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A Convoluted Return Home from the UK to Spain to the USA

Jan27

Sunday, January 25, 2015
London-Madrid-New York

Having set my alarm for 5.00 am (for a 5. 30 am departure), I found myself waking up automatically at 4. 45 am with plenty of time to wash, dress, do last-minute packing and leave. Chris and the cab driver were on schedule and we were off for Heathrow airport while St. John’s Wood and Swiss Cottage were comatose. Through the sleeping streets we sped past Chiswick to arrive at Heathrow at 6.15 am where I checked in immediately, received my boarding passes, had my bags tagged but was told to return at 8. 3o am to check them in as the counter only opened 3 hours before departure.

It was a good time to get into Carluccio’s to buy myself a hot chocolate and a plain croissant which I enjoyed with butter and their signature fig jam as I awaited 8. 30 am and the arrival of my friends Bash and Kim who were scheduled to come to the airport to spend a couple of hours with me as they live nearby. As it turned out, my brother Roger had arrived at Heathrow on duty last evening and it was with him on the phone that I passed time while waiting for my friends. They did turn up at 8. 30 am when we went straight to Café Nero to get mocha lattes and to catch up. It was great to see Kim on her feet (sciatica had kept her away from our trip to Oxford) and for the next couple of hours, we had a lovely time together.

Then, if you can believe it, I boarded by flight to go from London to the USA but for some inexplicable reason, via Madrid in Spain! The flight run by Iberia was in a very small plane but it made good time and gave me a chance to catch up on my journal. Skies were clear over Portugal and Spain and views from my window showed me snow-struck mountains and fallow fields. Soon we were descending into Madrid where I had to change terminals to get my international flight to the US. I had no time to grab a sandwich (I could have murdered for one with Spain’s manchego cheese and serrano ham!), but in no time at all, I was in my plane (another small one with none of the lovely British Airways in-flight entertainment) and just when I wondered what I would do for the next 9 hours during daylight, I was grateful for my laptop that would allow me to pass time through writing and for the Woman and Home magazine that I had bought at Heathrow airport. My seat had a charger plug point which permitted me to listen to music on my I-Phone and hammer away on my laptop and with a window seat on a very light flight, I was up and airborne and ready to make the most of the last lap of my holiday.

It had been a blast! In one week in London, I had done favorite old things (the National Gallery and the Guildhall Art Gallery, for instance) and discovered new ones (tours of the Royal Courts of Justice, Highgate Cemetery and the Linley-Sambourne House). I had seen one play (Di and Viv and Rose) at the West End and one really brilliant TV show (Wolf Hall). I had been invited to a very special lunch in a very special place (Morden College in Blackheath), Afternoon Tea with the NYU Dean’s Circle in a fancy hotel—The Montague on the Gardens  in Bloomsbury—and had a lovely farewell pub dinner of fish and chips at the Old Bank of England pub on Fleet Street where Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street had apparently murdered many an innocent client.
I had found some really good buys at really great prices (a Barbour quilted jacket for myself, plum puddings at Harrods, vast supplies of my favorite tea, biscuits, cereal, soup). I had combined some work by meeting with my Dean and the students he had brought to London plus many of our administrative staff members with a great deal of play, long walks and longer bus rides on days that were frightfully cold even when the sun shone. I had heard Mass at favorite churches—St. Etheldreda’s in Holborn and at Westminster Cathedral. I went to very unusual museums of which even Londoners haven’t heard (The Old Operating Theater in Southwark and the Linely-Sambourne House in tony Kensington) and discovered new lines of perfume by my favorite perfumier (Jo Malone in her new line called Jo Loves) on Elizabeth Street. I made one daytrip to another one of my favorite places on earth—the university city of Oxford—to which I introduced Raquel.
But, above all, I had met and reconnected with dear English friends who mean so much to me (Tim and Barbara, Rosemary (Roz), Loulou and Paul, Michael and Cynthia and Susan in Oxford), Indian ones (Murali, Michelle and Reshma, Bash and Kim) and American ones (Mahnaz. Raquel and Chris) who make my stays in London ever so special by invitations to lunch or dinner either in their homes or restaurants. In the final analysis, although I adore London in every season and despite every affliction that is thrown my way (this time it was a persistent cold and an aching throat), ultimately, it is the people I know and love in this country that make it all worthwhile for me.
Thank you for following me on my adventures and for being my companion through thick and thin. I hope you enjoyed armchair traveling with me as much as I enjoyed actually making the trips, for, remember as the philosopher said, it is not the destination that matters but the journey. I am grateful that you were a part of mine.
Until the next time I leave my usual home in Southport and return to my roost, I say cheerio!

Long Last Day in London: Linley-Sambourne House, West End Theater

Jan27

Saturday, January 24, 2015
London

My last days in London always tend to get a bit frenzied because there is so much I desperately wish to finish doing before the day is done. It began, as usual, with Jonas climbing into bed with me, watching a couple of his cartoons while I caught up with my blog. But soon he was hurrying off to his ice-skating class with his mother while I had my breakfast (walnut bread with peanut butter, hazelnut yoghurt and coffee) and left to make some food purchases. First off, I walked to Panzers, a gourmet food store at St. John’s Wood, to buy some Scumshus Granola as I had heard through Twitter how fabulous it was. I found it rather quickly, bought a jar and then hopped on to the Tube to get to Holborn to buy some bags of muesli and Three Fruits Marmalade from Sainsbury. That done, I requested the sales staff to hold on to my bags as they were much too heavy to be carted around for the rest of the day.
I walked briskly then to one of my other favorite food stores in Bloomsbury called Bury Food and Wine on Bury Street right by the British Museum for my supply of biscuits: Border’s Dark Chocolate Gingers. And it was here that I found lovely round biscuit barrels of Borders’ Assorted Biscuits—I thought it would be a good thing to take back home—so buy one I did. With those bags, I returned to Sainsbury at Holborn and requested the clerk to add them to my existing bags.

Visiting the Linley-Sambourne House:
While at Bury Food and Wine, I called the office at the Linley-Sambourne House at 18 Stafford Street in Kensington when it opened at 10. 15 am to find out if they could accommodate one more person for their 11.15 am tour—and they could! There was no time to waste. I hopped straight on the Tube at Holborn, got off at Notting Hill Gate, then switched to the Circle Line train for one stop to alight at Kensington High Street. I found the place very easily using my trusty map of London and soon I was joining a group of 7 other enthusiasts to see this very interesting home.
So here is a historical word about the Linley-Sambourne House: It is only a stone’s throw from the much more well-known Lord Leighton’s House, only a block away. It was the home of a man called Edward Linley-Sambourne who was one of the principal cartoonists for Punch magazine and who lived in the house for 35 years between 1875 and 1910 with his wife Marion from the time he married her and bought it to the time he died at the age of 66.
If the name Linley appears familiar to you, you would be right in associating it with Viscount Linley, now a famous designer of bespoke wooden furniture and son of the late Princess Margaret, sister of the present Queen of England whose husband Lord Snowdon was born Anthony (Tony) Armstrong-Jones and who was related to the original owner of the house, Lord Linley-Samborne.
The reason the house is on public display today is because ‘Lin’ (as he was known) and Marion spent their lifetime creating a very special family home by making every manner of purchase you can imagine in contemporary decorative arts. The home is, therefore, a fine receptacle of Victoriana as it flourished in the reign of the erstwhile Queen who gave the age its name. Lin and Marion had two children: a son, Roy (who remained unmarried and, therefore, childless) and a daughter Maude who eventually inherited the house and then passed it on to her daughter Rose who married the Irish Count of Rosse. It was she, eventually, who decided to preserve her parents’ immense collection of art and artifacts by turning it over to the nation by involving people like Sir John Betjeman, Sir Nicholas Pevsner, Hugh Casson and others who gathered in the house in 1956 to found the Victorian Society for the conservation and preservation of such items at a time when they had fallen out of fashion and people were getting rid of them by the ton. Today, the house is in the possession of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who manage it well and keep it maintained through the running of tours. I had first read about this home through the writings of one of my favorite British architects and illustrators,     Sir Hugh Casson, one-time President of the Royal Academy whose beautifully-illustrated book entitled Hugh Casson’s London has led me to some of London’s most secret corners and offered me untold delights through the decades.
The tour began on the lower level, the basement, what was then the kitchen (although it is not a kitchen today) and a pantry (which, I learned, was not the kitchen storeroom but, in fact, the room used for sleeping by all the servants of which, at that time, there were four: a cook, a nurse/governess for the children, a housekeeper to supervise the running of the house and a housemaid to clean, fetch and open front doors). A 15 minute film introduced us to the principal characters in this drama and to the artistic work of Linley-Sambourne who, apart from producing cartoons for Punch, also illustrated contemporary novels (his best-known work is for The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley), and a photographer (he used photography quite effectively to perfect the poses of the characters in his cartoons and to produce art). The short film was a fine introduction to the dramatis personae in this story.
Our tour then began in earnest. It was given by a little old lady whose knowledge of the house, the objects in it and its inhabitants was prodigious, to say the least. No matter what question she was asked, she could answer it and in detail. I was terribly impressed by the extent and the depth of her knowledge. As we went through the Dining Room, the Morning Room, the spectacular Drawing Room (the principal room in the house and the one most crammed with objets d’art), the bedrooms, the childrens’ bedroom and the nursery on five levels till we reached the very top, we got the sense that, for the Victorians, less was certainly not more. In fact, for them, more was never enough! Layer upon layer of decoration overwhelmed the eye from the original wallpapers by famed contemporary William Morris (of course!) to the vases, ceramic bowls, lamps and figurines of the Arts and Crafts Movement (also known as the Aesthetic Movement)—they were all there. Furthermore, the Victorians were known to have a great love-affairs with foreign lands and the home is cluttered with items from the Far East: Japanese wood block prints, chinnoiserie, etc.
Plus, rather unusually, this home is simply filled to the rafters with framed prints such as I have never seen anywhere before. When I asked the guide about them, she said that the couple could not afford to buy real contemporary art so they contended themselves by buying black and white prints of famous paintings and then framing them to fill every bit of wall. There isn’t anything particularly Pre-Raphaelite in here except for some prints of paintings by Millais who was actually known to Lin. He wasn’t friends with any of the other names associated with the movement either. While this house is not as grand at Lord Leighton’s, it is a great example of a Victorian-Edwardian home of a normal middle class family, similar I would say to the home of Thomas Carlyle at Chelsea (which has far fewer objects in it) or even Charles Dickens’ home at 48 Doughty Street that I re-visited on this trip. Do go and see it to get a glimpse into the lifestyle of Kensington folks of 150 years ago at a time when tony Kensington was a brand-new ‘suburb’ of London and when ordinary folk were buying modestly-priced property there to create family homes for themselves. The Linley-Sambournes did not have an alternative place in the country but they did often rent a home in the south of France for three months each winter to escape the cold. As such, this is the only home they ever owned and the only place where their passion for collecting was made known.
The tour lasted one hour so that by 12.30, I was on the Tube again headed for the Theater District in the West End as I was keen to obtain a ticket to see a matinee show. I could not believe that I had actually been in London for a whole week and had not yet been to the theater! But not before I found the time to nip into several of the thrift shops on Kensington High Street from which you can find real treasures such as the lovely pair of vintage ear-rings that I snagged for a mere five pounds from Oxfam!

