Ready For the Runway

While shopping with Mom for a new purse, Olivia and Meredith each found the "perfect" accessory to their respective raincoats and were quite vexed when Dad said "no" to spending 30 pounds apiece for little-girl purses, no matter how cute. Disappoined but resigned to fiscal reality, they agreed to make do with a promise of picture and a blog post of them showing off their fashion sense.

We Are Robbed In Further Search of Pancakes

Our plan to visit the pancake races in the morning having been foiled, we headed for Covent Garden late in the afternoon to see a pancake flipping competition we had read about. We arrived well before the event began, so we thought we would wander around and enjoy the street performances. The crowds were large, so Laura took Cecily on her shoulders so that she could see. Scott had Meredith on his shoulders standing a short distance away. At some point, Laura felt someone beside her jostle her, and she moved her hand down on to her purse. Alas, it was not until we were in a cafe warming up with a hot chocolate that she discovered that someone had taken a knife and slit the side of her purse in an attempt to grab the valuable therein. Fortunately for Laura, her jostling prevented any access except into the side pocket, and the thief got away with only her cell phone--easily replaceable for five pounds. The thief left the half drunk diet coke resting in the same pocket . Covent Garden is particularly notorious as a place where petty crimininal prey on locals and tourists in particular. These things always happen to other people, however. One never imagine that oneself will be the victim. At this point we had lost interest in pancake races/competitions and in Covent Garden itself. We rectified the situation with a quick shopping trip to the stores in our own neighborhood, where Laura found an adquate replacement purse for just under 6 pounds. And with that, we headed home--where Laura fixed pancakes far better than those we would have found anywhere in the city.

A Day At Home Doesn't Mean A Day Without Education

The pancake mix in a plastic bottle; Cecily and Meredith as Merry Maids; Olivia researching homework on the internet (a skill at which she has become quite adept.)

Laura had her final wine class today, and Olivia was under the weather, so we spent the day at home, alternately sleeping and catching up on homework, especially the math book which Olivia has been avoiding. The little girls engaged their favorite pastimes of watching cartoons and slopping the stoop. Whether anything gets clean is seriously in doubt, but it is great fun to spread the water around. We also took time to marvel at the spectacle of Dad ironing his own shirts. "Why don't you just send them to the laundy," Meredith asked? We also took advantage of the time to experiment with a few new cultural experiences. Olivia and Dad played a game called Nine Men's Morris which we learned about in Portsmouth at the Mary Rose exhibition. It's sort of an advanced and expanded tic tac toe. After a couple false starts to master the rules, Olivia cleaned the floor with Dad. Meanwhiile, Meredith was in a culinary mood. She wanted to try combining different fruit juices to find out if there was a drinkable result. We actually decided orange and apple is pretty darn good. Try it if you haven't. Lastly, we experimented with Tesco pre-mixed pancakes. The mix comes in a plastic bottle. You simply add milk to the top of the label, shake and pour into the pan. This produced a thin, crepe-like pancake which was far different from the thick pancakes we are used to. Despite that, they were tasty and best of all there was no mess to clean once we were through! We ended the day with a trip to the Crabtree Pub in our neighborhood for a quiet dinner to celebrate Mom's finishing her course.

Another Sunday, Another Cathedral

There are four cathedrals in London. Herein, we have previously mentioned and attended three--St. Paul's and Southwark, which cover the Anglican dioceses north and south of the Thames, and Westminister, which is the great Roman Catholic cathedral. We had not known initially about the fourth cathedral, St. Georges, which covers the Roman Catholic diocese south of the Thames. That was our destination of choice for this morning's services. I am glad we did it because it was a very different experience than we have had so far in London's "brand name" houses of worship. St. Georges is in the "gritty" park of town. It does not serve well-heeled tourists and society people but rather it is the church of the working man. People go there not to be seen but to find spirituality. A large part of the congregation is black, and in the African tradition, the brighly colored headscarves, hats and dresses on the women add to the show. The men's choir adds to the pageantry and is aided by some beautiful voices in the congregation. . The best I can describe it is the way I have encountered other great churches. It is as like Westminster in London meets Abbysinian Baptist in New York with a dash of Christ Cathedral in Zanzibar. Despite the priest with the heavily African-accented English and the lack of showing jewels and adornments, it was certainly the most authentic house of worship we have yeet encountered in London, and it may be my new favorite as well.

We Go To The War Museum

The Imperial War Museum is just across the park from St. Georges, so it was the obvious destination for the day. This edifice has six floors of galleries which discuss World Wars I and II primarily but also conflicts between and after in which Britain has been formally involved. The girls expressed reservations about visiting, but in the end, it was their parents who insisted on leaving, exhausted by the barrage of questions which were shot at us with increasing velocity as we continued through the exhibits. The girls were fascinated by the experience of the more than 2,000,000 children who were evacuated from London during the Second World War. They studied gas masks with great interest. We went inside a World War I trench and found it to be much like a small city. We studied bombs and airplanes and talked about the roles of our grandparents and great grandparents in various conflicts. We tried to make up a year's wardrobe using ration coupons. Dad's supply list equalled 56 coupons--16 more than the 40 allowed, but Mom was positively profligate at 90. The Olivia took a turn and to her horror racked up a whopping 99, forcing her to return more than half of her "essentials" We learned sobering things about the Kaiser and Hitler, the Tsar and Stalin, the Holocaust, Germany, Russia and the Cold War. When we got home tonight, Olivia asked, "Dad, why do people make wars anyway?" Not knowing what else to tell her, I told her that wars are about taking power or defending yourself against people who want to take power from you. She sniffed contemptuously and said, "Wars are stupid. We should just have peace." Can you really disagree?

