Two Sisters on Grand Tour

Day 1: Monday, Aug 12

Evening walkies took us to Garrick's Head pub, where we split an order of fish and chips (with mushy English peas and mint--Laura's new favorite) and an order of Stilton rarebit (a thick slice of toasted bread with lovely Stilton cheese and a few herbs melted on it) served with chicory leaves smeared with melted Stilton, toasted walnuts, and a red onion chutney. Laura had a Perry (a hard pear cider that was smooth as an apricot) and I had an Elderflower Presse--some kind of soda made from very aromatic elderberry flowers.

We sat outside looking at the street; I sketched before and after food arrived, using my new Sailor pen (thank you John) and water brush. After dinner we walked around--found some of the very old medieval stone walls, wandered to Laura square, strolled around the baths and the weir where the Avon comes through the first gate of Bath, and then ambled back to the hotel. We're updating our journals before heading to bed. A big, but very good day, all around.

Day 2: Tuesday, Aug 13--Roamin' Baths

Those who have lived or traveled with me know that I am most definitely not a morning person. Laura and jet lag are conspiring to evolve my position on this. Wide awake at 3:30am, Laura announces "we're morning people! Let's get up and do yoga!" Attempts to get her to go back to sleep were denounced with cheery enthusiasm, and so it was that at 5:30 we were doing yoga together, with the help of a video on Laura's computer.

Showers and a huge and lovely European-style breakfast followed, during which Laura observed, after watching me slather on the Nutella, "it's really not about the bread with you, is it?" She has my number.

After breakfast we headed off to explore the Roman Baths: a series of public baths, after which Bath was named, built by the Romans 2000 years ago and heated by a thermal spring which still runs today. Arriving right at 9:00am, were we're the first in (!) and, after picking up our audio guides, we followed the numbers around this beautifully constructed museum.

The audio guides were a form new to me--the love child of a jumbo cell phone and soap-on-a-rope, leaving all attendees informed, aware of their surroundings, and quiet. They represent a great advancement in the realm of tourist attraction science.

The Roman Baths are beautiful--in their original architectural design, their engineering design, and also in their restoration and functioning as a museum. At the major bath (there are several different pools) I stayed and sketched while Laura enjoyed more of the baths and watching people watching me.

In the museum and reconstructions, there were videos that would start out showing you the pieces of the baths that you were looking at--an altar, some flooring, some column bases, some drain pipes--and then they would use computer graphics to slowly transform it into an image of their best guess as to what that part might have looked like in Roman times. Very helpful, and made looking at lots of old floors more interesting. We spent almost 3 hours looking at everything--it was fascinating, even for someone like me who lacks the history gene.

After the Roman Bath visit, we picked up some "made in Cornwall this morning" Cornish Pasties, and headed down to the park along the Avon for a picnic lunch. Finishing our pasties (English for empanadas) we wandered around the garden where Laura enjoyed looking at the different bedding plants and a fun topiary of a lion and a farmer. There may be some legend I am missing or misreading, but that's what it looked like to me.

After the garden, we walked through the "guild hall", an interior market I had hoped would be more like a European farmer's market, but was more like a mall. It didn't really matter because the first shop had lots of garden things, and I lost Laura immediately in the seed stands. She does the seed ordering for the farm, so the girl really knows her seeds, and she found herself some new friends to smuggle home. Asparagus-peas? Who knew?

She also found a place to have her picture taken with a life-sized cardboard cutout of the Queen, which made for a surprisingly fine picture, and some new spices that also needed to come home with us. Next up was a small Art Museum, which was almost worth the UK2 admission fee, but not quite. They did have a Turner watercolor of Bath that was very exciting for me to study.

At this point our feet were killing us, so we walked back to the hotel, rested for a full 10 minutes, then packed up our bathing suits and towels and headed down the hill to test the "restorative waters" of Bath for ourselves. Eschewing the expensive, fancy, and popular spa (for which there was a long line) we popped to the front to get into the smaller pool across the street (with the same water, only hotter) surrounded by a beautiful round roman wall. For 90 luxurious minutes we shared the hot mineral-spring-fed pool with only 2 other people! We massaged each other's feet, floated luxuriously on reproduction Roman pool noodles, practiced looking like we knew what watsu is, and generally had a great time. Note to self: endorse the Romans for their leadership skills on Linked in when I get home.

Were it not for the magical healing powers of the waters, we would have been tired and ready to go to bed. But no! After a quick change of clothing we popped round the corner to the Hall & Wood House for a drinks and dinner with Matt Watts (a co-worker of mine from NetApp who lives near Bath) and his wife Lindsey, who it was great to meet after hearing about her for years. Yummy pub food which, once again, for reasons I do not yet understand, was served to us on planks of wood. Foodie-friends of Britain: what's the story on the whole serving food on planks of wood thing?

All in all Bathing day was a big success; traveling back in time 2000 years was so much fun, we've decided to go back another 3000 years tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 14: Rock and Roll

We have a big day today, so we started with our hearty breakfast where I ordered the "Poor Knights of Winsor", which was French Toast with a lovely black currant compote. Evidently even the poor knights had china, since it was not served on a plank of wood.

Walked down to the train station in search of the elusive "meet and greet" area where we to pick up our rental car. There is no such place. Just as I was about to despair, Laura saw a van with the name Belleville written on a card, so we met and greeted the (rather surly) person who drove us on a hair-raising ride somewhere outside the city, to a small rental car office. I the waiting room we waited while one (kind and extremely patient) man handled a large number of people, one by one. During this time various phones rang constantly--each of which were met with the same recording: "no one's in to take your call, and you cannot leave a message." We listened to that for over an hour, which helped me get in the right frame of mind for driving on the wrong side of the road in a stick shift (last driven in 1988). Finally we got our cute grayish brown Voxhall (Opel) Corsa, (a sweet little four-door with-two-hamster engine), lots of insurance, and the portable TomTom navigation system which Laura has rechristened Thomasina. At 11:00 am the moment arrived, and I set off driving, repeating to myself "keep left, keep left, keep left." Left leg got high marks for remembering (mostly) how to work a clutch; my left arm however, unused to manual (transmission) labor, is a lazy sod and must by coaxed into gear-shifting action constantly. Within the first mile I have to drive up a very narrow steep road, stop on the hill, start on a hill at a 3-way intersection, and make an impossibly tight left turn (trickier that I thought) that required cars in the oncoming lane to move in order to complete the turn! Fortunately this was the worst of it. With help from Thomasina, Laura navigated, and was excellent at giving me encouragement, support, and useful driving advice ("You're still in second gear. You're on the line over here. Stay in the left lane in the roundabout") I start getting the hang of it, freeways are easiest and narrow roads the hardest. I find myself leaning to the left as I drive, but off we go…

After about 90 minutes, while passing through beautiful pastures on small country roads a huge boulder appears to our right! It simply takes your breath away--it is so obviously "unnatural" yet beautifully natural at the same time. We have traveled back in time 5000 years to the Avebury Stone Circles where we get a good parking spot (stay to the left!) and head out to explore.

Admission here is free, bathrooms clean, and a tea house handy. We get a bite to eat (Laura tries a scone with her first clotted cream) and off we go, back to 3000 BC, to explore one of the earth's oldest man-made monuments. In this area you pass through lots of gates, and wander freely among the stones and the sheep.