A Matinee on The Strand:
I was delighted, therefore, to score a ticket to see Di and Viv and Rose, a new tragi-comedy that has recently opened in the West End to good reviews. I guess I could have seen a musical right across the street; but I was keen to see this first work by playwright Amelia Bullmore with whose work I am familiar through a British TV series called Scott and Bailey (currently showing on PBS in America). Bullmore, who is also an actress, plays a police inspector on the series of which she has written a couple of episodes herself. I find her multiple talents endlessly fascinating and was keen to support her work by seeing the play.
Finding a branch of EAT nearby, I got myself a Singapore Laksa soup which was thick with noodles and coconut milk and made a very filling, if late lunch indeed. Then I hurried off towards the theater.
The 3.00 pm show allowed me to take in some of the delights of Covent Garden on a particularly crowded morning. The sun was out, people had descended upon London’s sights and from Trafalgar Square to Covent Garden, tourists were swarming. I walked through the lovely colonnaded arches of this magnificent structure by Inigo Jones, visited the Jubilee Market to inspect its wares and then hurried to the Strand to pick up a ticket for just 15 pounds. As it turned out, although the acting was very good and the play did tear at my heart strings, the writing was not as tight as it could have been although the concept was great. The plot followed the fortunes of three women who had met in college at the age of 18 to become roommates and whose friendship was cemented during those heady days. One of them (Di) is a lesbian, one is focused and career-driven (Viv) and one is carelessly promiscuous (Rose). As the next forty years in their lives are documented through their personal ups and downs, the drama swings from funny to sad. Their highs and their lows bring them closer together until one of them dies and the other two are left to mourn not just their friend but the death of their friendship as a threesome. Good acting redeemed a rather thin plot and I guess I was too tired after a whole week’s traipsing around London to really enjoy it. It was with relief that we reached the end of the play

Back Home for a Very Restful Last Evening:
It was 5. 30 pm and quite dark when I left the theater to spy Paul’s, my favorite French patisserie on the opposite side of The Strand. It was the perfect time for two of my best-loved treats—Paul’s lovely hot chocolate and an almond croissant (filled with gooey marzipan and studded with flaked almonds). I sat down in the cozy interior and enjoyed my goodies before hopping into a 91 bus across the street (what would I ever do without my Central London bus map?) that took me to Aldwych and then down Kingsway to Holborn station from where I picked up by bags of groceries at Sainsbury and made my way back home to St. John’s Wood on the Tube.
It was about 6. 45 pm when I walked in the door. My friends Raquel and Chris were leaving soon to see the movie A Most Violent Year and asked if I wished to join them. I declined as I had a load of packing to do in readiness of my early-morning departure. I was, in fact, all set to call a cab to pick me up on the morrow, when I discovered that Chris was headed to Heathrow airport too for a business trip to Athens. Naturally, we decided to share a cab and I was so pleased to have both his company and his help in handling my heavy baggage—for on this return journey, I have two full suitcases as I had brought one suitcase inside the other when I had arrived from India! Yes, these are the tricks one picks up from years of experienced travel!
I spent the next couple of hours organizing my packing, dividing weight between two suitcases, carefully weighing my loads on Raquel’s scale, taking a shower, having a small glass of white wine and fixing myself a sandwich dinner with the last of my bits and bobs in the fridge—walnut bread and cold ox tongue—as I sat with my laptop to watch the BBC’s Wolf Hall on I-Player based on the novels by Hilary Mantel. It was deeply absorbing especially as Mark Rylance is playing the principal role of Thomas Cromwell and Damien Lewis is playing King Henry VIII. Having read both of Mantel’s novels (Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up The Bodies), I found the series enthralling and easy to follow. But by 10.30 pm, I set my alarm, took a few last pictures with Jonas and was out like a light.
My last full day in London had been just as full as my first one and I was ready to hit the sack while thanking the Lord for another really splendid time in my favorite city.

Unti tomorrow, cheerio!

 

 

Exploring the East End–and Dinner in Chelsea with an Old Bailey Judge

Jan24

Friday, January 23, 2015

London

Today was all about the East End of London–admittedly, it is not a part of the city that I particularly like or feel connected to; so it was partly to see what lies so well concealed in its corners that I set out, at 9. 30 am, after a shower and a big breakfast of toasted walnut bread and peanut butter, hazelnut yoghurt and coffee. The Jubilee Line Tube from St. John’s Wood took me, on a lovely sunny but still very cold morning, to Liverpool Street Station from where I hopped into a Number 26 bus to get started.

Columbia Road Flower Market:

First stop was Columbia Road–site, only on Sundays, of a dazzling flower market that has become highly touristic. I had never been there but wanted to stroll through the street–because although there are no flowers to be seen on weekdays, there are some lovely shops selling unique merchandise and I wanted to browse through them. Only, I did not realize that the shops also open only on Saturdays and Sundays! It was a wasted journey but at least I did get to see the general gentrification of the neighborhood, the pretty shop fronts all painted in vivid colors and to stroll through really quiet parts of the city–it is impossible to believe that a bustling city like London still conceals areas like these in which one can scarcely hear a sound. The shops are truly lovely and do offer very unique gift items–the sort of shop for someone who has everything. Do go on a Sunday. It is a treat I shall have to postpone until my next visit–as I will be airborne Stateside, come Sunday.

Whitechapel Art Gallery:

Next stop on my agenda was the Whitechapel Art Gallery which I then reached by a rather convoluted route–10 minute walk to Shoreditch, then 254 bus towards Aldgate.  This is Muslim London and from the top deck of my bus, I took in the stores selling all manner of Islamic garb, halal food, etc. People entered the bus in ethnic outfits–bearded men, veiled women. We passed by the East London Mosque–a lovely pink building with domes and minarets and then we were arriving at my stop.

My friend Murali, an Abstract Art enthusiast, had recommended a special exhibition called The Adventures of the Black Square that features 150 years of abstract art built around the black square of  Malevich that served as inspiration to generations of artists. The website of the gallery and the banners flying outside it proudly announce that  admission is free. When I was last at this gallery–about three years ago–it had been under renovation. So, I was pleased to peruse its collections (nothing permanent, always changing). Imagine my annoyance then on discovering that there was a ticket for the special exhibition–12 pounds! I decided that I was not that crazy about abstract art to begin with and would rather put my money on the Moroni portraits at the Royal Academy of Art.

So, I hiked to the upper floors to look at some of their current exhibitions and very rewarding it was too! There is one on papers from the Henry Moore Archives that document the commissioning of some of London’s public sculptures such as the Jacob Epstein ones, Lawrence Bradshaw’s famous bust of Karl Marx for Highgate Cemetery, etc. It was very interesting to read the correspondence that went into these commissions and take a look at some marquettes. It was certainly a good place in which to take a call from Llew and to catch him up on my plans for the day.

Whitechapel Bell Foundry:

It was time to move on to yet another Whitechapel attraction that lies right across the street behind an extremely nondescript  shop front: the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. This place, at the corner of a street has been making bells continually since 1520. A bell historian has actually established that a bell-making outfit stood on these premises since 1470–so it is rich in history and, as a listed home, its facade cannot be changed or touched. Not that I would want it to be any different.

Inside, there are three small rooms exhibiting items associated with the foundry’s history. Most famous for having cast Big Ben (whose template in a cross section is draped over the inside front door) as well as the twin bells of Westminster Abbey, this place has also created some of the most significant bells in the USA–such as the Liberty Bell of Philadelphia and a Bicentenary Bell that was presented by Queen Elizabeth II to America in 1976 to celebrate two centuries of American independence. It certainly is a great place to visit and one I would heartily recommend. Again, tours are given only on Saturdays and Sunday and cost 14 pounds each. These tours take you deep into the foundry (still a working foundry, still casting bells of all kind for the global market) to see the various steps involved in the making of bells–from small hand hell ringers to the giants that acquire names–such as Big Ben or Old Tom (in Tom Tower, Christ Church College, Oxford). In a tiny back room, overlooking the tinier yard, where bells in various unfinished stages repose, you can watch a series of slides that take you through the history of the establishment that has frequently been visited by royalty.

A Stroll through Spitalfields:

It was time to take a stroll–a very long one–all along Commercial Street and towards Spitalfields, another very colorful and ethnically diverse part of London. Along the way I passed by Petticoat Lane, famed for a weekly market held there since Victorian times. Today, it is mainly a market for clothes–rejects from the designer shops are offloaded here for a song. Had I more of a weight allowance, I might have indulged. But I decided to pass on to the next item on my agenda–a visit to Old Spitalfields Market which I reached in another five minutes.

Old Spitalfields Market is another one of those London Covered Markets that offer different merchandise daily–vintage and antique items one day, arts and crafts on another. Today, there was a melange of all sorts of things from old vinyl records to artisinal bread. I took a quick look through the stalls, found absolutely nothing to strike my fancy and exited right in front of the area’s most spectacular building–the edifice of Christ Church, Spitalfields–the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor, pupil of Christopher Wren, it is simply majestic.

Buying a Barbour:

As I continued walking towards Bishopsgate, I passed right by a Barbour shop selling its signature outdoor wear. Now I had always coveted a Barbour jacket and I decided I would pop in to purchase something especially since loud signs on the door proclaimed 50-70% Off Sale!  So imagine my delight when I came upon a lovely quilted jacket on sale in just my size in a lovely satiny burgundy fabric with tweed collar and accents on spacious pockets! It could not have been more Me! Knowing that Barbour usually costs an arm and a leg, I made the impulsive decision to buy it–and at under 100 pounds, I know it is a steal! Armed with my unexpected buy, I strode down the street to the bus stop to catch a bus towards Bishopsgate.

Guildhall Art Gallery:

I was going on another recommendation to the next item on my agenda–one from my friend Barbara: a visit to the newly-reopened Guildhall Art Gallery deep in the heart of commercial London. Surrounded by banks and financial institutions, the Guildhall is a stunning building that dates from medieval times when guilds still controlled all London business. Adjoining it is the Art Gallery that has a huge collection of significant art mostly acquired through one of the Lord Mayors of London called Alfred Temple who wished to acquire a collection for the City of London. I arrived at 2. 00 pm, just in time to take one of the guided tours that began at 2. 15 pm and offered an introduction to the gallery. There was enough time for me to use the very plush loos in the basement before arriving at the main deck for the tour. Admission is free and it is certainly worth a visit.

As the guide explained, the refurbishment that cost millions of pounds, did not add to the collection but was spent on essentials such as heating, lighting, making ceilings leak-proof, etc. Still, her one hour tour was a fine introduction to the history of the Lord Mayors of London (not to be confused with the Boris Johnson type). These are elected by the City (which is a tiny part of London that goes roughly from Holborn Circus to just beyond St. Paul’s Cathedral and comprises one square mile. You might spy silvered dragon sculptures occasionally that mark out the boundaries of The City). The really important event surrounding the Lord Mayor who lives in nearby Mansion House is participating in an annual procession called the Lord Mayor’s Parade that includes all the pomp and pageantry of a golden coach that is usually housed in the Museum of London.

The guide showed us three paintings–the gigantic one, supposedly the largest painting in the UK–by the American artist John Singleton Copley depicting the Siege of Gibraltar, The Wounded Cavalier by William Shakespeare Burton and William Lockdale’s depiction of one of the parades. We then moved to one of the special exhibits–the Magna Carta that is on display as this is the 500th anniversary of its creation. All of us know the famous episode of 1215 when the barons rode to Runnymede to present King John with their list of demands to ensure their autonomy. Well, known as the document that gave the world the concept of jurisprudence, there are only 4 original Magna Cartas–two in the British Libraries, one each in Salisbury and Lincoln Cathedrals. I have seen them before, on many various occasions–in the British Library and in Salisbury Cathedral, but it is always fun to look at it again, to see how small and illegible it is and to think that a hand in the 13th century wrote it. This one is especially important as it contains the entire seal that hangs from the bottom of the document to make it truly official. On display only until the end of the month, I would heartily recommend that if you haven’t seen it before, you beat a hasty track to the Guildhall Art Gallery to do so.

Finally, our tour guide took us to the basement to see London’s best-kept secret–the Roman Amphitheater that was discovered quite by chance when the art gallery was being built. Now, of course, we all know that Lodinium was an important Roman settlement and that fragments from gladiatorial days are still be found whenever any digging is done. But to see this sort of thing in the heart of London is still pretty awesome. It has been beautifully staged for the modern visitor to give an idea of actually entering the arena. Again, worth seeing.

The tour ended here, but I decided to return upstairs to look more closely at some of the highlights of the collection: Frederick Lord Leighton’s Two Musicians is one of my favorite paintings and it is here! I had last seen it in Lord Leighton’s House in Holland Park, a few years ago. There are beautiful works by the Pre-Raphaelites too and one I particularly liked from Dorset–Men Quarrying Stone. In the basement, there is a lovely special exhibition on paintings about Tower Bridge through the ages. It is wonderful to see the varied ways in which artists have represented this iconic structure. But with light fading quickly, it was time for me to move to the next item on my list.

The Old Operating Theater in Southwark:

I am amazed how few Londoners have heard of The Old Operating Theater and Herb Garret that are so easily accessible. Attached to Guy’s Hospital and St. George’s Hospital on the South Bank of London, this was the place in which Florence Nightingale did most of her work and made her mark upon the nursing world. Now I have seen a really spectacular Operating Theater in Padua in Italy, so I knew, more or less, what to expect. But that one was grand and beautifully carved. This one was far more utilitarian and, therefore, so much more stark.

The concept of an Operating Theater derives from an educational space in which a surgeon performs an operation which observed by student doctors. It is, therefore, always based around the plan of an amphitheater with rows of stands in semi-circular shape to allow for close observation and study of the proceedings. The ‘bed’ in the center is a primitive wooden bench to which a patient was strapped and operated upon without the aid of anasthesia. Shudder! It was not until Joseph Lister invented anasthesia that such operations became more humane. Patients were brought in from the adjoining hospitals (still working hospitals) but because so little was known about infections, many had successful operations but still died.

