Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed At the Water’s Edge, a novel set near Loch Ness in Scotland. Sim’s fantasy walk about London brought us inside the National Gallery for the special exhibit about painters’ collections of paintings plus the many famous works in their permanent collection. Tina reviewed Not Working by Lisa Owens and Becky reviewed Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Jackie continued her digitization of photographs from previous trips to the British Isles with some 2001 photos of Scotland. Jean continued her reports about her recent trip to England with a day at the V&A (and an evening adventure that involved firefighters), a day at Hampton Court and Strawberry Hill, and a fun post about reading Northanger Abbey in Bath.

If you are following the news from Britain, you know that there’s a new resident at Number 10 Downing Street, home of the Prime Minister — all happening within the space of about three days. This, of course, is fascinating to Americans as we’re in the midst of our interminable process for choosing a new President.

BuzzFeed has an amusing piece, complete with animated gifs and a good basic explanation of how someone becomes Prime Minister of the UK. Don’t miss the video of “the single most awkward march in recent political history.” LOL.

Apparently, one of the big questions for the British was whether Larry the Cat belonged to the Camerons or to the house at 10 Downing Street. NPR took an in-depth look at the biography of Larry the Cat and revealed that he will remain the chief mouser at the Prime Minister’s residence.

As the UK gets their second female Prime Minister, I was amused by this upending of gender stereotypes, an article in Metro with the headline, “Theresa May’s husband steals the show in sexy navy suit as he starts new life as First Man.”

Were you startled by the fast transition for the leadership of the UK?

Edited to add: For the second week in a row my pre-scheduled British Isles Friday post feels too light for the heaviness of the day. My best thoughts for new Prime Minister May and other world leaders as we figure out how to make our planet function like we know it’s our only home and every person on it is family.