You enter a pasture with the first quarter of the circle, with very regularly spaced upright rocks; cross the street to the second quarter, which starts with center rocks and a few outer ones; we switch to walking on the high mound outside the (dry) moat-like ditch around the big circle, Laura picking up stray bits of wool as we walk. Crossing the road again for the third quarter, we come across some big (beech?) trees with masses of interwoven exposed roots, and lots of ribbons tied to branches. I find one that has two wishes written on it. Laura quickly spins some wool and feathers into a cord and we tie a wish for Ken, one of the elders at her commune who is dying. Fourth quarter has lots of sheep (and smells like it) and lots of small rocks, including some smaller internal circle forms. People picnic among the stones, while children chase sheep.

I wish I could write about how "you can just feel this special energy"…but it would not be true, at least for me. But the stones are beautiful, and so purposefully arranged with such magnificent labor that they do leave you in awe, wondering what these people must have been thinking, what motivated them, how work was directed across such a large landscape, how a consistency of plan was kept for the generations it must have taken, etc. Prehistoric, we have no idea of what thoughts were, but fingernails were chipped, knuckles were scraped, toes were stubbed, limbs were broken, muscles were strained, hearts burst, and people died making this happen. And yet it sits as peacefully as can be.

The Avebury stone circles are larger, older, more accessible, open all the time, and free, yet still there is the lure of Stonehenge, the dramatic sister with a better

PR firm. 1000 years newer, Stonehenge has one thing Avebury doesn't: lintels. So see it we must.

The drive there was mostly uneventful except towards the end where there was lots of traffic and a reworked entrance that had everyone including Thomasina confused. Her are the hoards of tourists, the busses, the admission lines, the audio guides. We entered free and quickly with our royal oak society cards, got the audio guides but didn't like using them, and followed the crowds walking along the designated path around the rocks--best part is that the people form a huge visitor circle around the rocks--from the air that must look so great. Stonehenge looks just like its pictures. There are very few places to sit in awe, but we did find one where I did a sketch and Laura got out her drop spindle and spun the found Avebury wool; it started to rain and after a bit we got pretty wet and headed back to the car.

Laura set Thomasina to Bath, and we had a long but good drive back--the last bit into Bath was a little hairy but we made it.

Tired but hungry, we walked over to the Crystal Palace for dinner: Laura had Greek salad; I had a pulled pork with hoisin noodles dish that also had carrots and red cabbage. Tasty. Laura continued her hard cider tasting; I had a Stella. Talked with Bob when I came home using Google Hangouts, which worked very well despite us not paying for the faster wifi connection. The driving had wrung me out; I was exhausted and in bed by 9. Laura, more in touch with her inner Druid, was full of energy, and stayed up past midnight processing photos, writing in her journal and sending mail to folks. An amazing day.

Thursday, August 15: Garden Variety

In the battle for morning action, the score is now now tied at yoga 2, sloth 2. But we are starting to sleep better. Today, having our car safely tucked in the parking lot in the back if the hotel, we slept late, started our packing, and headed down to breakfast. More lovely fruit and packs of Nutella (yum!), private French press coffee urns, and eggs cooked however we want 'me. Our charming Italian waiter got all excited when Laura ordered a double espresso--it was like he had, after years in the wilderness, finally found a kindred soul.

After breakfast we packed, loaded up the car, and spent a while fiddling with the nav system, and then began our rainy drive out if Bath. The drive was longer than we thought, but also easier--most of it was on the freeway so I was able to zip along and Laura worked on her journal. The rain dogged us on and off, with the weather getting increasingly better as we headed north towards the Cotswolds.

First stop was Hidcote Gardens--actually their bathrooms and tea shop where we quickly sampled a sausage roll (pork sausage baked in a pastry shell) to get us through the afternoon. Hidcote is an exquisite array of gardens that was a feast for the senses. Nobody does flower beds like the English, and the gardens's "rooms", each featuring a different color scheme, greeted us like a buffet of new flavors. The yew hedges with their tiny passthroughs made us feel like we were at Hogwarts, each opening into a new magical experience. In full and wondrous bloom were hydrangea of many types, phlox, hollyhocks, day lilies, lavender, buddleia (butterfly bush), and many more. Going to a garden with a farmer is like gang to a museum with an artist-you're bound to see things in new ways, and learn new things.

The gardens also have a vegetable area that we enjoyed going through--the English names for things being a constant source of amusement and confusion. What we call broad beans, they call runner beans. What we call fava beans, they call broad beans. French beans are our green beans, it goes on and on. Regardless of the name, the beans all look lovely, climbing on teepees made from fruit tree prunings woven together in artistic ways.

Next was a 25 minute drive across town to the Stanway House--an old country estate owned by an Earl who I suspect has been personally living the movie "the money pit". It's an old and beautiful house on the outside, but the inside looks like absolutely nothing has been changed there in over 100 years. And not in a good way. Maintenance had been too long deferred, fabrics were faded, furniture had sagged, floors creaked, dust had become paint, and the paintings, some of which were very fine, were dirty and dim with age. The house needs work. But that's not really the attraction…there are 2: the fountain, and the mill. First, the fountain. The new Earl (above referenced money pit owner) smartly realized the house needed a source of income, and in 2007 built a gravity-fed fountain that is the heist in all of England. It goes off at 2:30 and 4:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So that's why we were there, and at 3:50 we made our way to the back yard to see the fountain. Coming from the house, your back is to the house when you face the fountain; you look up the hill to the well house. I thought the pictures would be better if I went around the holding pond and up the hillside, so that I could get both the fountain and the house in one picture. I readied myself for the shot, and as the fountai n started to shoot up on the air (300 feet!!) I was rewarded with a good shot including the house. Quite quickly, however, the wind changed, and I was also rewarded with a 300 foot column of spray heading right at me. Ah we'll, such is the price of art. By then the weather had warmed up and I dried off eventually. We watched the fountain more from the dry side, where we were rewarded with a very vivid double rainbow. It is a lovely fountain--good planning on the part of the Earl who is no doubt enjoying the admission fees.

But the best part of Stanway house is the mill--a reconstructed flour mill that has been lovingly restored and is operated by those who restored it on the same days that the house is open. They grind local wheat and sell the flour to tourists with large luggage.

Laura and I loved the mill, and crawled all over it. Nearby, Laura found a ma. Who makes willow furniture, and she spent some time talking with him, getting tips, and sharing experiences on bending live wood to their will. It was a joy to watch them, along with his two whippets Ebb and Flow. Great names for mill dogs.

Finally everything at Stanway shut down, and we headed into Nearby Chipping Campden to the Seymour House B&B. We were welcomed and shown to our lovely attic room, where we have two beds, and four gable windows that give us east and west-facing views of the lovely slate rooftops of the town.

We headed over to the Eight Bells pub for dinner, where we had a very good meal and shared a sinfully sweet toffee pudding for dessert. The building is from the time of Henry the VIII; the floor of the dining room has a window in the floor to show off the priest hole, where catholic priests would hide. It's an amazing old building, in excellent condition. Sated, we waddled the two blocks back to our rooms, made some camomile team and set to work updating our long overdue diary keeping.

For a travel day, we managed to pack in a lot of garden variety sight seeing, that was a feast for all our senses. Can't wait to see more of this beautiful area tomorrow.

Friday, August 16: Wool Gathering

The Cotswolds are just lovely--this is the countryside that every british murder mystery is filmed in (except Morse), as well as the Jane Austen period pieces. The place is uniformly adorable--new buildings are built to look like old ones, so the character is preserved, giving one the sense that you've passed through a time machine.

