At Home in London with Beckie

[lillibet]

Beckie and I have had a fun, busy week.

After arriving from Heathrow, we spent the rest of Saturday hanging out
here, looking at pictures from my wedding and various trips, and having
Chinese food delivered. Anne had sent a package with B. for a woman in
Oxford and she came by briefly in the evening to collect it. B. was
jetlagged and I was pretty tired, too, so it was nice to have some quiet
time to recover.

On Sunday it was raining, so we went to Madame Tussaud's. The queue there
was longer than I had seen it before, but we passed the hour in line talking
to the couple in front of us, who were from Sacramento and making a stop in
London before heading to India. Finally we were inside, where there were
changes, as always, but mostly the same figures I had seen before. Beckie
enjoyed it and we took lots of pictures of each other with the various
celebrities.

From there we went around the corner to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker
Street. I had been before, so I sent Beckie upstairs alone while I checked
out the pub next door and waited in the gift shop. The museum is set up to
mimic Holmes' rooms at Mrs. Hudson's and do a good job of it. Beckie agreed
with me that the best part is walking up the front stairs--one has the
feeling that one has been there many times before. When she came back down,
Beckie had an amusing tale to tell: another vistor asked the docent in the
sitting room if she were Mrs. Hudson--Holmes' landlady--to which the docent
replied "Are you Russian?" The vistor, very startled, admitted that she was
Russian and the docent explained that Russians always ask her that, but no
one else does. Mrs. Hudson must be very popular in Russia somehow.

Beckie found me on the settee in the gift shop, reading a collection of
Sherlock Holmes stories--I figured I might as well re-read them, since it
had been years and my greatly increased familiarity with London has let me
enjoy them all the more.

Leaving the museum, we tried the pub on the corner, The Volunteer, which
provided us with a tasty lunch. B. had their sausage & mash with wonderful
gravy, while I took the fried fish appetizer and the bacon & cheese potato
wedges instead of the traditional fish and chips. It was all quite
good--possibly the best pub lunch I've had.

It was still raining and a cab came around the corner just as we left the
pub, so we hailed it and jumped inside for a quick trip to the National
Portrait Gallery. As my understanding of English history expands, it is
ever more interesting to see the faces of its characters and we spent a good
two hours there. By the time we were done, Beckie's foot was starting to
complain. We walked through Leicester Square to Picadilly Circus, and stopped
briefly at the Virgin Mega-store there before hopping on the tube for home.
We took naps and checked our email and then I made fried chicken and
summarized for Beckie the English monarchy from Edward the Confessor through
Queen Anne. I've finally gotten into my head how the later Stuarts were
related and how the transfer to the Hanoverian kings came about.

Monday dawned bright and clear, so we started off the day at the London Eye,
the world's largest Ferris wheel at 135 meters. The gondolas are enclosed
pods with glass all around and a bench in the middle. The view was very
good, although it did get a hazy toward the outskirts of the city and the
ring of brown pollution was very apparent. Big Ben was looking especially
fine, with its gilt edges and the filigree on the clock face shining in the
sun.

We were glad we'd made it there early, as the ticket line was easily ten
times as long when we left as when we arrived. We hopped on The Original
Bus Tour at their London Eye stop and listened to their recorded tour as the
bus wound its way through the city past most of the popular landmarks. We
got off the bus at Westminster, the last stop before returning to the London
Eye, and visited the abbey. As always, the best part for me is the fan
vaulting of the Henry VII Chapel. We had sandwiches from the cart in the
cloister and then walked through the nave and out the west door, with its
collection of 20th-century martyrs over the door. The gift shop had
low-priced framed prints of various London views and I got a couple of them
for our guest room that will remind us of our time in London when we are
Stateside again.

Leaving there we took the tube one stop back to the Embankment and boarded
the river cruise that was included in our bus ticket. For an hour we
chugged down the river past the Houses of Parliament and then turned back
and went as far as Tower Bridge before returning to the dock. The taped
commentary wasn't particularly inspiring, but it was nice to sit for an hour
and to see the city from that perspective.

