“What, so soon?” you may be asking. “I mean, you only have the entire summer and then four more months after that to spend with the little darlings, right?”
In fairness (to me), that’s probably just the jet lag talking, combined with tiredness after another go-go-go day, which included too much time stuffed into underground trains.
It started off with the phone ringing when we were sound asleep. I rolled over and figured it was not for me. Then it rang a second set of times, then a third, and finally on the fourth, I got up, walked upstairs and asked my son Andrew, who was awake and lying right next to the phone, the obvious question. “I didn’t want to wake you up, Dad.” To which I replied, “And what am I now?” (And I wonder why my kids are so sarcastic.) Looking out the window just then, I say Patrick, our ‘landlord,’ standing outside the window with a pleading look on his face. He was going on a trip, and had forgotten his passport, and felt terrible about waking us up, even though it was about 8 and time for us to get going.
The weather has been great so far, cool and partly cloudy, and today was even better, sunny and fresh with puffy small white clouds. We ate breakfast and took our time getting out, deciding to start by going on the riverside walk on the south bank of the Thames, from the London Eye to the Tower Bridge. First cool sight: coming up from the underground into the Waterloo Station, a large rail terminal, a scene you don’t see in the U.S.
From there we walked toward the London Eye, a huge ferris wheel. We toyed with the idea of going up, but the lines convinced us that a non-weekend day would be better. There was, however, a spended view of Big Ben and the Parliament buildings across the river, a classic London shot.
At this time, everyone was still feeling pretty refreshed from a relatively good nights’ sleep. Because the day before we’d waited too long to eat lunch and crashed in the mid-afternoon, we stopped at a relatively inexpensive cafe, which turned out to be a great deal, with huge lattes and excellent hot calzone-type sandwiches. Full stomachs made us all happy.
Shortly after this, there were a series of military aircraft flying overhead in various formations. We later learned that it was the Queen’s birthday, and this was part of both the “review of the troops” she does each year and a celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Royal Air Force. Then things started heading downhill. Andrew was suffering from a common ailment affecting travelers, and began feeling very unwell. We stopped for a while in the courtyard (if you could call it that, it was a un-scenic concrete square) of the Tate Modern Art Museum to let him rest, while Will and I took advantage by going into the museum for a fifteen minutes (he definitely didn’t get it, while I found much of it visually interesting, if weird). The break didn’t help poor Andrew; he got more and more uncomfortable and run down, and while we forced him along the walk for as long as he could go, we finally gave in and told him that one of us would take him home.
Along the way, there were good views of London across the river, and Suzie I did get to walk halfway across the Millinium Bridge.
I chose to take Andrew back home, and agreed to meet Suzie and Will in the Covent Garden area at about 4 pm, which I almost made. For some reason the underground was packed both ways, and the walk to and from our place near Stockbridge Station seemed even longer than normal. After riding back to meet Suzie and Will, I came up from the station to see something you wouldn’t see in Sonoma County, but might see in SF, a Naked World Bicycle Ride. This picture is the tamest one of several I took. People look much better with their clothes on, in my opinion.
By this time, it was crash city. I give you a picture of Covent Garden (and a cute one of Will and Suzie) below because it is cool, but I don’t really remember it. Even the second coffee didn’t help, and the horribly crowded train on the way back (literally pressing up against the bodies of my fellow passengers) plus having to go grocery shopping and then walk back to our place on foot, plus my aching feet, plus my demanding sons, plus my growling stomach, put me (and everyone else, I think) in foul, foul moods, which Suzie’s excellent stir fry dinner did but little to ameliorate.
It’s probably not as bad as I’m making it out to be. We are having fun, but it’s starting to wear a bit. Tomorrow we are traveling on the train to Warwick Castle, to meet the folks who are going to be renting our place in Santa Rosa, so maybe it won’t be physically quite so hard on us.
Categories: Travel -- London