Breakfast here in Chipping Campden at the Seymour House was lovely, Laura had the full English breakfast with sausage, roasted mushroom and tomato and eggs. I had more poor knights. Since we awoke to rain, We took one of the house umbrellas with us against the rain (which never rematerialized), and set off in search of Cotswold wool (for Laura to spin) and thatched-roof houses.

First stop was the local weekly market, where we talked to some knitters who said there is no wool in this area anymore. There are clearly sheep, so we move on seeking a second opinion.

Next stop is the guild hall, where there are artisans of all types; including a cool silversmith workshop which has been in action in same spot (and largely uncleaned) for four generations. It was fascinating yet, not surprisingly, they have no wool.

Next we go into the art gallery, which has some cool felted things -- we suspect we're getting closer. The guy on duty at the gallery desk that day just happens to be the same watercolor artist who' s work I had admired in our hotel: David W Birch. We spoke with him for a while, and he called a friend who has sheep; they reported having no wool, but gave us the name of someone who is not at home today but might have some wool since they have some sheep. (This is starting to feel like the Cotswolds version of a wild goose chase.) Hs advice was to go find a pasture with some sheep and pick up wool off the barbed wire fence. This sounded an awful lot like "it's on the web" to us, so off we went in search of thatched-roof houses. These are much easier to find. They are even more beautiful (and massive) in person than they are in pictures. The houses are soo lovely. Here's one for sale if you've got an extra couple mil hanging around : woodroffe-house

One of the fun features of the thatched roof houses is that the roofers like to put a thatch animal on top of them. We saw pheasant, two owls, and a peacock, all made of thatch, each sitting on the ridge if a different home. Fun to look for.

After hunting houses, we set out on a tramp to the next town over using the miles of public paths. These are mostly very well marked and you can walk all over the place. There's a 103 mile trail back to Bath, for example. We just headed to the neighboring village, which takes us on a great trail through some lovely wheat fields, where Laura made me do my Julie Andrews impersonation and twirl around singing "the hills are alive…". Probably you had to be there. Or not. Laura teaches me about long awn barley, 2 and 4 row grains, and the true meaning of sowing wild oats.

We wandered into the next town, full of more thatched roofs and cute hobbit-like houses. And fields of sheep. We (read I) decided to take the longer trail back to Chipping Campden, but it was not as well marked as the others, and soon we found ourselves wandering through an apple orchard, and then knee deep in sheep. Lots of sheep, and no trail. But there was a barbed wire fence, on which there was a lot of snagged wool, so we each went to work gathering wool off the branches, fence wire, and bushes. We enthusiastically collected a lot (it was clean, long in fiber, and very soft) before we realized that somewhere along the way we had dropped our map. If we had paid closer attention to the sheep we would have known, since they were bleating "maaaaaap! maaaaaaap!" At us for quite some time but we didn't understand due to their strong local accent. As the bell tower to Campden started to recede in the distance, we (read I) decided to retrace our steps, find the map, and go back to the trail we knew; this we did and we made it back to town , Laura happily spinning her new wool from her drop spindle as we walked.

The walk ended us in the Center of town with a couple hours before dinner time, so I sat down at the WWII memorial and sketched, while Laura spun and explored some more. We cleaned up for dinner and had a fantastic curry in the Noel Arms. Well exercised, both physically and spiritually, we headed back to our sweet attic room, where, among the rooftops, we updated our journals and prepared to say goodbye to a city we both fell in love with.

Saturday, August 17: Road Tripping

After learning that breakfast wouldn't be served until 8:30 due to it being Saturday, it seemed right to sleep in, so we did. Specifically, I did. Laura got up, did her stretches, made me a cup of tea and then massaged my feet. I kept wondering if I was really awake.

We had another lovely big breakfast; Laura is getting quite used to the "full English" with eggs, ham, toast, roasted tomato, sausage, juice, and maybe a slab of elephant on the side. It's just this enormous amount of food to eat, but she seems to be awake in the morning, so maybe that helps. Beyond coffee, toast and fruit (having left the world of Nutella) I struggle with moving a scrambled egg around. After this, we packed up and got ready to leave, but first made a trip to the post office to mail Laura's seeds home (don't want them held up in customs) and buy some bread and cheese for today's drive to York. We settle on a small sourdough round (not very sour by SF standards) , some French bleu cheese and a local single Glochester. The later is very interesting--at first it tastes a little dusty and earthy, but then it starts to grow on you and it's really yummy.

We packed up the old hamster cage and hit the road. Google says it will take us three hours, but Thomasina is more conservative and thinks it will take longer; since she's in control, she's usually right.

Driving with Laura has turned out to be really fun, at least it is for me. She makes me laugh so hard--at one point I could barely see, my eyes were so teared up from laughing. She just has a way with words that I find really funny. She adopts/invents euphemisms that build a surreal narrative over the days. On the first day I asked her to remind me to adjust the settings on my phone when we landed; from that point on, any adjustments to personal hygiene, attitude, hair, clothing, whatever, has been referred to with the simple question "do you need to adjust your settings?" Constipation became a "creative blockage" , which lent new meaning to the t-shirt worn by a guy at Avebury Stone Circles that said, simply, "create." Let me give you an example from her journal entry that she was writing as we drove:

"Cathy was challenged a while back to use her brain. There was a sign on the left signaling man shoveling large load of poop. (Sadly I have to omit her sketch of this road sign.) This meant that the road was closed down to one lane ahead as we approached the blockage. A sign said to stop and wait if the light was red. The light was red, yet Cathy boldly veered into the right lane and proceeded! To our great luck, the light immediately turned green, as if our defiance forced it to change. After much laughter and ridicule, she did better at the next one."

Laura is a great driving companion, making me laugh, pointing out interesting landmarks (like 6 cooling towers for a nuclear power plant we passed) and changes in the soil. Farmers like to look at dirt.

After about an hour and a half, we decided to get gas (although the car had only used up a half a tank--it gets great mileage) at one of the giant exits marked "services". You exit, and are dumped into a vast and crowded parking lot for what looks like a giant mall. Pass through the sliding entrance doors and you see rows of video/arcade games, ATM machines, massage chairs, a full market, bathrooms, and a hallway that leads to a mall-like structure that forms a bridge over the entire freeway where there are all manner of fine dining options, from Starbucks to Kentucky Fried Chicken, to god-only-knows what else. We stuck to vacationing in the huge bathrooms, where there was an impressive array of vending machines for the usual feminine hygiene products, but also condoms, gum, lip gloss, and, our favorite, "chewable toothbrush" (2 for 1£, we had to get one). Back outside, I noticed there was also a cheap hotel. I'm guessing there were some other "services" available too, but we didn't see the offers. After the quick "burst of creativity" we got back in the car and drove to the back of the "services" where we (finally) found the gas station, which also had a huge snack market, just in case you'd gotten a bit peckish in the last 2 minutes. £39 ($63) for half a tank of gas, and we're back on the road.

We arrived in York after about 3.5 hours of driving, not counting the 30 minutes it took for us to use and avoid the "services". York is less homogenous looking then Bath--as we entered the city limits we clearly passed through some sheep and cattle ranches, where we smelled what Laura told me was the smell of "farmeric acid". A bit closer into town, the buildings turn to red brick, modernist looking light industry and school-like things. Then you get into the city center and the modern commercial buildings are slammed up against ruins of the old Roman walls around the city, ruined abbeys, stone churches, half-timbered row houses, "ye olde shoppe" type affairs, and all manner of cute buildings, all shuffled together like two mixed decks of cards. What it may lack in city planning, it gains in eclecticism.

