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Dancing King

One of the highlights of our recent trip around the world — six and a half weeks, split evenly between the UK and the US — was a family get together outside of London. Nyan got to hang with Phwa Phwa and his aunties, uncles and cousins, including here with Poppy at a country pub:

At the actual get-together itself, the dress was formal, and I dare say Nyan fills out fancy dress just fine. Check him out posing with his cousins and with Mommy and Daddy:

And strutting around like he owns the place:

And giving kisses to cousin Elodie:

The highlight, though, was absolutely what happened at night. There was a dance floor and a DJ, and let’s just say that our young man absolutely wiped the floor with everybody else. Dude was out of control. Off the chain. On fire. Etc. Here’s a million videos of the boy and his moves:

The jacket came off pretty soon, of course.

Eventually the shirt came off and this dancing fool was down to his vest:

He started to run out of steam eventually:

Definitely getting tired, though he found a last burst of energy:

Still, he outlasted many of the adults and it was nearly midnight before he finally passed out. What a night!

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Posted by Chris L. on September 9, 2016 in Uncategorized

Tags: family, uk

Nyan Thomas in Chipping Ongar

30 Mar

What’s a Chipping Ongar, you ask? Well. Chipping Ongar is a small rural town in the middle of nowhere, about half an hour or so to the north of us. The London Underground (a.k.a. the Tube, a.k.a. the subway system) used to run all the way out to this lovely little town, but low ridership meant the end of that; the line now ends closer in to the city proper. But some railway buffs (and there are many on this island) took over the stretch of rail, and on weekends and holidays, they run a pair of trains — one decommissioned commuter line, one classic steam train — back and forth on a 15-minute journey between two old stations.

Our boy loves trains, so we figured, why not take a ride on the Chipping-Ongar Railway? It was a (predictably) good call as it was a fun family day.

Here’s the lad, before the ride:

And here he is on the ride itself:

He was very concerned that the train window was dirty (and also wanted to drink Daddy’s coffee):

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Some photos of the lad on the train (and a bonus shot of Mommy too):

When Nyan wasn’t riding the rails, he was riding Daddy’s shoulders:

A few random non-Nyan shots:

Oh, and yes, we took a family selfie (which Nyan decided to photo-bomb):

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Besides the train fun, we had a lovely lunch at a local pub called The Cock. Nyan had fun spreading the sugar on the table (to the management, sorry about that, but at least I managed to stop him before he mixed salt into the sugar bowl!) and took a wander around the pub, as you can see here:

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Posted by Chris L. on March 30, 2014 in Photos, Video

Tags: train, uk

Road Trip: Rochester Castle & Cathedral

10 Feb

About 45 minutes to the southeast of London, on the banks of the River Medway, is the old town of Rochester, home to the 900-year-old Rochester Castle. It’s quite a sight, both inside and out – the wooden floors have long since rotted away, so inside you get some tremendous views all the way up to the sky:

A few weeks back, on a sunny but windy and chilly Sunday morning, we headed there to take in the views. We climbed up probably eight stories to the very top and found some stunning views:

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Just across the road is the Rochester Cathedral, a pretty beautiful building in its own right. It’s the second-oldest cathedral in England, and Christians have been worshiping on this very site since about 600 AD.

Inside is a huge and tremendous pipe organ. And, on this Sunday, also inside was a silly boy who decided to lay on the stone floor and pose for a photo.

Later we walked around the church grounds, where the grass was still green despite it being the middle of January. Nyan was just happy to be able to run around, pick up sticks, explore the statues… typical Nyan stuff.

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We had Sunday lunch at a pub, wandered the old High Street a bit, and generally took in 1,000 years of history. All in a day’s work.

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Posted by Chris L. on February 10, 2014 in Photos

Tags: uk

Road Trip: Cambridge

18 Nov

Earlier this month, we decided our weekly Sunday family fun activity would be a daytrip to Cambridge. It’s only about an hour north of where we live, and it was a beautiful bright sunny fall day. A bit chilly, and quite windy, but otherwise gorgeous, as you’ll see.

We didn’t do anything special – just wandered around the town, including lunch at a riverside pub.

And we visited King’s College Chapel, an absolutely stunning, 500-year-old cathedral. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Chris L. on November 18, 2013 in Photos

Tags: outdoors, uk

Road Trip: Margate (videos and pictures)

20 Oct

We went to Margate a couple weeks back. What’s Margate, you ask, and why did we go there?

