Author Archives: Michael

A carpet of apple(?) blossoms has covered our back patio, courtesy of the profusion of flowers on a tree over the fence, petals released by the wind on this gorgeous Easter day and floating into backyards all over the block. It is a cliche to speak of rebirth on Easter, and yet there’s no escapingContinue reading “Rebirth”

We just returned from 11 fabulous days exploring parts of Spain, France, and Andorra (where we’d never been).  The full accounting would make for a very long blog post, so we’ll break it up into three over the next few days. We began in Andorra (after a cool rail journey, about which more below).  WhyContinue reading “Continental Adventures Part I: To Andorra!”

What, you might well ask, does any of this have to do with our adventures in London? Well, the invention of the water closet and flush toilet is a key part of a story about, um, crap in London, a story that demonstrates how inexorably the law of unintended consequences functions in environmental history. ItContinue reading “More London Adventures”

As is always the case when traveling to a new place, I try to note the interplay of the human and ecological systems. Like any great metropolis, the urban metabolism of London is complex, in may ways a marvel of highly engineered pathways for food, water, energy, transportation, and waste, much of it below groundContinue reading “The Nature of London”

We had only 2 1/2 days back in London before another adventure away. Last Thursday we packed up again, and this time headed across the English Channel (Oceanus Brittanicus to Julius Caesar) to France via the Eurostar high speed train. If you’ve never traveled on a train at 200 MPH, it is hard to describeContinue reading “Crossing Oceanus Britannicus”