Thomasina found our B&B easily, where we were met by Darren, who gave us the rundown of the place, oriented us to the city map, and recommended a bunch of things for us to do. The location of the place is even better than I thought it was, due to a secret tunnel that takes us under the railroad tracks and smack into the city center in a flash.

We headed into town to catch evensong at the spectacular Yorkminster Cathedral--45 minutes of angelic singing by a visiting boys choir, gut-vibrating tones from the gigantic pipe organ, and some churchy bits in between. It's a good deal because the service is free, but visiting the cathedral otherwise costs 10£ per person. After church we had dinner at Lucia's, a local Mediterranean/Italian place where we atoned for the sins of pub food with salads and pasta with roasted vegetables. Our haunted city walk never materialized (seems we got our wires crossed on meeting place and/or time--we'll try again tomorrow), so we ambled about and then headed back to our new home for a wonderful hot shower and journal processing.

York looks like a very interesting place, with very friendly people. Even if an awful lot of them seem to be intoxicated. They're darned friendly, and that's what counts. Excited to explore in more depth tomorrow!

Sunday, August 18: Haunting York

Had trouble getting out of bed this morning.

Laura had yet another full English breakfast, each one bigger than the last: this morning was eggs, "brown" toast, ham (bacon), roasted tomato, cooked mushrooms, sausage, hash browns, and baked beans. I'm sticking with aimlessly staring at a scrambled egg. No sense sleeping through something bigger.

After breakfast we packed up our backpacks and set off for adventure in York. Our B&B (the Alcuin Lodge) is located in a great spot, and it's a very quick walk into the heart of this old city.

York traces its history back to 71AD, when the Romans arrived here at the intersection of the rivers Ouse and Foss, and built a fort to protect themselves against hostile natives, who also (no doubt) had history but they didn't write it down so there you go. Originally a fortress consisting of a wooden fence, some mounds and ditches and towers, by 400AD it had expanded to a two mile ring of massive stone walls, sentries towers, gates with portcullis (a word I've just learned--that's what you call the big wooden gridded gates that drop down from the stone archways to keep the traveling sales people out) all surrounding a bustling city. Large sections of the walls still stand and have been lovingly restored so that you can walk along the tops of them--more about that later.

The walk from our hotel has us take a secret passage under the railroad tracks and then into the city through the back gate of the Museum Gardens (the front gate of which I drew later.) the Museum Gardens are Laura and my favorite thing here, because it is here that you see the stunning ruins of the St Mary's Abbey, built starting in 1089, and then mostly destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII, who throws one hell of a nasty tantrum when he's annoyed with the little woman.

The Abbey ruins were lovingly excavated in the early 1800's and are now part of the Museum Gardens that include the remaining ruins of the Abbey, as well as foundations of many other buildings that built on/or with the existing ruins. It's a beautiful and strangely peaceful place.

After exploring the abbey grounds, we wandered our way around, enjoying the myriad old towers, walls, churches, sarcophagi, and other nifty old bits. Besides not being a morning person, I have a terrible sense of direction. Unfortunately this is coupled with tremendous confidence in my navigation decisions, which means I am constantly looking at a map, and heading in the wrong direction about half the time. But this is a town that (mostly) rewards this unfortunate condition, as we found all manner of interesting bits to explore. After a while we found ourselves walking along the tops of the roman walls, where you can stand in little poked out areas (the unofficial name for them) and pretend to shoot arrows through the little vertical slits in the walls at the medieval automobiles below. At one corner there were benches, where we sat and enjoyed more of our bread, cheese, and apple from yesterday's driving picnic. Then we continued our march to the tower that houses the small Richard III museum. The museum is just a few upper floors of the wall's tower, and it's remarkable to think that several people lived there. It's less hard to believe that others were imprisioned there, which they were. The museum tries very hard to give Richard a fair shake--it seems the hunchback thing may not be true, that he may or may not have had a hand in doing in his two nephews which just happened to put him next in line for the throne, and that Shakespeare didn't exactly let facts stand in the way of good story telling. A man after my own heart. (Shakespeare, not Richard). Anyway, this museum gets a lot of the gruesome stories (for which York is famous) going--imprisioned and murdered children, beheadings, heads on sticks--kindling for the bonfire of horror stories told by actors every evening on walks around the town. The best of these walks is the one we were supposed to hear last night but missed; the attached link gives you a sampling of that experience: ghost tour

After listening to the cases for the prosecution and defense of Richard in the case of killing the two boys, we cast our votes and headed back down into the city for further exploration. We wandered around some more, explored the shops and markets, then looked for a place to rest our feet and have a cup of coffee. Laura had a hot chocolate; I had a Latte and stole Laura's marshmallows, inventing the marshmallow Latte, which is way more tasty than you might think! We had a lovely window table, and as we revived a bit I noticed that the view and comfort was perfect for doing a sketch, so I sat and sketched, while Laura got our her drop spindle and spun silk yarn. We must have looked like a real pair of nuts, but we enjoyed a good hour's peace before the old child magnetism kicked in and 4 adults with 9 children (really!) sat next to us. Fortunately my drawing was just finishing up, so we relinquished the table and headed off to the Viking museum. We had low expectations, and were very pleasantly surprised. It's called Jorvik, because that is Viking for York, which was quite the Viking stronghold in the 8th and 9th centuries. We now have newfound respect for the toughness and craftwork of these roughians.

After Vikings we headed off to our host Darren's recommendation for the best fish and chips--and decided Darren needs to get out more. By this time we were getting full and tired, so we headed back through the museum garden for one last look at the beautiful Abbey, then back to our room for our email, photo, and journal processing. Laura is now softly snoring away, while I tap away…the downside of being a morning person.

Tomorrow we set off for Keswick, in the Lakes District about 4-5 hours away, so it's another day of driving ahead. Hopefully, I'm ready.

Monday, August 19: Wensleydale, Grommit!

This morning we said goodbye to York, Darren, and his amazing shower and programmed Thomasina to take us to the Lakes District, via the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. After about 90 minutes of easy highway driving we stopped for a rest and some soup…enjoyed some good people watching out the window of the farm/tea house, especially a fisherman who had his rods (fully assembled, ready to cast) mounted on the roof and hood of his car: reels at the front bumper, two very long rods pointing to the back almost the whole length of the car; two labs (yellow and chocolate) in the way back. The guy is driving in waders, so he's either nuts, or ready to drop a line wherever. Or both. It was quite the set-up, and he looked very happy.

We drove on through the classic Yorkshire landscape: green fields separated by rock walls surrounding sheep of all shapes and sizes, and punctuated by rippling rivers and stone buildings with slate roofs. Not much wood here, but gobs of stone. Miles and miles of stone walls, each one straight, uniform, and lovely. We have reached Wensleydale (Cheese Grommit!) , specifically the city of Hawes, where we stop to taste the local cheeses (yummy!), buy some from the cheese merchant who will be celebrating his 85th birthday next week and looks like he's maybe 70 (it's the cheese) and told us about how the Canadians sent them some good cheese "in the war." Across the street is a knitting shop where Laura finds a pack of cleaned, carded, and dyed wool, all set into rovings and ready to spin. A small amount (only 10 grams) but wool it is, and we are thankful. We talk with the gal in the shop for awhile, who recommends that we change our course and head through "the Buttertubbs". After a brief stop at the rope museum (fascinating machines) and the local museum, we head off up what we learn will be about 30 miles of very narrow, steep, winding road through the northern part of the dales, which looks nothing like what we've just left. Green grass is now reeds, ferns, and low brownish grasses (peat in the making), the hills are high and steep with no vegetation, and the road winds through steep hills and dramatic valleys with nothing but a few sheep. Even the rock walls have mostly disappeared--the Blackface sheep roam freely here. Finally we reach the "buttertubs" themselves--huge gaps in the ground where the copious spring water is acidified by the peat and has cut through the limestone to form deep caverns and with columns of rock standing in them. From the road you see basically nothing, but if you know to get out and look down into the holes, it's very Lord-of-the-Rings-ish indeed. Exciting to see, and worth the rest of the drive, which is another long hair raising stretch until we finally reach the Lakes District.