Fun and Games

As I write this, my 3-year-old and 5-year-old are in their room. It involves two bath towels laid end to end across the room with a gap in the middle and on both ends. The object as near as I can tell is for one to patrol while the other one looks for an opportunity to race through the gap or around either end. If the runner is caught, she is shoved back to the other side of the towel with force and glee. The name they have given this game is "Berlin Wall." It would appear that today's trip to the Imperial War Museum was not entirely lost on their young and impressionable minds. I am never sure as we drag little girls through one museum and historical site to the next whether all this (or any of this for that matter) is sinking in. Then they play games like the one they invented tonight, and I think perhaps we aren't wasting our time after all. I had a similiar experience two days ago in Portsmouth. As we strolled around the harbour, we observed a shallow slip in which some small watercraft. Cecily, ever-observant, looked over the rectangular, stone walled enclosure and asked, "Did Romans bathe there?" Indeed, something is processing in those little heads.

Finally, A Slow Day

All was quiet today after Linda and Bill departed for the airport about 10, accompanied by Laura and Olivia to send them off. There were reportedly tears on all sides. Meanwhile, at home, Scott and the little girls undertook some needed domestic chores, including shopping and housecleaning. After the hyperactive pace of the last few weeks, everyone needed a break. When Laura and Olivia returned home, Olivia set out to finish neglected homework (Yes, Olivia, I KNOW it's Saturday) while Laura studied for her final in her wine class Monday. The little girls watched cartoons while Scott headed for the laundromat, dragging a suitcase stuffed with sheets and towels. In many ways, it was just as well we stayed at home. Not only are many of the major tube lines down for maintenance this weekend, but the weather is absolutely gorgeous--the best we've seen since arriving here. As a result, enormous numbers of groundhog-esque Britons came out of their holes today and took to the streets and sidewalks. Although London streets are always busy, I think there were two or three times as many people about as usual today. I can't even imagine what places like Covent Garden must have been like today. For us, we were just glad to bask in the sunshine, the blissful pigritude of having nowhere in particular to be and the pleasure of each other's company.

Olivia's Journal: Paris

Wednesday, I went to Paris. I cidn't see the eiffel tower, thou. We took a train--as Cecily calls it, The Big Choo Choo. It goes under the ocean, but all you could see was black walls. Then, when we got there, we rode on the thing called the Metro. First we went to the Roman roons (ruins). It was very fun. We saw lots of things. My favrit part was the part where if a bilding fell down then they bilt on top so it just kep getten biger and biger. Then we went to Notre Dame. It had the most pretyest stain glass I've ever seen. There was a praticyalar two that I liked . One was called the flower. (The rose window, shown at right.) It was this big colorful flower. My other favred was a disine (design). Next we had lunch. Me and my sisters shared a spageti. Me and Cecily had hot chocolate. Man, that stuff was GOOOD. Then we went to the Arc de Triomphe. If you wnted to go under it y0ou have to pay. The Arc de Triomphe is to celabrate all napoleon's battles. Then we went to Luxembourg (Gardens) and got to choose a pony and rode it. Then I got to ride aon a carisell. Last we went to Montmartre and took the funicular up. We saw lots and lots of smog. But we had a butiful look over Paris. Then we inside a cothydroll. Then we went on the funicular agin ,russed back and went hom all in one day.

Farewell to Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill

Today was Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill's last in London. We celebrated with pub food in Portsmouth, where we were pleased to discover that once you get outside London, people actually talk to you! This stands in stark contrast to the city itself where if you lay dying on the street most people would step around or over you while hurrying to their next destination. On the way home on the train, Linda and Bill went out of their way to thank us for the hospitality at our little B&B, telling us that acronym now stands for Blood & Blisters. Considering that we've seen all the major sites of London, tramped over Tower Hill for a day, gone to Paris, walked all over Greenwich and taken the train to Portsmouth, all on a limited breakfast, fast lunch and late dinner, that's probably pretty accurate. Oh well, at least people who visit us can't complain they sit around the house all day and don't see anything!

A Voyage To Portsmouth

Today, we took a train to Portsmouth on the southern coast of England--a tube and train ride of about two hours. It was an absolutely beautiful day to see the English countryside and to enjoy on the coast. Portsmouth's claim to fame is that it is the center of English naval history and tradition, with about two-thirds of the British fleet based there. More importantly, from a tourism perspective, it has several permanently moored ships, which were high on Scott's list of "must see's" for this trip. The star of the show is the HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship which led the fleet to victory at Trafalgar. Very regrettably, it allows only a limited number of visitors, and the weather brought out the tourists and we were too late in arriving to get a ticket. We did, however, get to walk through the HMS Warrior, the largest, finest ship of the British Victorian navy, and we toured the wreck of the Mary Rose--Henry VIII's pride and joy and the only intact 16th century warship in the world. It is presently being conserved having been raised from teh ocean bottom after more than 400 years along with its 19,000 artefacts (so far). It is incredibly fragile, and can only be viewed behind glass at this point, but you can easily see the outlines of the giant and impressive ship it once was. Further, much of what was recovered from the ship offers a rare glimpse into Tudor times that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. By no means did we see all of what Portsmouth has to offer. A trip through the Trafalgar Gallery, the Naval Museum and the Victory plus a Harbour Tour would have been wonderful but there simply wasn't time. If you're ever in the vicinity, this place is definitely worth the stop.