brief update

Random events! I went to Lisbon for two days. Here's the only picture I took.
Exciting! Lisbon was very hot and the people are mostly fashionable and beautiful. I was given a small backpack at the conference I was at, and we gave it to Calvin:
finally, he's contributing to the load bearing responsibilities of the household. Then he chased the neighbor's cat around in his new Wellies:
Today Cal and I went on a long walk to let Sam relax for a few hours. Adventure!
Calvin pointed at trees:
slapped trees:
was dwarfed by trees:
ran all over the place:
and patiently ate a gingerbread man while I harassed snails on trees:
we've got some more interesting travel coming up: back to Scotland for a few days and then off to Tenerife for some sunshine. After that the clocks will change and we'll be in full-blown "My God, it's drizzly and dark" mode for a few months. So look forward to that.

The Cotswolds: putting both quaints in "quaint- this is really quaint."

For the bank holiday we headed to the Cotswolds for a couple days. On the way there we stopped by Warwick castle, which is now run by the people who do Madame Tussauds so you know it's classy. It's a beautiful castle, but kind of Disney, and it was really crowded on the holiday weekend. Still pretty good though.
Then we stayed at a bed and breakfast that was a working farm. I was attacked by a territorial rooster and Calvin was almost run over by stampeding sheep, but it was pretty nice. This was our base for exploring the Cotswolds, which is a pleasant hilly area dotted with small, almost-too-quaint towns. We hiked around and drove around, gawking at the stone houses, churches built by rich wool barons, and ancient high streets. The countryside in that part of England is a lot more interesting than Cambridgeshire.
More pictures are here