From the pier we walked up to Covent Garden and had a drink before splitting
up. I had arranged with Dave LaMacchia to meet at my flat at 7pm, but had
left him messages to call my mobile if possible and he caught me on my way
to the tube. We agreed to meet at Brown's, not far from Covent Garden, and
I returned to find Beckie in the market. We strolled through the shops and
stalls until they closed at 7pm and then wandered over to sit in the bar at
Brown's until Dave arrived, just at eight. The three of us had a lovely
meal. Starters were buffalo mozzarella for Dave, prawns seared with garlic
for B. and the duck liver parfait for me. I convinced everyone to order
pies for our mains, so B. and I had the chicken & leek one, while Dave tried
the steak, mushroom and Guinness one. Then we split a sticky toffee pudding
before splitting up. It was great to see Dave and to catch up on his life
and news of friends and impressions of the changes in the Bay Area since we
left. We were very sorry not to meet his girlfriend, Jenny, especially once
I figured out that she went to high school with Jason. It turns out that
the two of them also know Jason's best friend, Todd. More proof of the
world's limited dimensions.

Tuesday was less busy. We had hoped to see the changing of the guard at
Buckingham Palace ("They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace.
Christopher Robin went down with Alice."), but it was raining and we were
running late, so we went to Harrod's and wandered through their upper floors
for a while before visiting their renowned and astonishing food halls.
Gilly has called this "the Louvre of food halls" and she is right on the
mark. It consists of five rooms. One has the butcher's and fishmonger's
sections, with counters in the corners serving raw oysters and cooked fish.
The fruit & veg section in the next room has the most enormous produce I've
ever seen...blackberries longer than the first knuckle of my thumb and
grapes an inch in diameter. There's also a lovely florist's here. Another
room houses the bakery and a huge section of packaged biscuits. The fourth
room was our destination, with the charcuterie, cheeses, pates and prepared
foods sections. We passed up the sushi bar in the corner and chose small
amounts of a few treats: pork liver mousse with truffles, duck liver mousse
with mushrooms, prawns in a dill and garlic cream sauce, mozzarella and
tomatoes in pesto, young Gouda, oakwood-smoked Cheddar, and a half-pound of
the first rare roast beef for sandwiches that I've seen for sale here. The
last room houses the chocolates, coffees and patisserie and Beckie decided
that we needed a cake, so we chose the raspberry Charlotte, with its sponge
base topped with raspberry mouse and crowned with a layer of fresh
raspberries and currents.

We came back to the flat and noshed on all our goodies, saving the cake for
later. We napped for a bit, changed our clothes and took the bus down to
the West End to see _Mamma Mia!_. I enjoyed it so much when we saw it with
Carol & Scott in July and I knew that B. would love it. The cast was
slightly different, for better and worse, but it's a great show and we had a
marvelous time. We were especially amused by the announcement just before
the overture warning those of a nervous disposition that the show does make
use of white lycra and platform boots. After the last chorus of "Waterloo"
we ducked around the corner to Y Ming for a lovely Chinese meal of hot &
sour soup, fried dumplings, "Mr. Edward's pork" and Ti Shieng lamb, all of
which was excellent. It was late when we got home, but the Charlotte in the
fridge was calling to us, so we had small slices of that with a cup of tea
before bed.

After that late night, I let B. sleep in on Wednesday morning, which gave
the sun time to burn through the clouds of the night before. I made
scrambled eggs with ham and some of the smoked cheddar cheese and that was a
good combination.

We started our day at the Tower of London. Beckie's main interest there was
the Crown Jewels, but it was also fun to see the main courtyards and the
Traitors' Gate. From there we went up to St. Paul's Cathedral. Just across
the street is a Dome Cafe, one of a small chain I've enjoyed in the past.
Their soup of the day was a wonderful garlic potato which I had with a small
Caesar salad, while Beckie tackled their club sandwich with grilled chicken,
bacon, lettuce and tomato. We wandered through the imposing depths of
St. Paul's, visiting the tombs and memorials of such luminaries as the Duke
of Wellington, Joshua Reynolds, John Donne and Christopher Wren, whose
plaque says, in Latin, "Reader, if you seek a memorial to him who rests
here, look around you." The architectures is stunning, but it is so dark
and dingy. There was an explanation of how difficult they have found it to
clean the stone, but they think they've figured out a new method and teams
are working their way around the church now. After the gloriously decorated
churches of Italy, St. Paul's feels very plain, except for the mosaics of
the quire ceiling.