Before getting into the Operating Theater, the visitor passes through a large attic filled with all manner of items associated with the practice of Western medicine–some items as weird as powdered snake skins and alligator teeth! There is a plethora of herbs, spices and fruit in various forms (dried, powered, ground to a paste with a pestle in a mortar, etc). Bottles, jars, bowls are part of the museum and, most gruesome, of all, sets of instruments used in surgical practice through the years, from scary looking forceps to saws! Needless to say, I was weak-kneed by the end of it and although I found all of it fascinating, it really is not my cup of tea. Visitors pay 6.50 pounds to enter up a long and very narrow flight of spiral wooden stairs that used to be the original bell tower of St. George’s Church and used by the bell ringers. You can spend more than two hours in this space if you wish to read and examine everything closely. I could only stand being there for an hour. But if you are made of sterner stuff, I would certainly recommend a visit.

By this time it was almost 4.00 pm and I had eaten nothing simply because my big breakfast had kept me going. So I stepped into EAT, bought myself a New England Chicken Pot Pie (one of my favorite things in the world world to eat), then disappeared into the Marks and Sparks across the road to look for a specific item that Llew desired. Unfortunately, they had discontinued their manufacture and it is now only available online–so that is how we shall purchase it. It was time to head off to my last appointment of the day–dinner at the home of my friends in Chelsea.

Dinner with a Judge, a Bishop and His Wife:

A long ride on the Circle Line took me from Moorgate to Sloan Square in the heart of ritzy Chelsea where I was invited to dinner at the home of my friends Michael and Cynthia. It was the first time they were entertaining me in their little flat (actually not so little) after their big move from Amen Court on Ludgate Hill. Although I had seen their flat before, it was before they had officially moved in. It was great to see it looking all lived in and cozy.

Michael and Cynthia had also invited a physician (who had to cancel at the last minute due to an unexpected occurrence) and a judge named Tim from the Old Bailey who happened to be hugely personable and very entertaining. We hit it off immediately as we began to discuss British courtroom drama from Rumpole of the Bailey to the more contemporary ones–such as Judge John Deed who, Tim informs me, is not realistic at all for no judge would ever behave the way he does!  Tim is also a great lover of New York in general and of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in particular–his favorite bit is the American silver collection (it is endlessly fascinating to me what strikes peoples’ fancy). Needless to say, I promised him a private tour the next time he is in the Big Apple. He strongly recommended that I see the Moroni portraits but I am half inclined to believe that they will come to the Met sometime soon. Paucity of time might not make it possible for me to cover it on this trip.

My friend Cynthia’s dinner was simply delicious–a single malt whetted my appetite and then we moved to the table for chicken in a white sauce served with brocolli and carrots and boiled potatoes. Cheese and crackers followed and then came pudding: American-style cheesecake served with fresh stewed blueberries and cream. So simple and yet so good! I was so sorry to have missed seeing Cynthia’s sons who, being hotshot lawyers, keep horrific hours–but I certainly thought of them all evening long.

As a lovely claret had flowed all evening, I was well and truly sleepy and ready for my bed. Michael dropped me to the bus stop by 9. 30 and at 10. 15, I was putting the key through the door of my place in St. John’s Wood.

What a wonderful day I had spent–with art and culture, with shops that lent an unexpected buy, with history and finally with some of the best pals for which a gal can ask! I feel truly blessed every time  I am in London.

As I hit my pillow, I found it hard to believe that my week had almost come to an end–just one day left to make the most of …and I intend to do just that.

Until tomorrow, cheerio!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scaling the Dreaming Spires of Oxford & Dinner at Smithfield

Jan23

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Oxford

Today was all about spending an indulgent day in one of my most beloved places in the world with some of my favorite people in London.  I had arranged a tour of what Matthew Arnold had called “the dreaming spires of Oxford” for friends who had never been there. It had been all arranged–for weeks. Raquel and I were going to take the Oxford Tube (read coach) to the university city. Then, I invited my friend Bash and his girl friend Kim to join us. He volunteered to drive us there. My friend Susan who lives in Oxford was going to join us there and together, we intended to have a lovely day.

Only all sorts of things went wrong as Murphy’s Law decrees: Although Raquel and I were ready to roll by 8.00 am after Jonas was dropped off to school, we realized we still had 45 minutes to play with as it takes only about 40 minutes on the Tube to get to Northholt where Bash was  awaiting us with his car. When we got there, we found a terribly repentant Bash (no Kim) informing us that there were major alterations in our plans. Kim had sciatica and was home bound. He had domestic commitments that had cropped up overnight that made it impossible to spend the day with us. However, and get this, he had decided that, in true British tradition, he “wasn’t going to let us down”–and so the trooper was driving us to Oxford as planned, would have a quick coffee with us and would turn right back to return to London. Although we protested, he was having none of it–and off we went, with Bash behind the wheel on to the M40 for the 90 minute ride into the city.

Arrival at Oxford:

The journey was truly pleasant as we caught up on so much. Raquel and Bash–both being outgoing types–hit it off well and before I knew it, were discussed the job market, tried and tested job-hunting techniques on Linked-In, etc. and then we were pulling into Grandpont where my friend Susan lives. We parked Bash’s car in one of the side streets adjoining Marlborough Road to make our way into a very quiet, isolated Delicatessen Cafe on Whitehorse Road where we settled down with hot drinks–coffees, lattes, hot chocolates–and eats–quiches, rocky road, coffee cake–and chatted some more as we awaited Susan’s arrival. She turned up really soon and after one more raucous reunion and some more introductions and much chatting later, Bash bid us goodbye, returned to London and left us to our own devices.

A Walking Tour of Oxford:

It was time to begin our exploration of Oxford for it was already noon and light fades by 4. 30 pm. Being that we were just a few minutes from Foley Bridge, we started our tour at Christ Church College after taking in the lovely vista of the college across the Meadows and spying the balcony from the famous scene in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited in which a drunken friend of Charles and Sebastian threatens to throw himself off to the ground!

Our tour cost 5. 50 pounds (normally 7) because the famous Dining Hall which had provided the model for the Dining Hall in Harry Potter’s Hogwart’s School was closed for renovation. Part of the ceiling had caved in, a few months ago, and the place was under refurbishment. Still, we could see the grand staircase which actually features in the film and where the students are introduced to Prof. Mcgonnagal for the very first time as she stands at the top of the staircase with its lovely fan vaulted ceiling and invites the students inside in the first Harry Potter movie.

We could also visit the Cathedral (the only place in the world where a cathedral sits in the midst of a college) and the vast quadrangles. And we had the added benefit of getting a short tour from one of the bowlder-hatted porters named Mark Hathaway (how many comments does he get about his association with the TV detective James Hathaway–now an Inspector himself–in the Inspector Lewis series set in Oxford, I wonder?). Through the brief walking tour, we discovered the basics: Christ Church College was originally meant to be named Cardinal College after the wealthy and corrupt prelate Cardinal Wolsey who founded it–hence, the symbols of the college are the Cardinal’s Hat with their streaming tassels. When Wolsey fell out of favor with King Henry VIII for not being able to procure his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, the ownership and running of the college fell into the hands of the King who renamed it and actually created a set of rooms for himself to live in it.

After the Reformation, Christ Church became significant once again during the Civil War when King Charles I moved his court from London to Royalist Oxford and occupied rooms designed originally for Henry. Needless to say, this did not eventually prevent him from being beheaded. We strolled through the lovely grounds of the college on another especially cold day cursing the weather and commenting on our poor frozen toes.

Once at the Main Quad (short for Quadrangle), the largest of any Oxford College and known as Tom Quad because it is dominated by Tom Tower that is named for the bell, Old Tom, that religiously tolls each hour, and after admiring the lovely Fountain of Mercury in the center and commenting on the unfinished cloisters –evident in the fact that the plinths still surround the quad–we made our way into the adjoining Cathedral. A Cathedral gets its ‘status’ from the Cathedra (Latin for Chair) that is meant for the use of a cardinal who is usually resident there. In this case, Cardinal Wolsey’s original association with Christ Church gave its chapel the distinction of becoming a Cathedral–and you can still see the Cathedra on the altar.

Although on several past occasions, I have visited the Cathedral (once to listen to candlelit Evensong), it made sense to visit it again with my friends and to use the handy pamphlet to discover its treasures, among which are: the gigantic keyhole in one of the wooden doors that inspired Lewis Carol (aka Charles Dodgson who was a professor of Mathematics at Christ Church) to include it in his story of Alice in Wonderland (narrated spontaneously to his little friend Alice Liddel, daughter of the Master of Christ Church whom he knew well and with whom he would sail in summer on the adjoining Cherwell). It was through this key hold that Alice fell in the story! Other aspects worth noticing were the stained glass window featuring Jonah and Nineveh, the windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones (one of the Pre-Raphaelites who studied at neighboring Exeter College), the St. Friteswide widow that features her entire story and includes, of all things, the first ever flushing loo invented by one Thomas Crapper in Oxford–now you know where all words associated with ‘crap’ come from!) Indeed, there is a loo by her death bed in the stained glass window and it makes for a real curiosity in one’s study of it (the window, I mean, not the loo).

We also saw the original 12th century carved stone altar of St. Friteswide who is the patron saint of Oxford and the new very solid altar carved in black balsa wood. At the main altar, we exclaimed at its beauty  before we exited the cathedral to browse in the gift store and pick up souvenirs of our visit. Raquel picked out a Diamond Jubilee porcelain plate with the year 2012 featured on it–she had moved to the UK in 2012. It was a very good buy that I converted into a gift for her.

Continuing our Walking Tour:

Exiting Christ Church College from the back, we arrived at Oriel Square (an opportunity to see the rather unusual facade of Oriel College) before making our way to The High (as High Street is known in Oxford) to cross into Radcliff Square to arrive at the Radcliff Camera–a rotunda topped by a dome designed by James Gibb (and not Wren as I had mistakenly assumed) and named for John Radcliff whose estate had endowed the creation of a library inside. The University prides itself on the fact that once you request a book, they can haul it up from the bowels of the earth, if need be, in under an hour. Mind you, the University receives, by royal decree, a copy of every book every published in the UK–that means literally millions of books. That they still find the room to accommodate them all simply boggles my mind. And, get this, today, a valiant attempt is being made to scan every single book in the collection and make it digitally available to the public! Soon, you will not need to be a registered student at Oxford to access its printed collection.

The Camera makes a real architectural statement in the Square which also features the Church of St. Mary The Virgin (you can climb to its spire for a fee for extraordinary views of the city) and All Souls College whose twin spires are unmistakeable. We skirted these magnificent buildings, took in the sights of railings lined with bicycles, saw students mill in and out of classes and residential rooms in colleges, all bundled against the freeze, and arrived at Catte Street to show Raquel the famous Bridge of Sighs that joins Hertford and New Colleges in imitation of the one across the canals of Venice. At this point, it was only right to make a detour and walk along the narrowed alley in the city to arrive at the home once occupied by Jane Morris who became the wife of artist William Morris (also one of the Pre-Raphaelites, also at Exeter) who was a humble embroiderer until these artists discovered her and used her as the model for their work). This led us to the well-known Turf Tavern that has been associated with many Oxford luminaries including, and significant for us Americans, Bill Clinton! Inspector Morse was also known to have downed many a pint in these lovely premises with their beer gardens and cozy interiors.

Back on ‘The Broad’ (Broad Street), we popped into the unusual Norrington Room attached to Blackwell’s Bookstore (another Oxford institution) which lies underground in four tiers right below Broad Street–it is the only bookstore in the world that is sunken so deeply. It makes for a wonderful peek into another treasure house of books. This vantage point permitted us to pass through the Clarendon Building to view Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, the rather-funnily shaped Sheldonian Theater where graduation ceremonies take place and where, throughout the year, there are musical concerts under its spectacular painted ceiling. We did not pay the entry fee to see it, but moved into the ornate quadrangle of the Bodleian Library with its lovely sculpture of Thomas Bodley who endowed the creation of this store house of knowledge. We stepped into the Divinity School but could not enter unless we paid–it would be interesting to calculate just how much a really thorough visit to Oxford would cost if one indulged in a close look at all its highlights.