We're heading to Keswick, which we learn is pronounced "kezzik", on the shore if Derwent lake (of pencil fame, for all you artists out there--their pencils used to be made here.). We check into our lovely B&B which has possibly the best bathroom yet. The heated towel racks prompt us into a frenzy of sock washing, and then we walk through the town, along the river, and through the park to the local pub for a dinner we were almost too tired to eat. In honor of my happy traveling fisherman, I had the trout. By the time we got back to the room we were completely pooped, and (after a quick video conference with Bob) went straight to bed.

Tomorrow, we explore the Lakes District!

Tuesday, August 20: Car-hiking the Lakes District

Bob: Laura presents me with a cup of tea every morning. Just so you know…

Another good breakfast, in which we learn that "pancakes" means "creeps." Anytime you can combine learning vocabulary with eating, you know you've got a good day in store. We weren't quite sure what our day would hole since the weather looked pretty dicey, so we loaded up our backpacks with lots if alternatives, and headed off to the Castlerigg Stone Circles.

At this point in the journal, I would like to say that I've been taking a bit of good-humored grief about my admittedly terrible sense of direction. I look at maps constantly, confidently striding off in what I am sure is the right direction, only to find myself staring into a dead end. Today, Thomasina claimed to have no knowledge of the stone circles, so I handed Laura the map and told her to navigate--we needed to go about 3 miles on local roads and we'd be there. The next thing I know, I'm following her directions and we're on the M6 (the freeway). After a bit if discussion about where we actually were, I saw a sign for the stone circles, and started following the signs. Laura would say "bear to the right up here" and we'd promptly come to a sign that would say "Castlerigg, left"--this happened two more times until I realized she had the map upside down. We eventually found the place, with me feeling a bit vindicated on the whole sense of direction thing.

This Circle is another old one, about 5000 years old, but much smaller than the ones further south--both in the diameter of the circle and the size of the stones. Maybe because of this more intimate size, it feels more personal, and it is easier to imagine a sacred ritual taking place there. It's also on a hilltop with a lovely view, surrounded by stone walls and looking down among the mountains into a valley of farmland. It is just beautiful, so I sat on one of the rocks and did a sketch while Laura explored the area and collected some Yarrow for a poultice she's making me for a boil I'm having trouble with.

After the stone circle, we drive back down to Keswick (Thomasina back in action) and then along the lake where we parked at the big wood, walked down to the lake, picked some reeds and wove bracelets for ourselves, and (Laura) took pictures of mushrooms, which were plentiful.

At the parking lot we got advice to go to the picturesque Ashness Bridge, so we drove up yet another really narrow steep road to a sweet stone bridge that we would have loved to have taken pictures of, but it had been hit by a truck recently, so it was being repaired by some very friendly repairmen who Laura chatted up. Instead we hiked up the hill on the public footpath, and found ourselves in the middle of a small clearing in the fern grotto, overlooking Derwent lake. The view was stunning, and I knew if I didn't paint here it wasn't going to happen. So. I set up and painted, while Laura spun the wool she'd just gathered in the pastures around Castlerigg. It wasn't sunny, but it was still beautiful, and not too cool, despite the heavy cloud cover.

Back in the car, we decided to follow the recommendation of St. Rick (Rick Steves) to do a driving hike around the area, since we'd already headed part of the way. We drove on past the lake, through a bunch of small and lovely areas without lakes, past the slate mine, where we found the source of the green slate we've seen all over the buildings in Keswick, and then up and over Honister Pass--another narrow steep winding road where I kept finding myself leaned over in my seat (to the left) as if willing the car to somehow be further to the left side of the road as oncoming traffic sped by within millimeters if my side view mirror. Relief of getting over that pass was short lived, since it meant we traveled downhill for while, and then had to cross another one: Newlands Pass. This one was still narrow, but through more open desolate hills with slightly better visibility. The scenery was stunning, and we kept getting out when we could to take it in, snap a few pictures, and look for wool. Finally we made it back into Keswick, where we unpacked our bags and walked into town for some serviceable Indian food. To help it digest a bit we walked around the town, most of which was closed for the night, but we enjoyed the window shopping. This place is to outdoors gear shops what Los Altos is to hair and nail salons. It seems every other shop sells raincoats and hiking boots. We did find an open bookstore, where I bought us a small book called "know your sheep" so we could have a better idea of what varieties we're looking at and collecting.

Favorite quote of the day was from Laura who, as we were heading out from one destination said, "I fear I shall never see another sheep...oh, there's one." Sheep are everywhere. Why wool is so hard to find is a deep mystery indeed.

Wednesday, August 21: a wee bit o Scotland

Last night, after finishing the day's journal, Laura prepared the poultice, details of which I'll withhold, but it was extremely effective--remember to travel with an herbal healer! We were both up late working on us journals, and that big bathtub called my name…oh, what a joy it was. I remember getting into it, and then the next thing I knew Laura was asking me if I was asleep, accusing me of snoring in the bathtub. Mmmmmmm. I did finally transfer to the bed and slept like an old stone wall.

After yet another giant yummy breakfast, we packed and I repacked several times, the organization Gods having their fun at my expense. After a longer than anticipated time, during which Laura was extremely patient but did give me that "I thought you did that already" stare, we said our goodbyes to the Lakes District, and made our last drive up to Carlisle (the large but not particularly pretty county seat of Cumbria) where we returned the car, said goodbye to Thomasina (the TomTom nav system, without which we would have been a weeping pile of jelly), and got a lift to the train station, where I picked up our tickets to Edinburgh from the prepaid ticket machine.

Having about 90 minutes to spare, we sat nearby and had a peculiar lunch at what claimed to be a "Mexican-style" restaurant. The food was tasty, but odd. We both ordered tacos, which came in a bowl. In the bowl were a mix of vegetables (red and yellow peppers, pod peas, green beans, and onions) a crisp folded over taco shell, a sweet mildly spicy tomato sauce (with no Mexican flavors whatsoever) some chunks of chicken, then cheese on top and put in the broiler. It was yummy, but had that feeling of having been invented by a hungry teenager late at night, assembling leftovers in a bowl.

After lunch we sat, Laura working on her wool, and I did a quick sketch of the activity in front of the train station. At the appointed hour we headed back to the train station and easily boarded the 2:11 to Edinburgh. Happily, we have two window seats at a table, with (so far) no screaming children. I am writing these notes from the train, watching the countryside change as we progress northwards.

The low hills of Carlisle quickly give way to bigger hills with soil (the hedges are back), crops, and dairy cattle. Pine trees of some sort appear on the hillsides, and the green color is taking on a bluer cast, than the ochre undercolor of the lakes district. We stop in Locherbie, which must mean we've crossed into Scotland.