Leaving there we headed back to the flat for a nap and a change and then set
out for the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. It is the oldest playhouse in the
world continuously used as such, or at least the site is. The current
theatre is the fourth in that location, since fire has always been a scourge
of the West End. Their current show is Trevor Nunn's production of _My Fair
Lady_, which transferred from the National Theatre this summer. The role of
Henry Higgins is played by Jonathan Pryce and he is marvelous. Sadly, while
Martine McCutcheon did a passable job as Eliza, she failed to really engage
us and had a tendency to display "upset" by talking ever higher and faster,
making her seem whiny and incomprehensible. The production had several bits
that were meant to be interesting, but didn't really work. The dance break
in "A Little Bit of Luck" included a Stomp-like percussion section with
dustbin lids and tin bowls that lacked interesting rhythms. The
choreography in general was highly stylized and simplistic, with no
break-out moments of virtuosity to entertain us. Most puzzling, they'd
changed the traditional black-and-white costumes of the Ascot scene to all
black, which doesn't make sense and made the scene play like a funeral.
Pryce was left to carry the whole thing on his shoulders, making me feel sad
for anyone who catches a performance by his understudy. But all my
criticism aside, the music is so wonderful and the emotion Higgins tries to
hide so palpable, that it is impossible not to come away happy and humming.

After the show we had dinner at Chez Gerard in Covent Garden. I started
with delicious seared scallops, served with a bed of warm vegetables in a
balsamic vinaigrette. Beckie had the delicious escargot and then we both
had the "Plateau Carnivore," a mixed grill of cherry tomatoes, chicken
breast, veal sausage, lamb cutlet and a tiny slice of beef fillet, served
with bearnaise sauce and the garlic mashed potatoes we'd requested instead
of the usual pommes frites. All the meat was tasty, although the lamb had
more sinew and gristle than was really pleasant. It was served on a round
cutting board on top of the kind of "cage" rack often used to serve raw
oysters, whence we transferred it to our plates. The desserts going by had
tempted us, but we still had charlotte in the fridge and leaving after our
mains enabled us to make the tube before it closed.

On Thursday we made a second attempt to see the Changing of the Guard at
Buckingham Palace and were successful. It had rained overnight, but was
quite clear by the time we arrived at the gates. We found a spot right by
the fence next to a couple of pleasant women from Connecticut. We watched
the band head out down the Mall and a batch of carriages follow them. Then
the ceremony began and we watched groups of men in the grey coats and tall,
black, fur hats parade around the forecourt performing mysterious rituals.
The brass band and pipe & drum corps came in, with their ostrich-feather
hats and played several numbers for us, including part of the overture from
_My Fair Lady_. At one point the three horse-drawn carriages we'd seen
heading out returned with occupants and disappeared into the palace proper.

The whole thing lasted about an hour and then we turned and headed around
back to the Royal Mews, the only part of the palace complex open to the
public at this point. In August and September the Queen opens the State
Rooms to tourists while she is at Balmoral in order to defray the costs of
the repairs to Windsor Castle and usually the Royal Collection displays
selected works of art from the Queen's vast array, but that is closed for
renovations in preparation for the Queen's Golden Jubilee next year. The
Royal Mews house the royal carriages and Rolls-Royce Phantoms in addition to
the Cleveland Bays and Windsor Greys that draw the vehicles. It was nifty
to see the carriages that Diana and Charles used in their weddings and the
astonishing Gold State Coach that looks like an ormolu clock on wheels.

Beckie's foot had enough by that point, so we came home for a nap and then
went to Sainsbury's for a couple of hours so B. could see all the strange
and different stuff. Then we came back and I made paella and we watched a
movie.

By Friday we were kind of winding down, making sure we'd hit all of the
places Beckie had wanted to see. We went down to the shop at the BBC
Experience first and got our photos developed at Boots while we were in the
area. Sadly, light seems to be leaking into Beckie's camera somehow, so
there was a ring of glare in many of her shots.

From there we hopped on the tube and went down to Green Park where we walked
past the Ritz to Fortnum & Mason for their Patio Restaurant's "special tea."
This consisted of a pot of Earl Grey and a plate for each of us containing a
"Welsh Rarebit crumpet" (a crumpet topped with toasted cheese and back
bacon), two "Reception Scones" with strawberry jam and clotted cream, and a
slice of shortbread. It was yummy and very filling.