It was time to return to The Broad to spy the sculpture by Anthony Gormley on the building at the corner of Turl Street and directly above the set of rooms I had once occupied in the Margary Quadrangle of Exeter College which we next entered. There I took my friends to the exceedingly beautiful chapel where the beautiful stained glass windows and the Byzantine mosaics combine to create a really lovely space filled with Pre-Raphaelite treasures–there is a majestic tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones featuring the Adoration of the Magi which I truly love.

Out in the Margary Quadrangle, I showed them my room which still brings back such lovely memories for me and then we were going past the Junior Common Room to get to Exeter Library and the Fellows Garden to climb upon the terrace that overlooks Radcliff Square and that provides some of the most beautiful views of the square. It was there that Raquel taught me how to use the Panoramic feature of my I-Phone to enable me to get these incredible 180 degree shots of the Gothic architecture that I so adore! She has changed my photographic life forever!

It was time to get some sustenance–and Susan led us to the Rooftop of the Covered Market–it is a place that has newly opened for drinks and snacks and offers views and heights similar to those of the spire of St. Mary’s Church. It takes a ‘local’ to help one make such discoveries and we were glad to have Susan as our guide! We made a quick round of the actual Covered Market itself, then climbed several floors up, stopped midway to order our hot drinks (it was too cold a day to sip anything else) and up we went to kiss those dreaming spires that were all around us as we turned and made 360 degree pirouettes. How marvelous it all was! Back downstairs, we sat for a long time and nursed our drinks and caught up on all sorts of news–it was good to chat at length with Susan in whose home I had once spent a few days while staying in Oxford.

Then, it was time to move on. It was almost 4 pm by then and light would soon fade. Susan needed to get on home to do some work and I swung Raquel into St. Giles, first to see the very spot at which the Bishops Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake by Queen Mary Tudor and then to admire the medieval cross raised at The Martyrs Memorial. Across the street we went, to walk by the Randolf Hotel and the Ashmolean Museum, for which, alas, we had no time, and then we swung on to the Jericho area of city as I was keen to arrive at the Oxford Canal where I had never been before–but which is the site of so many murders in the Oxford mystery series that I watch. Off Combe Sttreet, we squeezed through the gates and arrived at the exact spot that I wanted to see. We took pictures of it and then retraced our steps to the Woodstock Road–but not before finding a framed needlepoint treasure in a thrift store!

Walking south on Woodstock Road, we arrived at the Eagle and Child Pub, popularized by The Inklings, the Exeter College pals that had comprised JRR Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and their friends. We entered the quaint pub, took in its unique ambiance with its little wooden cubby holes, black boards announcing food specials and then used the loo. There was time only to nip into Waterstones so that Raquel could buy some books and then off we went to the Gloucester Green bus stop to find the coach to take us back to London.And thus ended a most amazing day!

Back in London for Dinner at Snithfield Market:

The coach journey in the pitch darkness was not a lot of fun as there wasn’t much we could see outside. But we did catch up, Raquel and I, as we chatted about this and that and accessed our email through the free wifi. Hoping off at Baker Street, we hurried into the Tube to take the Metropolitan Line to Farringdon as I was taking Raquel and her husband Chris out for dinner. She had made reservations at Smith’s, a well-known steak house right opposite the grand Victorian lines of the famed Smithfield Meat Market–and it was there, on the third floor, overlooking the lovely new spires of The City , including the Shard, and Wren’s magnificent dome of St. Paul’s, that we ate a fabulous steak dinner with chips and a glass of Merlot. It was quite magnificently done–medium rare for all of us–and absolutely butter soft and succulent. For dessert, we picked at a Clementine Cheesecake–not the best of things in the world but different. How marvelous it was to have extended time with Chris who has been off to work each  morning leaving us little time for interaction and to find out about his work in finance and investments.

But by 10.00 pm, we made our way back to the Tube, past Denmark House in which I had once stayed on Cowcross Lane with its spacious, art-filled loft–a thought that seems like a dream to me today as I look back on my year in London.

We reached home just past 10. 30 pm and fell right into bed, really pleased at what had been a most satisfying day.

Until tomorrow, cheerio!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Divine Day of Diverse Delights–Dickens’ House, Lunch with Loulou,National Gallery, Pub Dinner with Dean’s Circle with

Jan22

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

London

The cold still rages on–much to my annoyance, these mid-30 degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures are creeping up to mid-40s next week –after I have left London! Just my ill-founded luck! Still, I am dressing in warm cashmere layers to be comfortable outside only to boil when I am in the stores!

Jetlag seems a thing of the past and I was up at 7. 15 am this morning with enough leisurely time to shower, dress, have a muesli and yoghurt breakfast plus coffee and get on the Tube headed for Holborn to keep a doctor’s appointment. For my cold also still rages on. I decided I had better get my throat seen by someone as the pain is intense and this cold won’t quit. From Russel Square Station, I passed by some of London’s most fascinating attractions that I have had the pleasure, on previous occasions, of perusing: The Foundling Museum, Coram Fields (a lovely park into which adults can enter only if they have a child/children with them), the back streets of Holborn that so inspired Dickens. And indeed, that was where I was first headed. To say Hello to Charlie in his own parlour!

Visiting Dickens’ House:

I had first visited Dickens’ House in 1987, i.e. 28 years ago, as a young graduate student who had spent a great part of her life devouring his novels. In intervening years, I have stopped in the gift shop to buy gifts for various lovers of Dickens. But it was time, I decided to return to the rooms that he had inhabited with his wife Catherine and where she had borne two children–their first two daughters Kate and Alice, at a time when they were still happily married. Later, post-partum depression took its toll on her and their marriage crumbled. Dickens got involved with another woman and the couple divorced. It is easy to find the house in a long lane of modest terraced housing at 48 Doughty Street–it used to be literally in my own backyard when I had lived in Holborn; but I had not visited then.

A self-guided tour book is a handy tool as you go through the rooms. How the Victorians lived in such perpetual darkness is always a mystery to me. Still, there were flickering artificial candles in some of the rooms and they added to the authenticity of atmosphere that one seeks in such abodes. Having become prosperous through his writing, Dickens acquired a great many personal treasures and loads of them are exhibited in this house–sets of dining porcelain, a lovely Wedgwood tall cheese tray with lid in blue Jasperware, a silver samovar, a carved marble sculpture of a Turk. But the most significant items are his writing desk and chair that feature in the famous painting, Dickens’ Dream in which he is is seen snoozing in the chair as all the characters from his novels come to life. It is available in the form of a postcard in the shop. There are also letters, first editions of his novels (Nicholas Nickleby was written entirely in this house), much evidence of his great love for Shakespeare (whom he revered and who continually offered  him inspiration), the theater (he saw a play in the West End almost every night and even turned his hand to acting to prove to be rather good at it), long walks (he is reputed to have walked an average of 20 miles a day all over the city).

The visitor goes through the Main Hall of the House, into the Drawing Room and Dining Room, then upstairs into the bedrooms (the one Dickens’ shared with Catherine, the other one in which his beloved sister-in-law Mary died unexpectedly at 21), then up another flight of stairs to the nursery and the servants rooms where a grill from Marshalsea Prison in a grim reminder of the earliest trauma he suffered. His father was imprisoned for debt and Dickens recalls the humiliation he felt on having to go to prison to visit him. This resulted in his earliest employment at age 12 in a shoe-blackening factory where passers-by could peep in and watch the children at work and giggle in amusement–not realizing how horrible it felt to the children hard at work. It was great to re-visit these well-known episodes in his life through the aid of such memorabilia and I lingered in room after room, taking pictures (without a flash), pausing to read a note here, to inspect a Victorian map of London there, to wonder at the prodigious talent and industry of this most British of writers.

Off to the Doctor and Persephone Books:

Thankfully, my doctor did not think anything was seriously wrong with me. Although I might have picked up the chest infection from air pollution in Bombay, he thinks I made it worse by picking up a virus in London where colds and sniffles are raging. All I was recommended was salt water gargles for my aching throat (slightly inflamed, he agreed) and more paracetymol. Relieved, I walked to one of my favorite places in London and my favorite bookstore in the whole wide world–Persephone Books on Lamb’s Conduit Street. The cozy warmth of this interior is hard to describe, the unique collections that they reprint (classics for women from the 1930s), the design of their productions (plain grey covered paperbacks with gorgeous end papers featuring contemporary fabric prints that come with matching bookmarks) and the gracious service you receive whenever you are there, make it worthwhile to hunt down this shop and buy something. I came away with a collection of book marks featuring floral prints in bright colors for 50 p each. I intend to give them away as gifts to my Book Club buddies.

An Unexpecdted Souvenir Find:

Then, I was hurrying out to keep my lunch date; but not before I got sidetracked by a foray into a design store–for somewhat inexplicably, Lamb’s Conduit Street has become increasingly gentrified. Rents are now going through this roof in this convenient part of Holborn and the huge thrift store (known as charity shop in Britain) that I used to frequent has, sadly, closed down. It’s been taken over by another upscale interior design establishment, so that it appears it won’t be long before Holborn becomes another Chelsea. In Penthreat and Hall, I chanced upon a huge wooden bowl filled with Christmas baubles being offered as a fraction of their regular price: I picked up two beautiful glass globes engraved and painted with gold and I can just see them catching the light in a corner of our home in Southport all year round.  For under 10 pounds, it made a unique souvenir of my stay in London.

Lunch with Loulou:

When I finally did get on the Central Line Tube from Holborn, I got off at Holland Park within 12 minutes and easily found the new home of my friends Loulou and Paul–in whose palatial loft in Farringdon I had once passed a few months. They have downsized and, in a two bedroom flat, that overlooks Holland Hill Avenue, we had a lovely reunion. I said a quick hullo to Paul who then disappeared for his own luncheon business meeting, leaving Loulou to give me the grand tour of their charming little home which makes up in location what it has lost in size. Indeed, here I thought is another fine example of the wisdom of downsizing.

Loulou chose a fine Italian restaurant called Edeza on Holland Hill Avenue to treat me to lunch; and it was there, over gnocchi with rabbit ragout for me and breaded lemon sole for her, that we caught up. I realize, thanks to invitations and meetings with fond old friends, that I am eating at far better establishments on this trip than I had envisioned. Three days in a row it has been Italian and this meal did not disappoint. Most importantly, we had the chance to catch up on our lives in a far more meaningful way than email can allow. We made the discovery that, at this stage in our lives, it is our aging parents that are huge concerns and that there are no easy solutions for the provision of care for their well-being.

Haunting Holland Park Locations of As Time Goes By:

Regular readers of this blog will know that one of the great loves of my life is the British TV series As Time Goes By starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer and set in Holland Park. The series ran for about 12 years from the late 1980s to the early 2000s and featured the daily lives of an upper middle class couple that had once been engaged to be married, were parted by the war in Korea, go their separate ways, marry, have children, become widowed/divorced and meet up again 35 years later only to fall in love again, get married and live happily ever after. If this sounds corny to you, keep in mind that I am a hopeless romantic and am devoted to the show and have spent hours trying to find the real-life locations in which  the shooting occurred.

So, imagine my delight, when I discovered that Loulou now lives about 2 seconds from the site of the filming of the show–the back gardens of Holland Park. I simply had to revisit them again–to see Lionel and Jean’s House, the church across the street in the park, the store front that had served as location of their office called Type For You–it was once the Clarendon Cross Post Office but became a discount convenience store that was actually closing down (I went in and bought Custard Powder for 50 p!) and the street across Holland Hill Avenue in Addison Street that had served as the location for Lionel’s flat. After having lingered long enough and feeling extremely nostalgic for the show that folded up, several years ago, I took a bus and rode on the top deck all the way along Hyde Park wit the idea of spending a few hours at another favorite place in the world–the National Gallery.

Saying Hello to Maggi Hambling and Other Old Friends at the National:

My bus deposited me at the last stop–Piccadilly Circus–and so off I strode past the Haymarket Theater and into Trafalgar Square. Revisiting the National Gallery is always a bit like coming home and saying Hello to my favorite friends. Only this time, I decided to see the special exhibition on at the moment: Maggi Hambling’s Walls of Water. I had first become introduced to the work of this extremely eccentric lady through my friends Loulou and Paul who know her through their connections in Suffolk. For the months that I had lived in their Farringdon loft, her self-portrait had hung right above my bed. It made me feel as if I knew her well. So it made complete sense to look at the work for which she had gained fame: her depictions of waves crashing on the Suffolk beaches around where she lives.