Laura has been quizzing me in the names of a flower and a tree that I've asked her about at least five times…she's actually hopeful I'll remember the names…

"Ash?" I ask…
"What kind of ash?" she prods, gently…
"Uh…English?"
She sighs, and makes a teepee with her hands.
"Pointed?"
"Triangular?"
"Tent?"

She hangs her head in defeat…"Mountain. Mountain Ash. You're hopeless." --- We arrived in Edinburgh, and hauled our bags up many (7?) flights of stairs until we emerged at High Street, 1 block from our hotel. It turns out there was an easier way, but it's done now, and on the last stretch a burly local took pity on me and carried my bag up the last stairs. Our hotel, the Raddison Blu, is in a great location, smack in the middle of the action, which is considerable since the Fringe Festival is in full swing. Any room that can house an artistic exhibition, play, or music gig is enlisted to do so, with different shows starting every hour or so and running all day and all night. It's nutty. We arrived at the hotel and a nap overtook me with force. Abut an hour later, we emerged to look at the festival and explore the city.

A bit overwhelmed, we headed down the street, taking in the magnificent buildings that pop through the views in the cross streets. It's a stunning city with an unusual landscape, sadly cut in half by the train station and tracks. It was about 7 and the light was just lovely--not near sunset, but still low in the sky for dramatic lighting against a moody sky. We took lots of pictures, then marveled at hikers tramping up a huge up cropping of rock which Laura said is called "Arthur's Seat"--the weather and the day was too perfect, so we too joined the fray and hiked the middle path up the rock to the most amazing views ever. Getting down was faster than going up, and by the time we reached High street again we were happy, sweaty, tired, and hungry! We popped into a fantastic little Turkish Restaurant and split some lamb and eggplant Moussaka, an artichoke salad, and some baklava. Fantastic. Sated and refreshed, we walked back to the hotel for an evening swim before retiring for the night.

Thursday, August 22: On the Fringe in Edinburgh

After late nights and a very slow mornings, I can now happily report that we are no longer morning people. On the way to breakfast (where we tried the Haggis, and both were surprised to find it quite tasty!)I picked up Edinburgh Castle fast-pass tickets at the hotel concierge desk, so after fortifications, we bundled ourselves up against the heavy fog and falling mist, and wormed our way through the Fringe Festival displays (also just arising) and up the hill towards the Castle. Popped in quickly at St Giles Cathedral, which was surprisingly beautiful. I say surprising because I found the scale of it much more comforting and beautiful than some of the larger, more famous cathedrals. We didn't stay long, but it felt very inviting (for a cathedral, to an atheist), and someone was doing a little organ practice which was lovely too. But we've got a mission, so back out onto High Street and up to storm the Castle.

The castle is exactly what you'd expect, big, imposing, lots of cannon, good towers, gates, etc. New to me was the squirrel-like aspect of the Scotish people: on a pretty regular basis they seem to bury their valuables, lose track of them, and then dig them up again to much excitement and fanfare. If you've got anything of value, even a stone, my advice is not to give it to a Scotsman. They're charming folks, friendly and good natured, but they do have a tendency to lose track of their valuables. This history is extensively documented in the section of the castle dedicated to the making, and losing, and finding and hiding and refinding, etc of the Crown, the scepter, the sword, and the enigmatic "stone of destiny" (an unremarkable boulder they like to have hanging about at coronations.) In a particularly surreal moment a Mariachi band walked by--we never saw them again but if you hear of them being dug up 100 years from now, don't say I didn't warn you.

We wandered about the castle for several hours, enjoying all kinds of new things, especially men in kilts. We both decided it's the knee socks that keep the magic--take note all you men out there.

After lunch and some more wandering, we headed down the hill to catch a Fringe Festival production we'd spied yesterday: a play called "angus:weaver of grass" that was showing at the theatre in thr Story Telling Center close by our hotel. The play tells the true story of Angus McPhee, a man who, after growing up as a simple rural farmer, goes off to WWII and becomes very emotionally troubled. He spends most of the rest of his life institutionalized, not speaking, and weaving strange objects out of sea grass. You may remember Laura and I had just been weaving grasses two days earlier. The gentle tale is told by a cast of 4 with a mix of puppets, shadows, actors with masks, and narrated in Gaelic song. It was very moving and beautifully done. For more on this production visit the BBC.

After the play we decided it was time to do some whiskey tasting, so we ditched our packs at the hotel and headed across the street to the Whiski Pub, where Laura had seen someone eating a huge fish and chips earlier. There we split an order of the fish, and set into a flight of whiskey, one from each of the four Maine whiskey regions of Scotland: lowlands, highlands, speyside, and Islay (pronounced Eye-lay). They were very interesting, but we decided we needed to push ourselves further, so we asked our barkeeper to give us two more like the two we liked, which he did. Those two were so good we tried that again. During this I decided to get in my sketching and did a fun drawing of the pub, and made a record of the whiskeys as well for those of you who are interested. Our favorite for the evening was the 15 year old Dalemore, a highlands Scotch that is smooth and yummy.

Now we're trying to get to bed early, but all this journaling is fouling up that plan. Tomorrow we join a long tour of the highlands, where we go I search of the Loch Ness monster and more whiskey. Hopefully the weather will be a little better, and we'll have some nice views. But we'll be back late, so expect a delay in the reporting.

Friday, August 23: Listening to the Highlands

Today we woke up early and wandered up High Street back towards the Castle Entrance to the meeting spot for our one-day Tour of the Highlands. The street was eerily quiet at 7:30, and it was hard to imagine it had been full of partiers just 3 hours prior. We got to the meeting spot early (as directed) and waited for others to arrive before we became our own breed of highlands cattle and loaded onto the bus.

Our driver Dave introduced himself, and it was clear to me after the first few moments that he could tell me anything and I'd be enthralled. He was a Scottsman, and the accent is just loovlay.

As he navigated the bus out of town (which takes a while), he told us a bit about Edinburgh: normally it is a city of 1/2million people, but the population rises to 1million during the Fringe Festival. They do this festival for a couple months every year--it looks like it's a big money maker and tourism driver for them. He explained about the Tatoo (a tourist event we didn't do), that "Tatoo" refers to the beating of the drum to return troops to their barracks. He also ranted a bit as we passed the zoo about the city leaders, who have spent £690,000 to rent two pandas from China. For a guy who drives a bus (and I can imagine a lot of other locals) spending that kind of money on pandas seems totally insane. The zoo is trying to get the pair to mate--which brought up all sorts of questions we didn't have a chance to ask, about Panda citizenship, parental rights, and the possibility of having the world's first black and white tartan panda, which I think would be pretty cute. Anyway, the panda thing has some folks pretty riled up.

Our agenda, for those of you with a map handy, was to drive from Edinburgh to Sterling, to Callender, to the mountains of Glen Coe, through the Great Glen of Scotland, up to Loch Ness where we cruise out to see the castle on the loch, to Inverness, Petlocherie, and then back to Edinburgh. For those of your without a map, all that you have to know is that we're in a bus driving about 400 miles around the northern parts of Scotland to see the "lochs" (lakes) , heather, and the green wet wilds of northern Scotland. As is typical of such tours, every couple hours you stop at some spot with bathrooms, cheap fast food, and plenty of souvenirs. But as is also true, someone else drives you through beautiful country you'd never see otherwise. So today, we do the tourist thing, sans trinkets.

