, and had a picnic at Chiswick House, built in the 1720s by the Earl of Burlington (until it started raining, so we rode home).
I think one of the reasons life is feeling a little easier these days is that, in addition to finding our rhythms, I see the smallest fruits of transplanting our kids into new environments. There are good things happening for each of them. We are so proud of them for playing through some rough spots and grateful for these signs of life. Jack’s class walks to the pool once a week for swimming lessons, and they did urban biking classes so the kids would know how to ride safely in the city. Jack is performing in a school percussion ensemble, a ballet, and his class production of Alice in Wonderland. He scored a few goals for his football (soccer) team and had his “induction” (orientation) day at his new secondary school this week.
Caleb is thriving academically and enjoying school, include cooking lessons, textiles, and design and technology. For PE, they ride a bus to play tennis in Wimbledon. He completed his bronze level of Duke of Edinburgh Award, which included an overnight camping trip and long hikes with classmates. He finished his school year with a stand-out performance in the school musical, 42nd Street! He had the best accent by far.
Heading out for the Duke of Edinburgh Expedition
Caroline has taken up rock climbing at a local gym, flew to Italy by herself, and just spent four nights doing science experiments on the coast of Wales. She’s finding her people and learning what she needs to do to be healthy. For better or worse, the A-Level system here has required her to focus deeply on three subjects and learn how to revise (study) for big exams that require a lot of writing. This summer we’ll start the college process, since she’ll be the equivalent of a rising senior!
On a practical level, we’ve found a vet for Parker, a GP, a dentist, and a barber. I even let someone here dye my hair, which is always scary the first time! We’re slowly figuring out the NHS and how to get referrals. I order groceries once a week and send the kids to the corner market or stop at the Tesco on the way home for everything I forget or we run out of by Wednesday. Friday night is still pizza night, and I walk to the market down the street on Saturdays for flowers and Italian sausages, which I haven’t been able to find elsewhere. We’re starting to see the same faces around our streets and run into people we know. Slowly but surely, we’re all making friends. We love our church, and I am blessed by Charles’ extroversion. His heart for engaging others at church exhausts and inspires me, and has led to meaningful new relationships, even if I would rather talk to the same three people every week:) One of my favorite parts of St. Barnabas is its ministry to the local community; Friday nights at the pub with the worship band are my kind of outreach!
I started teaching as a lecturer in nursing at the University of West London in September. This has been a surprising joy and challenge at the same time. I love teaching and, as much as some of the NHS/administrative disorder drives me crazy, am grateful for the opportunity to get to know an extraordinarily diverse group of students and hopefully play a part in helping them to succeed in their own dreams of becoming a nurse. Most of my students are “mature students” who are immigrants from previously colonized British countries, who have raised their children and are now pursuing their own education. I mis-speak frequently, either by using the American term (we say ICU, they say ITU; we say Tylenol, they say paracetamol…) or by displaying my ignorance of geography and cultural differences. I’m learning, and I think I’m still “nicer” than some of my colleagues, so they give me grace. Working full-time has been a challenge in itself, but I’m getting into a rhythm and figuring out how much I can work from home without getting called out!
Outside St. Paul’s Cathedral for a friend’s Ordination
Charles has arguably had the best year out of all of us. He taught Elon students studying in London in the Fall and had several research projects this spring. But he will be the first to say that this was his lightest working year ever. Thank goodness; we needed the extra bandwidth to keep our ship afloat! While he did more of the school pick-ups, laundry folding and appointment-making than in some seasons, he was also reading, writing and reflecting as part of an intentional discernment process about ordained ministry. The process concluded with a “not yet,” so Charles will continue to be involved with the church but will not jump straight into seminary in the fall. Instead, he will be on leave from Elon and teach history at St. Paul’s School for Boys. While this leaves us with some unanswered questions, the turn of events already feels like an example of God’s wisdom and sweet provision of clarity for now. And I think Charles will be very cute riding his bike to work in his coat and tie!
Whether it has been the sunnier weather, resolution about next year, the kids feeling more settled, or a bit of it all, I feel renewed enthusiasm and gratitude for the opportunity to be here. I have no clearer vision about many things in life, but I’m absolutely sure this time here is a gift and that we are growing, which is why it’s probably not always comfortable! We are looking forward to spending about a month in North Carolina this summer. Most likely, you’ll find us at Chik-Fil-A or the pool with family or old friends, which are the main things we can’t approximate here and miss the most.
It’s been fun to write this update, and hopefully sketching out the big things here will enable us to catch up in person with some of you more quickly! If you want to go down memory lane with me and appreciate the benefit of time, read my next post, which is actually my previous post that never got posted!