Indeed her canvasses are quite extraordinary–they are quite Pollock-like in some respects as thick wads of oil paint seem to be stuck randomly on the canvas. There is the sense of the definite movement of waves that burst into random patterns on shore. Black and white is relieved by slashes of occasional color. Interestingly, one of the works is entitled Amy Winehouse–it is Hambling’s tribute to another extraordinary artist–there is the definite depiction of Winehouse’s eccentric bouffants, her vivid red lipstick. Curatorial notes informed me that Hambling was inspired by the Norwegian artist Peter Balke who painted the sea in the 19th century. In many respects, her work is a response to Balke’s. And intriguingly, the National has presented a special exhibition on the work of Balke in the Sunley Room next door. I was thrilled. It was a wonderful opportunity to study the impact of one artist upon another. In Balke’s work, light played a prominent role and the vividness of detail that he is able to capture in his highly realistic canvasses–the very opposite of Hambling’s abstracts–are worth examining. I was enchanted.

It was time to go out in search of my old friends–beloved paintings that I get to see only occasionally but which I most love about re-visiting London. I began with the Carravaggios–Boy Bitten By A Lizard, Christ at Emmaus, then moved on to the classics that Marina Vaisey numbers among her 100 Masterpieces of Art: Canaletto’s scenes of Venice (more realistic than any photograph), Lucus Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus, Holbien’s The Ambassadors, Pieter de Hooch’s Courtyard of a House in Delft (my very favorite painting in the whole world and one I could sit and gaze upon for hours), George Stubb’s Whistlejacket (was ever a horse depicted in more animated a guise?), Constable’s Haywain and Stafford Mill, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, Mr and Mrs. Thomas Hallet by Gainsborough and poor Lady Jane Grey. There are the lovely studies by Joaquim Buechler that have a whole corridor-gallery devoted to them–I could also gaze on these forever. So many treasures, so little time. I did not get the chance to enter the Sainsbury Wing, for instance, to look at the work of Carlo Crivelli (whom I discovered at the National many years ago and whose work I have seen no where else); but I hope to return for another peep again before I leave.

Outside, in Trafalgar Square, darkness had fallen and there was a lively lights show that was projecting rainbows over the fountains and Edward Landseer’s lions. It made for wonderful photo ops and all the world was taking selfies. It was at this time that I received a call from another friend: Murali, a banker who was just getting off work in Liverpool Street and wondered if I could meet him for a drink.

I could, actually, as I had nixed my plans to return to St. John’s Wood to change before dinner. I was exhausted and could not face the thought of making double journeys. Thankfully, I had not worn jeans or sneakers; so my clothing would pass as ‘semi-formal’, I figured. I was tired and flagging by this time and badly needed a sit down. Yes, I told Murali, I would meet him at Bank, presuming that my dinner appointment was there as the address I had been given said Old Bank of England.

About 45 minutes later, I found Murali awaiting my arrival by the Jubilee Monument just behind the equestrian statue of the Duke of York. It was fabulous to see him again and although I would have preferred a hot chocolate at that point, it seemed that most coffee shops close by 6 pm in London! So we settled for a pint instead at the Pavillion’s End pub somewhere in the labyrinth of little lanes that comprise The City in the area of Wren’s St. Stephen Woolnoth Church. Luckily, we did find seats and with half-pints of cider in our possession, we were off and away discussing all the things we talk about when we get together: travels in India, books, poetry, paintings and art history (my friend has a passion for Russian Abstract artists), discovering and re-discovering London…the list is endless. Murali is great company for his mind is vital, current, art-humanities-commerce-science wired (if that is possible)–indeed a true Renaissance Man who became known to me through his reading of my blog, when I lived in London. We have remained friends ever since and it is always a pleasure to catch up with him.

Making a Big Gaff Over a Dinner Venue:

Then, I was ready for the next item on my agenda: A Farewell Dinner for the Dean’s Circle of NYU at what I presumed was the actual Bank of England on Threadneedle Street. I am sure Murali had his doubts when I told him where I was headed for dinner–but then, I had presumed that august banks as as this one, rent out space for corporate dos as so many historic buildings seem to survive on such stunts.

Well, I was mighty mistaken. The dinner was not in the bank at all as the amused security assistant informed me…but, get this, in a pub named Bank of England on Fleet Street! I felt both mortified at my gaff and terribly anxious–I would be terribly late. Still, some quick thinking on Murali’s part sent me in the direction of the Chancery Lane Tube Station. I walked through the lane and onto Fleet Street and found myself facing Number 17. Well, since my address said 194 Fleet Street, I expected it to be in the direction of Ludgate Hill and, instinctively, I hailed a passing cab and jumped in. He sailed up and down the street a couple of times and then told me that the pub was probably exactly where I had hopped on! I was made to feel stupid for the second time in half an hour–this was simply not working! He U-turned and dropped me back exactly where I had hopped in, relieved me of 5 pounds and left me feeling sheepish as I entered the vast hall. I recognized it immediately as the venue that became notorious for the demon Barber of Fleet Street who apparently slit the throats of his customers and had his mistress then cut them up and bake them into pies in the sale of which she did roaring business! Well, who knows how much truth there is in this story, but I sure as hell wasn’t ordering pie!

We had the special room and thankfully too–for 30 Americans can get very noisy indeed. A three-course meal was served consisting of Tomato Soup, Fish and Chips (delightfully crisp cod fillets) with cheesecake for dessert. A slash of raspberry coulis appeared like a smear of blood on the plate and brought conversation inevitable around to the barber!

It was fun. It was lively. It was noisy. I was pleased to have been invited to bid goodbye to our students whose grand London adventure will end tomorrow morning when they board that flight back Stateside. I was seriously exhausted and could not wait to get public transport to reach home. I walked all the way up Kingsway to Holborn Tube station, got off at Marble Arch from where I took a bus home to St. John’s Wood getting there in under half an hour.

And while our students are dreaming of their return home, I fell asleep thinking of dreaming spires, for I will be in Oxford tomorrow with friends on a day trip that promises to be a blast.

Until tomorrow, cheerio!

 

 

 

Taking Tours–Royal Courts of Justice & Highgate Cemetery We Taking Tours: Royal Courts of Justice and Highgate Cemetery West st

Jan21

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

London

I am kicking jetlag on its butt–slowly but surely. Awake today at 5.00 am, I used an hour or so to blog about my doings in the company of my young friend Jonas who has since then been forbidden to leave his bed to join me! Knowing how obedient he is, I feel half sorry that I will not have to contend with Scooby-doo upon awakening. Still, I had a chance to shower, eat my muesli and yoghurt breakfast and rush off to St. John’s Wood Tube station to hotfoot it to 8.00 am Mass at Westminster Cathedral where I was meeting my friend Reshma. She wanted to find out what a Catholic Mass was like and in the suitably awesome interior (recently refurbished to allow the Byzantine mosaics to glow softly), she had her first taste of daily ritual Mass although she felt slightly affronted that she could not receive “the offering”  (Communion). This, somewhat unexpectedly, called for my best explanation for her exclusion. She loved the unique Byzantine design of the Catholic Cathedral (not to be confused with the far more famous Anglican Westminster Abbey down the same road).

Eager to catch up together, we fought the crowds flowing out in reverse direction from Victoria Station where, in Cafe Rouge, we had their 2.50 pound breakfast special: a beverage and a pastry (hot chocolate and a pain au chocolat for me; a latte and a plain croissant for her). As the mother of one of my favorite former students and someone I have discovered a little via email, there was so much more to learn about her–and we chattered non-stop. One hour and one selfie later, we were at the bus-stop heading for Fleet Street to cover the next item on our agenda: A Tour of the Royal Courts of Justice. It was only as we waited on a cruelly freezing morning for the Number 11 bus that took all of 12 minutes to arrive, that she informed me that she had a Law degree from India–although she had never practiced Law and had ended up in banking.

Sunshine flooded the city and Parliament Square glowed as we turned the corner into Whitehall. Alas, we did not have the front seat but we were content to spy some of London’s best-known landmarks: Big Ben, Nelson’s Column at Trafalgar (later in the day,  I would see the grave at Highgate of the man who sculpted him, William Railton), Charing Cross, etc. We were early for our 11.00 am guided tour of the Royal Courts of Justice (given on Tuesdays, must be booked online) so popped into the Twinnings shop on the Strand that has been around since the 1700s. Alas, the tea tasting I had promised Reshma was not to happen as there was a corporate tasting event in session until 1.00 pm. Peeved, we were presented with sample sachets of tea by an apologetic assistance as we left.

Tour of the Royal Courts of Justice:

I might have passed the Royal Courts of Justice hundreds of times and have never known that they are open to the public. But, come to think of if it, in a democracy, courts are indeed open (except, ironically, when held “in camera”). This marvelous confection of turrets, towers, spires, crenallated rooflines and stained glass windows might well lead the viewer to believe that he/she is looking at a fancy palace or medieval court. In fact, it is a Victorian addition to Fleet Street, the architectural work of one George Street, pupil of the famous Gilbert Scott (whose marvelous work I had admired yesterday at St. Pancras Station).

Reshma and I went through Security screening, entered the august Main Hall with its brilliant tiled mosaic floor and grabbed a hold of one of the self-guided tour leaflets. For the next hour or so, we wove our way in and out of impressive chambers and court rooms along spotless marble clad corridors adorned with Gothic arches, casement windows,  winding stone staircases, wooden carvings and panelling, etc.  It was great fun to say hello to some of the greatest icons of the Law such as the “Fire Judges” who had listened to all cases pertaining to the destruction wrought by the Great Fire of London of 1666.  Upstairs, we spent time in the court rooms where judges were actually hearing cases–it is fun to see the regalia that she prevails in British courts: the horsehair wigs, the flowing black robes, the stiff elongated collars. In fact, the reason I finally chose to tour the Royal Courts of Justice that Queen Victoria had inaugurated, was because they are featured in some of the most compelling TV law shows I have recently been watching. The exteriors are also featured frequently in high-profile law cases (such as the Madonna-Guy Ritchie Divorce). It is a wonderful thing for a foreign tourist to do: to get a real glimpse into the working of British jurisprudence for it is like live drama. The judges ask pointed questions, the advocates respond. A clerk is seen recording the proceedings. The court rooms are ornate. There is decoration everywhere. Some have high square tower-like ceilings. We enjoyed it all.

Also part and parcel of this tour is a visit to the Painted Room that adjoins a “Bear Garden”–a misnomer for no bear baiting actually went on there ever. The reference is to Queen Victoria who once visited the place, was shocked by the loud audible discussions of the lawyers and likened the din to a “bear garden”. The Painted Room is spectacular, its paint fresh and crisp as the day it was done. There are cells–holding cells where prisoners are kept, pending sentence but, of course, they are out of bounds of the general public. I loved the idea of being able to wander around at will, watching lawyers in consultation in the corridors (just as in the TV shows), anxious relatives milling around and whispering quietly. This is real-life drama–something we do not see in the flesh daily unless we are part of the legal system of a country. Tours end in the Costume Gallery where we saw legal robes and regalia through the ages in the British Isles. Costume is so intrinsic to the practice of Law globally that it was huge fun to see how much importance it was given as we viewed the most ornate robes ever. A tour of the Royal Courts of Justice is most heartily recommended. It is the perfect thing to do if one has Been There, Done Everything in London. In fact, if one has not done so already, one can wander towards the Inns of Court in neighboring Chancery where more architectural delights await and one can see where the plotting and planning goes on that is then played out among the lawyers and their clients in the Royal Courts. It was a morning truly well-spent. And the tours are free of charge.

Off to Highgate Cemetery for Another Tour:

It was time to bid Reshma goodbye. She had things to do and I had my tour to take, based on the one I had booked online.  I hopped on to a bus going down the Strand, hopped off at Charing Cross from where I bought a Brunch threesome sandwich from M&S Food for my picnic lunch in the park and off I went on the Northern Line train to  get off at Archway. It took me about 20 minutes and deposited me at Archway Station from where I got Bus 210 to Lauderdale Park/Waterlow (as instructed by the Highgate Cemetery website).  It was a very pleasant walk through the park amidst dog walkers and robust dogs, past duck ponds that had the glaze of thin layers of ice on them–truly, the day was freezing. I could not have picked a worse one for my outdoor tour of the cemetery and, by the time it was over, my toes felt frostbitten.

