Tiny Notes From Hanoi: It’s Like Downton Abbey, Except Different
November 11, 2014

Tiny Notes From Hanoi: It’s Like Downton Abbey, Except Different

We have a house, people. A whole house to ourselves, partway down a narrow scooter-wide lane, off a side street, a block from the lake. After two months of living out of suitcases, over a month living with family (both sides, on both sides of …

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Tiny Notes From Hanoi: Everything is Amazing When You Leave Your Phone at Home
October 29, 2014

Tiny Notes From Hanoi: Everything is Amazing When You Leave Your Phone at Home

  Yesterday I left my phone in the hotel room when I went out with Thwack strapped to my front. We were just popping out for a moment to hunt and gather some sort of lunch for me before I had to take a cranky, …

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Tiny Notes From Hanoi: A Home, a Banh Mi and Thou
October 23, 2014

Tiny Notes From Hanoi: A Home, a Banh Mi and Thou

Welcome to Day 2 in my return to blogging, miniature stylee. Today we went and visited our new house. It isn’t ours yet- there is a lovely Danish family still living in it- but we got to have a second look around it for the …

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Tiny Notes From Hanoi: It’s Kinda Different With a Kid
October 22, 2014

Tiny Notes From Hanoi: It’s Kinda Different With a Kid

Welcome to this exciting new series of (hopefully) near daily updates on our very recent move to Hanoi (like, last Friday)! Between living in a compact little hotel room in an area without walkable sidewalks (but with a fine cacophany of scooters roaring at all …

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How to Pack for the Person You’d Like to Become
September 5, 2014

How to Pack for the Person You’d Like to Become

  We moved out of our little terrace house last weekend. Our dining room full of boxes is now stacked neatly in the third floor spare room of a sprawling Victorian house in the groovier bit of Leicester. We have a surprising amount of stuff …

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What I’m Talking About When I Talk About China
August 21, 2014

What I’m Talking About When I Talk About China

A few weeks ago, I was randomly contacted by someone working for an expat relocation company. He wanted me to write a guide for Suzhou, a city I spent a total of one afternoon in several years ago, interviewing for a temporary job doing localization …

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Leicester is For Food Nerds: A Tangentially Culinary Introduction to an Unlikely Place
August 4, 2014

Leicester is For Food Nerds: A Tangentially Culinary Introduction to an Unlikely Place

Leicester (lɛstər/ les-tər) isn’t exactly on the global culinary map. It’s barely on any map at all, except perhaps one detailing manufacturers of, say, sturdy meat pies or Indian sweets.     Rumour has it that people have traveled vast distances to get a big …

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This Is Still Not a Mommy Blog (Even Though That’s All I Do All Day)
July 9, 2014

This Is Still Not a Mommy Blog (Even Though That’s All I Do All Day)

Before I spawned my urchin, I was adamant about keeping the metalepsical church and state firmly separated. I read all of those books about the importance of  keeping your grown up self intact and building a life where the baby mostly fits into your rhythms and …

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A Totally Impractical Guide to Camping in England With a 4 Month Old Baby
July 3, 2014

A Totally Impractical Guide to Camping in England With a 4 Month Old Baby

Last weekend, we borrowed a car from our crunchy granola car-share group in Leicester and drove to somewhere in Derbyshire (pronounced, approximately, Darbəshr, in case you aren’t intuitively British*) in the cold, grey rain, for a fine weekend of family camping, frantic trail cycling (which we …

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The Happiness Project Revisited: Are We Happy Yet?
June 30, 2014

The Happiness Project Revisited: Are We Happy Yet?

 Yes, I’m still plugging away at the Happiness Project.   I’m now more than half way toward the end goal of 100 days of consciously making note of happy moments. I missed one or two days along the way, unable to find anything overtly happy …

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I’m Learning Vietnamese, Y’all: What You Really Need To Know When Learning a New Language
June 18, 2014

I’m Learning Vietnamese, Y’all: What You Really Need To Know When Learning a New Language

I’m Learning Vietnamese. I Think I’m Learning Vietnamese. I really think so.     So I’m learning another language. I’m adding Vietnamese, slowly and poorly intoned, to my slapdash mental collection of half remembered words and phrases from a dozen countries. I may have mentioned this once or …

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Feed Me, Leicester: Sichuan Brothers Hotpot (Woohoo!)
June 12, 2014

Feed Me, Leicester: Sichuan Brothers Hotpot (Woohoo!)

Remember last week when those guys at Momondo took us out for lunch at Kayal down on Granby Street and we stuffed ourselves on spicy seafoody things and massive dosas stuffed with lovely fragrant smashed spud and whatnot? Well, this week they took us out …

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