Margate is a seaside town about 90 minutes east of London. It was once a popular spot for seaside get-aways, but like most English seaside resort towns, nobody goes there for vacation any more. So what’s left is… not much, to be frank. It is definitely a faded town, without a whole lot going for it. They’ve tried in recent years to revamp it – the town dropped some 70 million pounds on a fancy glass-clad art museum along the waterfront, a lot of the buildings have been restored, there are some nice parks, and there are the usual festivals and whatnot. All well and good, but there still isn’t a lot of there there.

We don’t mean to be unduly harsh on poor Margate. There’s nothing at all *wrong* with the place. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Chris L. on October 20, 2013 in Photos, Video

Tags: travel, uk

Road Trip: Brighton

06 Oct

We’re trying out a new modus operandi here at Nyan Thomas World Headquarters: every Sunday, we try to do a special event, usually an out-of-town trip to see a bit of the countryside, spend some family time together, try to keep the little guy from getting bored. We’ve only recently formalized this process, and here we share our first outing: a road trip, a couple weeks back, to the seaside town of Brighton.

Brighton is about an hour-plus south of London, on the southern shore of the island. It’s a charming little place, with lots of interesting activities and architecture. It’s also a seaside resort, so there’s also a grubby element of carnival rides, cheap seaside restaurants, and lots of touristas wandering about. In that sense, it reminds your blogger of New York’s Coney Island, and not in a good way. The ‘sand’ on the beach is large pebbles, almost small rocks, and the water is a murky green. And the day we were there was densely overcast, with horrible light that made photography quite tricky.

But don’t get us wrong: we really enjoyed it. There were, as mentioned, lots of interesting things going on, it was a gorgeous drive down there, the people were friendly, the town had a nice vibe to it… and there was a giant Ferris wheel right on the shore. Here’s our hero up above it all:

And some photos as well:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Chris L. on October 6, 2013 in Photos, Video

Tags: travel, uk

Road Trip: Sissinghurst Castle

10 Sep

Autumn has unfortunately arrived here in ol’ Blighty, with cool temps, overcast skies and occasional and sometimes heavy rain. So let’s take a trip back in time, about six short weeks ago, when the air was warm and filled with sunshine, the flowers were in bloom, and Nyan took Mommy, Grandma and Grandpa on a day trip to Sissinghurst Castle, about an hour outside of London. (Daddy got to stay behind and go to work, hooray!)

It’s more of a grand old house than a castle, to be honest (at least in Daddy’s opinion, having not been there), but it’s still gorgeous, with flowers and hedge mazes and old buildings everywhere you look. It’s part of the National Trust which means it’s both old and notable (and preserved).

Here then are a few photos from the day. (click on any photo to enlarge and start a slide show)

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Posted by Chris L. on September 10, 2013 in Photos

Tags: outdoors, uk

Road Trip: Leeds Castle

21 May

A few weeks ago, the United Kingdom celebrated what’s called the Early Spring Bank Holiday – a public holiday, held on the first Monday of May each year. (Most of Europe closes down on May 1, May Day, but England I guess didn’t want to be associated with that socialist day, so changed that public holiday to a few days later. Something like that.)

Regardless, it ended up being a lovely warm-ish early Spring day, so we loaded up the car and headed for the county of Kent, also known as the Garden of England, about an hour to the southeast. Our destination: Leeds Castle, a beautiful thousand-year-old castle on several hundred acres of land and lakes. Here’s Nyan after we strapped him into the car, clearly excited:

We weren’t the only ones with the bright idea of visiting Leeds Castle that day; the parking lot was packed with hundreds of cars, and the line to get tickets was about 45 minutes long. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Chris L. on May 21, 2013 in Photos, Video

Tags: family, outdoors, uk

Down on the Farm (Pictures and Videos)

22 Apr

Last Sunday, the sun came out and the temperature jumped up to about 60 degrees, and nearly everyone on this little island emerged from their homes, blinking in the brightness like baby moles, and headed outside for the afternoon. We were no different. Our initial plans for a trip to the London zoo got derailed due to practicalities like naptime and whatnot, so instead we decided Nyan would get in touch with his Iowan roots and headed half an hour north of London, to a place called Lea Valley Park Farms.

It’s tucked into a lovely little valley, and it’s apparently a working farm of some sort, but they have quite a spread that’s open to visitors, with trails, a cafe or two, several areas of games and activities, and animals. Lots of animals. We saw pigs, sheep, goats, donkeys, llamas, rabbits, turkeys, tortoises, chickens, cows, meerkats, guinea pigs, ponies, even an entire sled’s worth of Siberian huskies. Our boy was enthralled by some of the animals, a little freaked out by others (goats, of course, stink to high heaven, and Nyan was not impressed). Here’s a bunch of photos of the lad – expertly shot by Mommy, who was manning the camera (click on any picture to make it bigger and start a nice slideshow):