It was time to eat my solitary lunch on a park bench and to take a breather before I proceeded to the gates of the Cemetery. I was early for my tour and able to to wander on to the East Side of the cemetery (where I had been before). Although here you do see high-profile graves such as those of Karl Marx (the most popular) and George Eliot, this is all you see–plus row upon row of Victorian mortuary sculpture featuring angels, urns, crosses. On the West Side (for which you need to book and pay), there is a guided tour given by a member of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery. This happened to be a very elderly woman who moved at snail’s pace, spoke in the softest voice that I had difficulty hearing and seemed out of breath rather frequently as she negotiated the hills of the property. All the time,  she provided information on the  space and its inhabitants. About 194,000 people are buried here in about 78,000 graves. Many graves contain only ashes but even buried ashes are placed in purchased plots that are carefully numbered. As long as one could pay for a burial and was from the Church of England, one had access to this site. Later, the C of E rules were relaxed and as long as you were Christian, you were allowed final resting in this spot.

The most famous recent burial was that of so-called Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko known as Sacha  whose grave is fresh and nondescript but has a small early picture adorning it. As the family had requested that the public not take pictures, we refrained. There was a lot to learn as we trudged up a hill about mortuary emblems, the fact that symbols of one’s profession were sculpted facing downwards (because they will never be used again) and about burial conventions. But the true charm of taking and paying for a tour of the West side (although there are no really prominent names buried here–a clerk had once told me, years ago, “We do not do fame!”), is that you get to enter the Lebanon Circle where you see family vaults and finally get into the catacombs where lead-lined coffins that have worn with age can be seen very easily in the eerie darkness on shelves only a foot away. These, to my mind, are the best part of a visit here. You enter in pitch darkness and with the aid of a flashlight you see these shelves of coffins, some concealed behind a grave stone bearing a name, others exposed for all to see. There is evidence of grave robbing everywhere–not even in death were folks allowed to rest. We could not access some of the more famous graves–such as that of the Rossettis and Elizabeth Siddal who had moddelled for some of the most famous Pre-Raphelite paintings, as the path was too icy and closed off. The tour included tour graves that were crowned with extraordinary sculpture–one of a lion, another of a dog–the stories that accompanied them were just as fascinating. The lion belonged to a menagerist called George Someone, the dog to a bare fist fighter called Thomas Sawyer. They allowed us to pause and take in the eccentricities of the Victorians but, on such a freezing day, I would have restricted the tour to half its length.

Would I recommend such a tour to a visitor? If you do death, yes. If you have run out of things to do in London (almost an impossibility) yes, if you enjoy stories of strange people, yes. But, for Pete’s sake, make sure you choose a warmer day!

More Retail Therapy and Meeting Michelle:

Had it been a more pleasant day, I might have lingered in pretty Highgate Village and browsed through its shops. As it was, I could not wait to walk to the bottom of Swain’s Lane (about 8 minutes) from where I hopped into a C2 bus that took me past lovely corners of Northern London: Kentish Town and Camden before bringing me to Oxford Circus where I hopped off and nipped straight into Marks and Sparks for my supply of eats: Battenburg Cake and Fruity Flapjack Biscuits. Meanwhile, on the bus, my friend who conducts Civil Law for the British government, Michelle Misquita, had texted to find out if I had any time free to see her. After shopping, I sure did, because my next appointment was dinner with my NYU colleague and friend, Mahnaz. I finished buying my goodies, jumped back on the Tube to meet Michelle at St. James’ Park’s lovely Art Deco station with its Jacob Epstein sculpture all over the place, and then there I was having a lovely reunion with her and settling down for some hot chocolate at Pret a Manger nearby. Michelle and I were college classmates in Elphinstone College, Bombay, majoring in English, and had a very healthy rivalry for marks raging on between the two of us! It is always a joy to catch up with her and to hear about the goings-on in her life. We parted promising each other a reunion with the third member of our English Honors Threesome, Marie-Lou whome I had just met in Bombay visiting from Chicago, some time soon.

Dinner with Mahnaz:

And then it was time to make my way back to Mayfair to meet Mahnaz, my NYU colleague now on a sabbatical of sorts in London. She picked  out an Italian eatery called Finos on North End Street behind the Primark store on Oxford Street and there she was, sipping a glass of red Vallipocelli as I walked in. She was starving; I had been nibbling and sipping hot drinks all day, but was ready to sink my teeth into a good salad. And that was what I ordered although she went for a gigantic burger. Goat cheese, pine nuts, assorted peppers and pesto adorned my salad and made it very tasty indeed as it was lightly dressed with balsamic vinegrette. A lovely dinner accompanied by a glass of Peroni, Italy’s very light beer. Despite having just passed a semester as colleagues in New York, Mahnaz and I had barely found the time to connect–we have to travel, it seems to other parts of thew world (Florence, Venice, London) to really sit and connect. We talked about future plans for research and publication and about personal issues and before we knew it, it was almost ten o clock and time to call it a night.

We went our separate ways–me, making the delightful discovery that she is a lodger for the next 9 months with Kate Buffrey, the actress who played the female lead in Trial and Retribution, the detective and courtroom drama that Llew and I had recently enjoyed! What a tiny world!

It was another day that was packed to capacity–as indeed all my days in London are. And at 11.00 pm, when I sank into bed, I fell asleep instantly.

Until tomorrow, cheerio!

 

 

 

 

Today Was all About Therapy–Retail Therapy!

Jan20

Monday, January 19, 2015

London

Jetlag still has control over my life; but when it paid a 3. 15 am Wake-Up Call, it was decidedly better than the previous night’s–2. 15 am. I used time creatively once again to update my blog and scour the Web for suggestions on What To Do. My trusted guides for Secret London and Key to London’s Secrets were insistent about a visit to the West side of Highgate Cemetery and having Been There but Done Only The East Side, a few years ago, I was happy to comply. Accordingly, I went online, scored a ticket for the guided tour beginning at 1. 45 today and given by Friends of Highgate Cemetery (as the West side, supposedly the far more interesting one) is only open to visitors on guided tours.

Then, my young friend Jonas, all of seven years, made a 6.00 am appearance in my room, climbed into my bed and promptly suggested we watch cartoons on the giant Apple TV in my room. And thus it was that I became introduced to Scooby-Doo and his friends! All fun cam to an end when his mother walked into our room and shook her head at him disapprovingly. I am afraid I might not be asked to stay again if I deprive her son of his beauty sleep. Uh-Oh!!!

So while he showered and breakfasted, I jumped into the shower myself and at 8. a00, we were out the door, escorting him along Abbey Road to the American School London where he is in second grade. As he ran along, I took the bus to Finchley Road to the giant Waitrose there to buy my favorite year’s-worth of favorite groceries (did you know Waitrose Darjeeling teabags–not available in the USA where they have never heard of Darjeeling–and it is doubtful they have heard of tea–are much cheaper than Twinnings’s Darjeeling and just as good?). I bought myself an almond croissant and sipped a latte as I roamed through the aisles (please Waitrose, if you can be in Dubai, why can’t you be in New York?), then took the Tube at Finchely Road back home for two stops.

When my groceries were safely deposited back home, I had my second breakfast: Waitrose’s Fruit and Nut Muesli with Honey-Vanilla Yoghurt and the,n in half an hour, I was out the door myself and ready to hit the sales.

Disappointments Galore at Posh Stores:

Only I had arrived in London too late this year, you see–all so-called post-Christmas sales ended on Saturday evening, it appears. Arriving at Green Park station, I strode past the Ritz and into Fortnum’s hoping to find some of its famed goodies on sale–only to find Nothing. And I mean Nada. As a 14 came sailing down Picaadilly, on I hopped thinking Harrods has never let me down. But when I inquired inside, Madam was icily informed that the sale ended two days ago! Darn and Blast! Still, I bet there was some dregs still to be had. Somewhat inspired, I asked for the Souvenir section–and as I rode the escalators past all the heads of Nefertiti smiling down on me and spying the new sculpture of Diana and Dodi and the soaring seagull in the basement, provocatively entitled “Innocent Victims” , I arrived at the third floor where my eyes alighted on Christmas Pudding–not just any pudding, mind you, but luxury ones sold in the signature Harrod’s ceramic pudding bowls. Yes!!!! They were heavy as sin and would be a pain to haul across the pond, but still. It had not been a worthless journey.

Finally! On Carnaby Street:

Back on the Tube , I headed for Soho and the arching signs of Carnaby Street which I had never seen–because I had never been there! Off at Oxford Circus on a particularly chilly day, I was grateful for my layers of cashmere, when my eyes alighted on Liberty of London–another iconic store famed for its pretty cotton printed fabrics and its Tudor design. Well, although I had intentions to buy nothing, how could I resist? It was worth the thrill alone of riding in those linen-fold wooden pannelled lifts alone. So off I sped to the top floor where the last remnant items of their sale are still on display. Slim pickin’s, everywhere, I thought, disappointedly.

A few minutes later, I was striding out the chocolate shop and right on to Carnaby Street and there they were–those arched signed soaring high above the street and saying Welcome to Carnaby Street. I had a wander all the while becoming increasingly aware of the weight on my shoulders for en route, I had also found a Boots pharmacy from where I cleaned out a sale on Dove Silken Glow Body Wash–perhaps the best buy ever in toiletries and the only hand soap you will ever find in our bathrooms back home. With its sophisticated French perfume you might think you had paid a small fortune each time you squirt a bit on your palm. You would be wrong. One Mission Well Accomplished!

More Disappointments in Store:

The idea was to deposit my loaded sack back home on Abbey Road and find transport to Highgate for my 1. 45 pm tour. But although the spirit was willing, the flesh succumbed to jetlag; and still cold-clogged, sleep-deprived me felt a bit light-headed as I left my flat to try to find my way there. Not being so familiar with North London and the network of Tubes and buses there, I made some terrible mistakes as I followed maps (no GPS on my internet once I step out of the house, remember?) and before I knew it, I was at Swiss Cottage trying to find a cab to get me there on time. No such luck! Not a cab was in sight as I trudged along and bus drivers are nowhere as helpful as they once used to be–they seemed never to have heard of Highgate Cemetery and certainly did not know how to point me in the next direction. I was tired and sleepy and frustrated and knew I could not get there on time. It was time for Plan B.

More Retail Therapy on Elizabeth Street:

I had stopped to fix myself a sandwich when home and it was on a Green Park bench back in the city, watched by crafty pigeons and craftier squirrels, that I ate it and gave myself a bit of a rest. Then, I was on the Tube again and headed to Sloan Square and Elizabeth Street to indulge in a treat for which I had waited a very long time–15 months to be precise: being introduced to Jo Loves, the new avatar of my favorite perfumier, Jo Malone. She opened her one and only store exactly one month after I last left  London the last time and the Number One item on my agenda was a visit to her store for an introduction to her new line.

In the able hands of Michael, I had my skin painted with brushes laden with body creme. Strips of card were sprayed with her new works of sensual art: Pomelo, Green Orange and Coriander, A Shot of Sweet Peas, Pink Vetiver (my favorite), A Shot of Thai Lime over Mango. Ceramic Tagines gave me the experience of stepping into a fragrant steaming bath–Jo calls it caviar for the bath tube. Being the expert marketer she is, she would. They went on and on. Inspired by her travels (in Thailand, in New York and by the store next-door, a florist, where she had begun her working life in retail), Michael did a competent job enticing me. I had thought, knowing “Jo” as if she were my best friend or sister, I would absolutely adore them all. But nothing of the sort happened and but for two, I was left not too enthused. Perhaps it will take my nose and my psyche a while to make the transition. We shall see. I was presented with sample strips although no real sample phials were given, and off I went down Elizabeth Street which on a less freezing day would, no doubt, offer more enticements.

Off to King’s Cross:

It was time to touch base with my friend Rosemary whom I know as Roz who was meeting me at King’s Cross for our evening together. The Victoria Line took me directly to the spot she suggested: the Square in front of the station near the Henry Moore sculpture (added recently). I was early, I needed the loo, I decided to wander into the  newly-refurbished Renaissance  Hotel to see the spectacular stairway that a fond long-time Londoner claimed was his favorite place in the entire city (I can’t remember who). Thank you dear Sir John Betjeman for saving this gorgeous building from destruction. It has, despite all restrictions, been artfully converted into a modern hotel. Today, its corridors gleam, its Gothic windows offer views of a busy street that sees hordes spilling out by the minute and bars galore, named suitably The Gilbert Scott (the original Victorian architect) and The Betjeman Arms (after the 20th century poet who saved it) allow the passer-by to enjoy a drink and a sit-down. I used the lovely loo, as intended, before making my way to the square where, five minutes later, I had a lovely reunion with Roz just off work.

Laser Lights Festival at Canary Wharf–Not!!!

It was time for a warming cup of tea in the station concourse and before long, we were catching up at Leon over steaming paper glasses–why has London succumbed to such trashy New York ways? Where are the civilized ceramic pots of tea that you could only find in the UK when you ordered tea please? So many changes and some not quite appealing enough!