We walked into Picadilly Circus and took the tube up to Leicester Square and
walked up Charing Cross Road, popping into various of the bookstores. I was
sad to see the sign in Silver Moon, the women's bookstore, announcing that
they are closing in a few weeks. In Foyles Beckie inquired about a toilet
and the clerk said that as long as we promised not to buy any books, we
could go across to Border's and use theirs. We laughed and crossed over to
sit in Border's cafe for an hour or so, use their toilet and have a drink.

Then we walked through Chinatown back into Leicester Square, met up with
Barbara and went to Sing-a-long Sound of Music at the Prince Charles
Theatre. That was a hoot. There was more goofing around at the beginning
than strictly necessary, but it was fun to see all the people who had
dressed up for the occasion, including a family with seven kids, all in
Trapp Family costumes. Talking to the mother at the interval, I found out
that she does have seven children, although they had left two boys at home
for the evening and borrowed a couple of extra girls, to make the characters
come out right. There were a number of nuns, a musical scale (complete with
flags for their mnemonics--a deer, a sun, legs running, etc.), and the
Swiss Alps, alive with the sound of music. Then the movie began and we sang
our little hearts out and thoroughly enjoyed the film. We'd thought to get
dinner afterwards, having forgotten that the movie is over three hours
long.

Given the choice between dinner and making the tube before it closed, we
chose the tube. Leicester Square station was a mob scene and we lost
Barbara, but we got onto the first train that came, jammed in with everyone
else. A very friendly, drunk man got between Beckie and I and informed us
that it was his birthday. Beckie got him talking and it turned out that
he's the head chef at the National Portrait Gallery restaurant, so that was
interesting. We noshed a bit when we got home before heading for bed.

I was puttering around on Saturday morning when Pete the Builder showed up
to deal with the smoke alarm. It started doing the dead-battery beeping
ritual while we were in Italy, but Leah couldn't reach it to deal. We tried
when we got home, but it had been painted shut or something, so we stuck it
on the deck, where it beeped for a couple of weeks before I managed to call
the building manager, who came by on Monday to look at it, along with a
couple of other things. He sent Pete around and he thought he had managed
to fix it, but told me to leave the battery out. Of course, it started
beeping again, so I called him back and he said he'd come round again, but
hasn't yet. It's connected to the electrical system, but apparently is only
getting power when the hall light is turned on, so that's what the battery
was for and now we have to leave the light on in order not to be disturbed
by its beeping. Ah, builders.

Once they were out of the way, Beckie got up and we had breakfast, hung some
pictures and headed over to Notting Hill Gate to meet Barbara for lunch. I
dashed down the street to put in another roll of film at a one-hour place
and then we had a lovely meal at the Park Inn, the Chinese restaurant around
the corner from Barbara's that is the source of king prawn fried noodles.
During lunch we got to hear all the details of Barbara's fabulous date on
Thursday. It sounded just perfect and we are now all hoping that she will
hear from this guy again soon.

After lunch we went across the street to Kensington Gardens and visited the
State Apartments and costume collections at Kensington Palace. Queen
Victoria and Queen Mary (wife of George V) were both born there and Diana
lived there from her marriage until her death. They had a wonderful exhibit
of some of the wonderful gowns designed for her by Catherine Walker. After
going all through the public areas, we strolled out into the gardens and
watched everyone skating and cycling and feeding the enormous swans in the
lake.

Hopping on the tube, we came home and made tuna casserole for
dinner--Beckie's request--and scanned in all our pictures. I helped her to
pack all the presents I'm sending and the souvenirs she'd bought into her
big suitcase and we talked and talked until the wee hours. There were lots
of amateur fireworks going off outside--I guess it's the build-up to Guy
Fawkes Day next week.

This morning I made her a special farewell breakfast and then put her in a
cab to the airport. While cabs from Heathrow are outrageously expensive, if
you book them in advance their fixed-rate isn't too bad and with all of her
luggage on top of a bad foot, the tube would be very difficult. And this
way I get an extra two hours in which to clean house in preparation for
Jason's return tomorrow. He will be a very tired puppy, having squeezed a
trip to Idaho into his trip, in order to see his grandmother, who has been
in the hospital, but is now at home again.

It's been wonderful to see first Linda and Beckie and to be distracted from
Jason's absence so pleasantly, but it will be good to all be back where we
belong.