Aside from the scenery, which is beautiful even though the weather is mostly what they call "low clouds", the best part is listening to Dave explain bits of Scottish history, vocabulary, and lovely ways of pronouncing words like "fillum" (film). He told us about how when the Romans came to England, they created defenses against what they described as "savages" --early Scottish folk who were "hayuge folk wi' thack laygs an' arems, with wild red hayer and beards down to their bellays--and that was jus' the women."

We learned that there are three kinds of local deer: the roe deer, which has some spots, the red deer, which is "a baig, thaik, choonky animal, and a deer that tends to get hit by the cars…we call these the oh deer."

We learned that "strath" means "very wide", and "glen" means "very narrow." "Monroe's" are mountains over 3000 feet, and there are 287 of them. Climbing one of these is called "bagging a Monroe" (a common pasttime), which " cannah be done in jus' your trainers and a t-shirt. Evareh yeah we lose someone who thinks that the foul weather wahrnin's don apply to them. Yeh can' jus be goin' up their in yer joggie bottems yeh know."

We also had an unexpected demonstration of the respect these folks have for their animals. As the bus was driving along, we suddenly came to a hard and almost screeching stop. Dave quickly got out of the bus and was calling someone on his cell phone. A car in the other direction also stopped, and after an impromptu roadside conference and some volunteer traffic management, we learned that someone had driven by, hit two wild boar, and left them in the street, alive but very badly injured. Dave and the folks in the other car were clearly upset by this, and wouldn't move (the car and the bus protecting the animals from further harm) until the local authorities could arrive and put the animals out of their misery. The care they showed for these wild animals was impressive, especially knowing that Dave had a schedule to meet. This was more important to him…he explained to us after we resumed that "it beggars belief that someone can do that to an animal and jus leave 'em there to suffah."

For those of you wild boar enthusiasts, these boar were smaller than ours, and a beautiful reddish color. (They looked more like feral pigs, but they called them boar so there.)

We arrived at Loch Ness, where the inevitable conversation of he monster Nessie came up. "I'm not sayin' there is or there isn't a mahnstair. I've never seen one. But you have to look at the big picture. The eahrliest reportin's o' the mahnstair ware hoondraids a years ago, which means that thair mussa been at leas' two of 'em, an that they've been braiding…I dunno. I guess it's possible. But I've never seen 'er."

We didn't either, unless you count the zillions of stuffed Nessie toys in the nearby gift shop. I think that if there was a monster, it died of embarrassment years ago.

Another topic of interest that came up in the conversation (which was made even longer due to a huge traffic jam resulting in both direction of the freeway being closed for many miles) was that of the upcoming referendum on Scottish Independence. Surprisingly, Dave was against it. He said he just wasn't sure what they'd be voting for--that there were lots of unanswered questions about infrastructure, defense, currency,nuclear power, etc that hadn't been resolved. For example, would they need to create their own army? Their own currency? Switch to the Euro? Lots of open questions in his mind. Interesting.

Because of Dave's clever navigating, we were only stuck in the traffic for about an extra 90 minutes--it was a spectacular mess--kind of like what you'd get if you routed both directions of highway 101 through downtown Los Altos for a few hours. So we did arrive back in Edinburgh late, but not too late for Laura and I to do a little more walking and check out a nearby whiskey shop before heading off to bed. We have to keep our priorities, you know!

Saturday, August 24: Wellington returns to Waterloo

I'm a bit behind on my log, so it's hard to believe that we were in Scotland just yesterday morning. We got up, ate, (Laura passing on her last Haggis opportunity) packed (ever more densely) and then took a cab to the Edinburgh airport. Originally the plan was to take the train from Edinburgh to London, but it takes all day and is twice as expensive as flying. After you add in the taxi, Heathrow express, and tube costs it's probably about the same. But still, we got half a day back so we went for it.

On the circuitous driver out of the city to the airport, we asked our cab driver how HE felt about the upcoming referendum on Scottish Independence, and he was enthusiastically for it. He said that the British government has been doing a massive fear tactics campaign, spreading lots of doubt--about exactly the things that our bus driver Dave had voiced yesterday. This guy had no doubts that the Scott's could do a better job taking care of themselves than Downing Street; he's still quite pissed about Thatcher's poll tax experiment and felt that "it just can't be more screwed up than it is now." Today the Scott's pay taxes but have no say in how they are spent, and have no promises about how much of their money even gets allocated back to them. And they have a good source of income from oil revenues that they'd like to actually receive. So it was interesting to hear the other side to this debate; we'll watch to see how it turns out. The taxi driver wasn't too optimistic about it passing, saying that people are afraid of change, even when it could be to something better.

We arrived in London, walking the last bit from the Waterloo Station to our hotel in the rain. Fortunately, it wasn't far, and the hotel is great. Yeah, mileage plus miles.

We're staying at the park plaza Westminster, which is just on the river at the Westminster Bridge, right between the Eye (London's super gigantic Ferris wheel thing) and Big Ben, so walking and other transport is a breeze.

We checked into our room and were overcome with tiredness. With the help of some hot water and the Earl Grey, we fought it off, got dressed, and went out walking on the Queens walk along the river. With a handy hotel umbrella and our raincoats we didn't get too wet, and as we walked along the riverbank we came across a food faire, where there were many food stalls with pretty fancy foods. We stopped at one where we split a hot sandwich made of: a French roll, grilled duck confit, fried smoked cheese, red-onion chutney, baby arugula, and a sprinkling of toasty crisp bits of duck skin. Is was super yummy, and made my tummy unreasonably happy. Next we stopped at a stall where a pair of women were making Japanese dumplings that were made by pouring a pancake-like batter into hot iron half-round moulds (about the size of golf balls); after adding goodies like octopus and shrimp, the batter was gently rotated with a pair of sticks as it turned, so the cooked bit ended up in the shape of a fully baked little ball. These delicacies were, through an oversight by the marketing department, being sold as "octopus balls"--so (according to Laura) they tasted a lot better than they sounded. Still hungry, we wandered around looking at more tasty vittles, including some extremely large pans of paella, finally settling on some additional hot and spicy Thai food for Laura. Thus refueled, we continued walking east along the river, exploring the many bridges across the Thames. We finally crossed at the Blackfriars Bridge, then walked down the other side of the river towards Big Ben. It was on this side of the river that I found out how slippery wet steel covers can be, falling on my keister twice! We renamed these "tourist traps" and kept a stern lookout for them from that point on. The Eye and the newer buildings on the south bank are dramatically lit, and gave us a wet-but- lovely walk back to our hotel. A quick stop at the mini-market for extra tea, milk, and shortbread biscuits, and we were in for the evening. This city is no place for morning people, so we're now night people.

Sunday, August 25: the history of everything

Since we are officially no longer morning people, we slept in, and then enjoyed a leisurely and extensive "full English" at the hotel's breakfast buffet. Happily, we're back in the land if Nutella, and new to the menu were baked mushrooms in a puff-pastry shell. Our plan for the day is to storm the gates of the British Museum, so intensive fortifications were taken on.

We bought our Oyster cards at the tube station (so we can ride easily, and for less) and oriented Laura to the beauty of the London Underground--public transportation even I can understand. A few minutes later we found ourselves at the British Museum with about three zillion new friends. Undaunted, all three zillion of us plowed in, and headed for the Egyptian rooms. By the time we got to the mummies, there was barely any air in the place at all, but they are just so cool nobody (including us) cares. Who isn't interested in seeing a mummified pet fish? With its own sarcophagus! Those Egyptians must have had some time on their hands. We arrived at the museum about noon, and by 5:15 we felt like we had seen every old thing that ever was. It's amazing to think that they have less than 1 percent of their collection on display at any time.