Then, we were on the Tube headed to Canary Wharf. Roz had been justifiably doubtful about the Lights Show that the Visit Britain tweet had recommended throughout the month of January. But I was the foreigner and she was indulgent. Canary Wharf was not her favorite place, but there were lights and  there was a Carluccio’s, so why not, she said???

Only there really wasn’t very much to impress. Trees still sport their ice-blue strings of lights but I suspect those have been left over since Christmas. That said, if there were lights were wanted, there were thousands–from the soaring skyscrapers that formed a concrete well-illuminated city. In the park nearby, whose ingeniously-designed gushing fountains sported a few floating discs of light that changed color cutely by the minute, there were some lights.  But the laser projections on the building walls and on the river that I had expected were nowhere in sight.

Dinner Time at Carluccio’s:

It was time for some serious eating to compensate for our disappointment and Carluccio’s never disappoints (why Mr. Carluccio, do you not leap over the Atlantic and come to America?). We chose the Primi and Secondi specials for 10.99 pounds each–the kind of deal you can never dream of finding in America. And how well we chose too! We had two starters of caponata that were served bruschetta-style over warmed goat’s cheese and toast points to be laden with chicken pate and the most divine caramelized oinions. Over glasses of red wine, we had ourselves a most decadent first course and being the conscious, careful eaters we are (we talked mostly about food after we had discussed family and work doings!), we seriously wondered whether we could do justice to our mains: polenta with slow-cooked beef ragu poured all over it (delicioso!) and al dente served penne pasta with spicy Italian sausage. Predictably, we enjoyed both courses immensely but could only pick. Needless to say, we skipped on the dolci (my favorite course, always foregone, sadly) and then we were out of the maze that is the malls and the corporate offices and on the Jubilee Line headed home.

I was exhausted and 10.00 pm when I put key through door (I had hopped off at Baker Street and switched to a bus that dropped me right opposite my building instead of having to walk from the Tube station down Grove End Road), it was all I could do to greet my hosts (little Jonas was already in bed) and crash.

Retail Therapy had provided little solace but meeting my friend and catching up with her is always a pleasure and it somewhat made up for the cold, the lack of goodies to take back home and the fact of getting hopelessly lost in trying to find Highgate. The only silver lining was that the clerk at the cemetery had sympathized with my situation and, through a phone call, offered me the tour tomorrow.

Until then, cheerio!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pigging Out on First Full Day in London

Jan18

London

Less than 24 hours in London and nothing could have been fuller. Not my day, nor my tummy. Spent most of it pigging out in quite the most delicious fashion. Details to follow.

Awake from 2.30 am (thanks to Bombay body clock), I found deeply creative ways to pass time without waking up my host household. Tweeting, surfing, reading the unique guidebooks I am carrying, kept me creatively and excitedly occupied until dawn announced its quiet presence. It was time for a shower, a decaff coffee in the company of my sweet young friend Jonas whose parents had a Sunday morning lie-in. He put me through the paces of the Nespresso coffee machine in the kitchen and munching on a chocolate rice crispie, I made my way to the bus stop at 8. 15 am for my Mass date with my former neighbor and friend, Barbara.

Re-Discovering London from the Top Deck of a Red Bus:
     A bus trundled along in five, I found my favorite seat in the house (upper deck, front and center) and marveled, as I always do, at London’s essentially Victorian architecture in this pricey northern corner. Streaky bacon buildings abound (red brick with white horizontal granite stripes that wrap the buildings as in a traditional terrine–forgive the British foodie association) until one hits Baker Street when Sherlock’s fictional home comes into view on the intersection with Marylebon Road when things become a mélange of old versus modern. My bus was terminating at Oxford Circus which, from the upper deck, allowed me to take in the white globe lighting that had adorned the street this past Christmas. London lay calm, quiet, gleaming after a recent shower, fresh on this Sunday morning when the rest of the world pretended, for just a few minutes longer, that it did not have a life to get on with.

At Oxford Circus, I disappeared down the Tube stairwell, found the Central Line going east, hopped on for three stops, got off (out of force of habit at Chancery Lane that in my mind is forever linked with Dickens’ Bleak House) and started the brisk walk to Ely Place at Holborn Circus–all the while taking in changes that have occurred in the last 16 months: equestrian Prince Albert has been moved further up the road but his recently-polished pedestal is gleaming afresh; Wren’s Church of St. Andrew’s Holborn is under copious scaffolding, but I did catch a quick glimpse of the dome of his greatest masterpiece, St. Paul’s Cathedral; and the blind golden Goddess of Justice with her scales stands still on the top of Old Bailey. Then, I was making a smart left to get to St. Etheldreda’s Church (remembering, all the time, my first ever venture at finding London’s oldest Catholic church, many moons ago, when I had skirted around Holborn Circus visiting every sacred site in sight–and finally found it, concealed in Ely Place behind impressive private gates). 

Some things do not change–thankfully. There was Barbara, my friend, in her habitual seat; and Jane, the plaited lawyer with the posh accent who has been a lector at the church forever; Win, who was much abler in days gone by when I was a regular parishioner; and, of course, dear old Fr. Tom who had welcomed me to the parish community personally, once upon a time, but had no recollection of it whatsoever! Mass was a much noisier affair than I remembered with several children part of the livelier congregation. How marvelous it is to return to an ancient church and feel at home instantly! In an hour, when it was all over, Barbara introduced me to Esther who accompanied us as far as Sainsbury’s before Barbara went full speed ahead on to High Holborn to lead me on a mini-walking tour that took us right across the eerie bandstand at Lincoln’s Inn Field, across from Sir John Soanes Museum and onto the other side where the Royal College of Surgeons conceals the Hunterian Museum with its endless jars of formaldahyde. 

In a thrice, we were at a brand-new building of the famed London School of Economics which came close to winning the Sterling Prize for Architecture. It is a many-pronged red brick building with a pointed section that juts out high above as if reaching out to kiss its much older neighbor, Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop (now a shoe shop). Hidden behind scaffolding forever, its revelation produced true Ta-Da moments and it has now become an architectural show piece. On to Kingsway we swung to accomplish another one of Barbara’s charming Sunday morning rituals: buying the paper from the newsmonger on the corner of High Holborn and Kingsway–a habit I had picked up from her when we were next-door neighbors. Suddenly, London seemed to have sprung to life as early-bird visitors thronged out of the Tube station and spilled on to Kingsway.    

Store-fronts seem to change along High Holborn every two seconds but thankfully all the scaffolding has disappeared and the charming curve of the road from the comfortingly solid Rosewood Hotel on one side of it to the multiple-turreted Prudential Assurance Building on the other side is now clearly in evidence–not quite different really from two hundred years ago. Soon we were entering the lobby of my beloved former building at “7HH” and taking the elevator up to the second floor, striding through those beloved familiar corridors with their swinging fire doors and opening the flat next door to the one in which I had passed such unforgettable times. It was the perfect reunion with a perfect city!

Tim was putting the finishing touches to the knot of his tie and looking suitably dapper for our formal lunch date later in the afternoon before disappearing into the kitchen to produce toasted croissants, butter, apricot jam, fruit and coffee. Our discussion over brekkie had focused on Tim’s most unusual cuff links that turned out to be bean-shaped chunks of polished lapis lazuli from Afghanistan which led to the spontaneous gifting to me of a book entitled Color–on how paints have been procured through the ages by artists: a somewhat unexpected book exchange as I had gifted these lovers of stuffed bears a book about stuffed bears! 


Formal Luncheon at Morden College, Blackheath:
         And then it was time to get out of the house and stride down more streets towards Blackfriars to take the train to Blackheath as we were all invited to lunch at a very special place: Morden College, what we in America would call an assisted living community. This one is very special having been around since the 1600s when Lord Morden established it for river traders who had fallen on hard times. Our mutual friends, Bishop Michael and his wife Cynthia had invited the three of us to lunch with them and the inmates in a formal sit-down, three-course meal for which we were all appropriately attired. 
       Our half hour train ride from Blackfriars station was itself an interesting and unusual experience as it is not every day that one catches a train from a station that is actually a historic bridge across a river (Barnes Bridge Station over the Thames at Kew comes to mind but it is much less busy). Skimming above the rooftops of London, we spied the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf in the distance and then before we knew it, we were arriving at Lewisham and then Blackheath, a very pretty village with a vast heath. Following Michael’s directions, we arrived at the duck pond (charmingly filled with mallard life and excited squealing children) and the lovely crescent of old merchants’ houses for Blackheath adjoins Greenwich on the river Thames where trade was vigorously carried out through the ages. 
     Soon, the gates of Morden College came into view and we were making our way to the Main Building that is very similar to Charterhouse in Clerkenwell with its red brick Tudor buildings, manicured lawns, cupolas, domes, clock towers and stairs leading to secret quadrangles made green by Elizabethan knot gardens and conical topiaries. It was all quite lovely. 
     Then, our friend Cynthia was welcoming us (how good it felt to be back with her) and leading us to the bar where so many inmates, reminiscent of the folk in the film Quartet were enjoying a glass of wine before lunch. Our friend the Bishop made his appearance so that more greeting and warm hugs followed and another mini-tour of the premises took us on a walk along curving pathways, hedges brimming over with red berries and into the chapel. There was time only for a quick powder of the nose before we entered the lovely formal dining room (reminiscent of one of London’s more exclusive clubs with its painted oil portraits, damask wall paper and heavy drapers) ready for Michael to say Grace and start our meal.
     A bread basket and butter flirted around as red wine and water were poured and then the courses kept coming. Cream of Mushroom Soup followed by our table’s unanimous choice of Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce and all the trimmings: roast potatoes, boiled new potatoes or mashed potatoes, new peas, mashed suede (read squash), gravy, mint sauce, redcurrant jelly, mustard. Yum, yum and then yum. And let’s hear it for this most civilized of British eating traditions: the Sunday Roast Dinner! Dessert followed: Bread and Butter Pudding studded with raisins and swimming in custard! When in doubt, believe British chefs, drown your pudding in more pudding! And I will drink to that! It was as British as any first meal could be and my tummy was cheering.
     Coffee was served in the adjoining library filled with leather-bound volumes and more current periodicals. I could get used to this lifestyle, I thought. Like being on a cruise, only staying stationary! I am also convinced that whoever invented the British Sunday Roast Dinner, also invented the siesta! While the graceful residents adjourned discreetly to their room to sleep off their gastronomic indulgence, Michael amused himself by watching me mount a rocking horse and indulge in some general clowning duly noted for posterity in a collection of corny pictures.


Afternoon Tea at The Montague On The Gardens:
     While Barbara and Tim elected to cross the Heath on foot and get to Greenwich (a good 40 minute trek), I, who was sorely tempted to join them, decided to do the sensible thing: take the train back from Blackheath to make it in time for my next appointment in Bloomsbury. This time I arrived in Victoria station which permitted easy Tube connections to Russel Square which I crossed on  foot to arrive at The Montague On The Gardens Hotel for that other most civilized of British eating traditions–Afternoon Tea! More nose-powdering went on in discreet powder rooms heavy with wooden paneling before I joined our Dean’s Circle: a bunch of 25 gifted students and several staff chaperones seated around three spacious tables. 
     I had barely gotten over my own over-indulgence at lunch time and it was time to face that three-course sea of carb overload they call a traditional British Tea: assorted finger sandwiches filled with smoked salmon, chicken salad, egg mayonnaise and, of course, that star of the tea table, the cucumber sandwich. Debate duly followed on whether scones ought to be slathered with lashings of clotted cream and then strawberry jam or vice versa. Someone, please let me know when that dispute is settled! And for the sweet finishing touch, there were fruit tarts, lemon syllabub, coffee profiteroles, lime macarons and staging an intrusive appearance a table, that most American of gastronomic inventions, the brownie! We sighed and we grumbled–how could anyone put so many delights before us all at once? It was impossible to choose! But choose we did and as the Earl Grey flowed and the English Breakfast was downed, we sipped and chatted and the decibels grew louder. I am convinced that it is a crime to visit the UK and not partake of  Afternoon Tea (NOT be to confused with High Tea, please) in a fancy hotel while being spoiled rotten by liveried waiters who join in the cream first versus jam first discourse).
     Jetlag got the better of me towards the end of my second cup–for, lest you forget, I had been up since 2. 30 am! I had plans to meet my friend Bina in Harrow but, being on her way back from Cardiff in Wales where she had dropped her son off to “Uni”, she postponed our meeting by a good hour and a half. I felt certain I could simply not last that long and decided to get back to St. John’s Wood for a nap before keeping our late evening date.
    I got sidetracked for one last errand: a quick nip into the Waitroseat Brunswick Square to pick up some of my favorite English goodies and then I was on the bus taking the longest route ever to arrive at Abbey Road where I was quite thoroughly wiped out. Raquel and I indulged in some conversations but I am certain I had lost my wits by then and it was gratefully that I crept into bed, relieving my hosts of the generous doggie bag we had been gifted by the hotel folks while contenting myself with just one mug of lemony tea before dropping into bed after a long phone conversation with Bina whom I hope to see later in the week.
     Was my first full day eventful enough for you! It was for me!!!!
     Until tomorrow, Cheerio All!

London! I Am In You Again!

Jan17

Abbey Road, London:

      I am back! Yes, I am here again! Exactly 16 months after I departed, this, my favorite city in the world, I have returned like the proverbial bad penny in the late and very dark hours while a chill draped the city like a shroud. I am older, hopefully a bit wiser, and a lot fonder of this capital than I ought to be.

      Apart from my baggage, I came towing the last vestiges of a full-blown cold (thanks to Bombay’s air pollution) and the remnants of a heightened temperature. Drugged on paracetamol, I stood the journey quite stoically and marveled that my lowered energy levels had climbed enough to enable me to haul baggage about like a pro. A wintry welcome could not dampen my enthusiasm as I strode gamely out of Terminal 5 and followed signs to WH Smith to claim my free Lebara SIM card. Only while every second ad on the British Airways In-Flight Entertainment channel had urged me to pick up my FREE SIM card from the bookstore in the Terminal before leaving, it did not inform me that I needed to request the cabin crew to hand me a free voucher that I would then hand over to the sales clerk to claim my free card. So irritating! Still, I paid the princely sum of 99p for my card, then loaded it with 10 pounds worth of calling time and off I went in search of the Underground. I wasn’t going to allow this little annoyance to tamper with my elation even if the weather was reportedly pretty damp outside. 

      I need not have worried about hauling heavy baggage through the Terminal and on to the Underground train. What an easy connection they have created from Terminal 5 to public transport that whizzes you downtown–sorry, but I’m speaking American from force of habit–I meant to the City Center (or is that Euro-speak?). Anyway, I re-loaded my Oyster card with unlimited rides in Zones 1 and 2 for the next one week and I was off and away. The Piccadilly Line Tube was empty, but for airport passengers till about Hammersmith when the Saturday night hordes thronged the cars.      
     I alighted at Green Park, found an elevator that sped me to the Jubilee Line connection. One long tunnel to cross (not such a tough task) and I was in another elevator and ready to board the train for another three stops to St. John’s Wood from where I hopped into a taxi that practically pulled up as I emerged from the station and dropped me at my doorstep. It couldn’t have been an easier journey.

      London is cold but I was happy to be out in the fresh air after 9 plus hours in a steel tube 38,000 feet about mean sea level. Although, mind you, I spent the time without feeling the slightest bit sleepy and watched four great films in-flight: My Old Lady (with Maggie Smith, Kristin-Scott Thomas and Kevin Kine, set in Paris–how can you go wrong?), The Rewrite (with Hugh Grant and Marissa Tomei–a chicflic that is redeemed only by the very watchable Grant and the always delightful Tomei), The Riot Club (set in Oxford, another favorite city in the world, and based on the play Posh). It was powerful, chilling and deeply disturbing and a true must-see. And finally, I watched A Most Wanted Man with Phillip Seymour Hoffman–didn’t get to the end as it was time to alight, but it was riveting.

      My friends Raquel and Chris and their darling son Jonas gave me a warm welcome and over hot lemony tea, we caught up briefly. Adrenaline kept doing its thing–and I remained awake and alert although I thought I would be in Zombie Land as it was 2.00 am back in India. I kept thinking how fortunate I was to have found a home again in this grand and very gorgeous Victorian apartment with its spacious rooms and very English detailing. Located at the most famous crosswalk in the world on Abbey Road, I had spent part of a summer here once expecting to see John, Paul, George and Ringo stride across every time I popped onto the balcony that overlooks this spot right across historic Abbey Studios.

     I got connected with wifi, informed folks around the world that I had arrived safely and prepared for the morrow. Despite falling asleep at 10.00 pm and having, as I mentioned no sleep en route, I was wide awake at 2. 30 am (8.00 am in Bombay from where I have travelled). Adrenaline is a powerful thing!

      Until Tomorrow which promises to be fun-filled and eventful… cheerio All and thanks for following my Blog once again!   

An Adventurous Return Stateside!

Aug13


Sunday-Monday, August 10-11, 2013
 London
 
            It is customary for me to end my blog posts with an account of my last day—but this time round, my return home was fraught with so much drama that I simply have to include an account of it.
           
A Brush with Celebrity:
By a complicated routing that had involved arriving in Europe through Copenhagen, Denmark, almost two months ago, I had to return there to board my flight to the States. Easyjet was by far the cheapest way to do that—so there I was in a serpentine queue at Gatwick airport, at the crack of dawn, periodically passing by a young man that looked annoying familiar. And yet I could place him. Several minutes of rather agonizing brain racking led me to realize he was an actor whom I have grown familiar with through Doc Martin, a show I watch regularly on PBS in Southport. Although I did not know his name, I remember him as Al, the very slim son of the very fat Bert who runs a waterside restaurant, in the Cornwall-based TV series.
Well, I simply had to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things. So, the next time, we brushed shoulders, I stirred up enough courage to say to him, “Excuse me, but aren’t you an actor?” He gave me the slightest smile and replied, “Yes”. I continued, “Haven’t I been seeing you in Doc Martin?” And he responded, “Yes”, again with the same embarrassed smile. And that was it! How shy he was! When I got back home, I googled him and discovered that he is Joe Absalom, a very successful TV actor. And yet how easily he had managed to fade into a crowd. No fanfare, no fuss. How marvelous, I thought, to be an actor and enjoy so much anonymity. How Brad Pitt must envy him!
           
A Short Stint in Copenhagen Again:
          Well, my flight to Copenhagen was uneventful. I had plans to stash my baggage away in the left-luggage locker and go out into the city. But frankly, by this stage in the game, I was tired—yes, indeed, I did write that…I was tired, both physically and mentally—and I was ready to simply spend a few hours relaxing at the airport. And that was precisely what I did. At Kastrup airport, I actually wrote what I thought would be my last blog post about my last day in London. I had a really good lunch from Yam Tam Thai Food To Go (good noodles with Spicy Chicken Peanut Curry), did a spot of duty free window shopping and then boarded my British Airways flight to return to Heathrow which left Kastrup at 4. 25 pm. and was scheduled to arrive in Heathrow at 5. 30 pm.
         I clearly spied the great big bridge that takes vehicular traffic from Copenhagen to Malmo in Sweden—part of it suddenly disappears under water! We had passed right under this bridge while on the cruise—just as we were eating dinner on our final night at Tamarind restaurant.
Spectacular Landing at Heathrow:
            I know that some people who read this blog regularly poke fun of me when I report how much of a city I am able to sight from 10,000 feet above sea level. And they are more than welcome to their share of guffaws. But I will tell you once again, at the risk of becoming a butt of their humor, that the touch down into Heathrow London was simply one of the most spectacular in my memory.
            First of all, it was the clearest day ever. Not a puff of cloud appeared in the perfect blue skies. I am easily able to find my bearings when we are flying right over the city at my first sighting of the Thames or the Millennium Dome. But this time, it was the Olympic Stadium that leaped out at me—and I realized we were flying right over Stratford. Then it was Anish Kapoor’s strange sculpture at the Olympic Park that emerged, crystal clear, like an inverted red exclamation mark. And then there was the Shard—that inevitable steel pin rising up as if to touch the plane’s wing.
             Once I spotted the Shard, I realized that we were flying directly above Canary Wharf. Indeed the cluster of skyscrapers was directly below my window! It was simply fascinating! Then my eye drifted across the Thames and over Wobbly Bridge as I tried desperately to spot St. Paul’s Cathedral. You’d think that so massive a structure would be easy to distinguish. But it was a bit of a struggle in the close construction of buildings that comprise The City of London. But spot it I did…and so inevitable my eyes sought out Amen Court where I had spent the last week of my stay in London—and there it was, I swear, I am not exaggerated. It was obliterated by a few trees, but clearly visible beneath me. My eyes then drifted along westward and I clearly saw the red unmistakable points of the Prudential Insurance Building on High Holborn—and, of course, less than an inch from where I was viewing the earth below me was 7 High Holborn, the building in which I had spent close to two weeks on first arriving in London. No, its outlines were not as sharp as the Prudential which towers in height and in appearance, but again, the general sense of the building’s position was easily spotted.
               Next my eyes moved westward, with the plane to the Tower of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and along Whitehall, I clearly saw the official buildings opposite the Cenotaph (which I did not spot) with the gaping O in the center—not visible to us when we are actually walking past them on Whitehall. On to Buckingham Palace which was bathed in golden sunshine and the Victoria Memorial where I had stood only a few weeks ago with elation the day after the birth of Prince George was announced. “I was there”, I thought, as the plane moved swiftly over Hyde Park where the Serpentine gleamed smoothly. And then we were over the Thames again, losing height rapidly. I tried hard to spot Hampton Court Palace but I was not able to although I was clearly over Barnes Bridge whose distinguishing iron work makes it very obvious.
             Finally, we landed at Heathrow Terminal 5. I had less than two hours to connect to another flight—to the US.  But this was a Virgin Atlantic flight departing from Terminal 3. I took the courtesy coach provided by Heathrow for inter-terminals transfers and checked into my Virgin Atlantic flight which was scheduled to depart from London at 8.00 pm. I had just enough time to recharge my I-phone and to use Heathrow’s complimentary wifi (available only for 45 minutes at a stretch) before I boarded my flight for my return to the States.
Unexpected Mid-Air Drama:
            And then, when we were settled with drinks and were two hours into our flight (over Ireland if one went by the flight map), the Captain came on the PA system and made the shocking announcement that he had made a turn mid-air (unbeknownst to any of us). A technical glitch needing urgent attention had led him to take the decision to return the aircraft to Heathrow. He promised to get back to us soon with developments. Once we got over our shock, the cabin crew brought us snack packets—those would have to suffice as dinner, they said, as there was no time to do a full dinner service. Needless to say, we were starving by then but, left with no choice, simply had to make the best of our situation.
            A few minutes later, the Captain announced that ground staff would meet us at Heathrow airport where accommodation for the night had been arranged for us. There was no word about when we would fly out. Right enough, Virgin’s ground staff met us after we cleared Immigration and picked up our baggage. The airport’s Hoppa buses were galvanized into providing us with transport to the Holiday Inn Hotel. There, hotel reception staff, in what seemed like a jiffy, provided us with keys to our rooms and a restaurant voucher for breakfast in the morning.  Virgin’s staff informed us that we were all to be put on a flight leaving the next afternoon at 1. 15 pm. We were instructed to reassemble in the lobby by 10.00 am for the complimentary transfer to the Terminal.
            Well, most people headed straight to the restaurant for dinner. I was sleepy and tired more than hungry and not able to face another public meal. So I took my key and my baggage, found my room and decided to settle down in front of the telly as I brewed myself a cup of decaff coffee and fished out the bacon and lettuce wrap that British Airways staff had served me on the flight back from Copenhagen and which was lying untouched in my backpack. Replete, I fell asleep in a thrice and only awoke at 7. 30 am.
            A quick shower and a change of clothing later, I was down in the lobby tucking into a enormous Full English Breakfast with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, baked beans, potato hash and black pudding—yes! What a terrific way to end a adventurous departure from London. As my friend Ian tweeted it, “Quite a dramatic way to ensure one more day ‘s stay in London!”
            Post-Breakfast, we were packed into coaches, met my more Virgin Atlantic ground staff, seen speedily through check-in and placed on a flight that does not even exist on the regular roster! Everyone was especially nice to us and apologies were made frequently. I had managed to contact Llew to inform him about the change in my flight schedule. He texted me to inform me that he would pick me up from JFK airport—and so it was not necessary for me to make a shuttle booking for surface transport from JFK to Southport (although Virgin Atlantic would have reimbursed me). My flight was very pleasant indeed and on schedule, we touched down at JFK at the end of what had been for me an incredible summer to remember,              
Parting Shot:    
           Thanks for following me so faithfully on this month-long journey and for the pleasure of your company as an armchair traveler. Until I am safely back in my London Roost again, I wish you goodbye and good luck.
            And of course, I end by saying, cheerio!