The British Museum is such an amazing place, but one just can't help but wonder about how they got (and kept) all this stuff. Hoarding runs deep in the blood of these people; when asked to give things back (like the pieces of the Parthenon they just hacked off and hauled home), they simply say that they can keep them because they passed a law that says it's okay. They just look at the rest if the world and say "the Queen says we can, so there." The bright side for the plunder-ees is that the British do a good job keeping all their plunder in good kip, which must cost a fortune. So I guess it all works out. But you have to smile at description cards that say "these turquoise covered masks were given to Cortez by the Aztecs." Given? Not bloody likely!

After a detailed and thorough perusal of 5000 years of "stuff" we were tired and hungry. Consulting my friends on Yelp, we found culinary nirvana at Dishoom, a lovely Indian café a few minutes walk from the museum. Yum!

After resting our feet and filling our tummies, we started our evening walk, finding ourselves in Trafalgar Square (with another three zillion people!). It was a lovely evening so we sat on the steps; I did a sketch while Laura spun some more of her new wool. As the sky smartened to darken we packed up and headed back to the hotel, in time to be directly below Big Ben as it chimed 9pm, inviting us back to the hotel I time to catch up on our journals and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Tomorrow, we take on Victoria and Albert, so we'd better rest up.

Monday, August 26: Oh no, I'm dead!

Some travel days go just as planned, others have surprises in store for you. For example, at our first stop today, the Victoria and Albert Museum, I found out I've been dead for 18 years! On our way in, we started in the Jewelry room, and the first piece I looked at was done by: Cathy Harris (for new friends, that was my maiden name). This was pretty exciting until I read "Cathy Harris's death was premature and came at a point when her career was about to take off" and saw that my lifespan was from 1954-1995. What a disappointment for me--just when I thought I was getting somewhere…

After a quick pulse check I decided, in the immortal words of Mark Twain, that "the reports of my death had been exaggerated" and I would continue on, zombie or not.

Speaking of Zombies, I have a bone to pick with the mental faculties of the curators of the Victoria and Albert. I the past, this lovely treasure was dedicated to fine craftsmanship, and was curated and displayed in such a way as to help artists, craftspeople, and "makers" of all sorts learn more about the crafts on display. Over the years since my last visit, this idea seems to have been abandoned and it's now curated just like any other museum. The textiles rooms, which housed incredible cases of laces, embroideries, cutwork, and needlework--that could all be examined on study tables--has been completely and permanently closed down. In the past this was a museum I could have spent days on end exploring; today we left after not even an hour. What a disappointment.

Since the V&A was a bust, and the weather was warm and sunny we went to plan B, which involved a quick walk over to Kensington Gardens, where we sat down and watched a few folks practice their lawn bowling while we ate sandwiches we'd made and packed earlier from bread, ham, and cheese we'd smuggled from the breakfast buffet. Then, we walked around enjoying this huge people's park. Chairs along the water can be rented for £2 for the first 90 minutes, which seemed very weird, but not quite as weird as reserving a chair "for the season" for £100. This is probably one if those traditions as hard to explain as it is to understand.

Waterfowl abound. Swans spend most of their time with their heads underwater; coots have extremely weird feet that look like flattened lizards, some of their ducks have extremely long legs, and their Pelicans are snowy white with yellow bills.

I should mention that a few days ago Laura started augmenting her travel photography with what she and her beaux Max call "clandestine footage", which means she secretly takes pictures of people's shoes and feet as we're walking through the crowds. Some of the pictures are fun, but more fun is watching Laura secretly snapping away while holding the camera pointing down, apparently at nothing. It's fun to travel with someone who sees the world differently, and to have a way of celebrating particularly odd or inappropriate footwear decisions.

After our stealth picnic lunch, we enjoyed a lovely walk through the gardens, down through more parks (where we saw a co-Ed pick-up Cricket game) to Wellington's arch, over to Buckingham Palace (just follow the people!), around to Westminster Abbey (which was closed), St Stevens (also closed) and back by Big Ben, and (since by this point our feet were killing us) back to the hotel for tea, biscuits, nutella (me)and some tidbits of leftover Indian food (Laura). Thus revived, we changed clothes and headed out for dinner before the theatre.

We ate at Wahaca, a modern take in Oaxaxan/Mexican food, which was pretty good! We had some very nice sipping Tequillas with our meal, which included soft tacos of pork picadillo and cactus (separately) as well as a salad of fresh tomatoes and spelt. Top it off with some Churros and hot chocolate, and we're ready to hop across the street to the Old Vic to see Tennesee William's "Sweet Bird of Youth" which was very powerful and included a strong performance by Kim Catrell (of Sex in the City fame).

It's a meditation on the inevitable fading of youth, told as only our southern writers can. It's similar in setting and genre to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which he'd written 5 years earlier. Not a perky piece, so if that's what you're after, don't pick his plays. The Old Vic doesn't allow photography, so I did a little drawing of the stage and beautiful set before the curtain went up. Maybe it will bring back memories for some of you.

Tomorrow is our last day in London, and while we're sad to have the trip wind to a close, we're getting pretty tired, missing our husbands, and are ready to be winding it down. It's been a fantastic journey…one we'll continue tomorrow!

To see the art of the late Cathy Harris.

Tuesday, August 27: Last tag

Tomorrow morning we leave for home, so I really should be packing but I know if I don't write something now I probably won't get around to it when it get back. So this will be a little less wordy than the other posts, which some of you probably appreciate anyway.

After a very late start, we took the tube up to the Tower of London, where we decided not to actually go in, but I sat and drew while Laura cased the joint. I know this will disappoint all you castle lovers, but we just can't do everything. We did enjoy the very large sundial (pretty accurate, too) with a good history of England, and found it interesting to see how profoundly one insect, a flea called Xenopsilla Cheops, could wreak havoc on a country: between 1603 and 1664 three episodes of the plague wiped out over 165,000 people--that's about half the population of England at the time.

We then hopped back on the Tube and swooshed down to the Tate National to see whatever Turner water colors were on display. They have a huge collection of them, but very few out right now. The ones that were there were useful for me to see though--not so much for their artistry, but for technique. We looked at a bunch of his oils as well, and I'm sorry but I am still not quite in the Turner fan club just yet. The Tate is a great museum thou, and we enjoyed the rest of their exhibitions very much. In a break with museum fashion, they have everything arranged by date, which is a fascinating way to see the variety of styles at are happening at any one time. You can really see how "shocking" some work was, when it's sitting amid the other work of the time.

Happy surprises were the number of Seargent and Whistler pieces they had out--I love these guys, even if I still have trouble telling them apart. Seargent's brushwork just blows me away every time. Another delight was more work by Frederich Leighton, a pre-raphaelite painter of the late 1800's whose work shows the foundations on which the art nouveau works of folks like Edward Mucha were built. I love the flowing lines of this work, and for those art critics who say it is just too "pretty", well, too bad.

After the Tate we walked up towards the Apollo theatre and had a really fine light dinner at Le Pain Quotidien, before thoroughly enjoying Wicked. This was the third time I've seen it, and it was still great. Elphaba was played by a young woman named Louise Dearman, who was awesome. Seeing it with Laura at my side, on this last night of our trip, was extremely special, and the last lines of the show make a good sign off for tonight.

"Who can say if I've been changed for the better…

But since I knew you, because I knew you…I have been changed, for good."