A Day of Rest

A Day of Rest

We leave London tomorrow. We have not decided where we are going yet, but yesterday we sent out a number of e-mails checking out accommodations. Ron wanted to go to Westminster Abbey for services at 11:00 am, so that meant we needed to get through our happy meal fast and get on the buses and tubes hoping they are running.

Westminster Abbey is a Church of England (Episcopal) place of worship. Its biggest importance is that it is where the royalty had its coronation. Elizabeth II being the last to process up the aisle to receive her crown and take the vows of monarch to hold the Church of England in the highest regard and accepting no other. A guard stands outside and only lets those in who are coming for the service. We looked pious enough to be allowed through the gates. Actually, I had to hide under Ron’s most pious coattail to get by. The church is lovely inside, but no pictures are allowed. What we would call the church with the altar in front, they called the Nave. Through the Nave and on both sides are choir stands on both sides. The stands or seats are done in rich blue velvet and golden wood that has been beautifully carved. Beyond the choir area there is yet another altar. On either side of the altar are chairs for the congregates. Each of us was given a handout on the order of the service, which included when to stand and when to sit.

The sermon was quite interesting. The priest started out with the story of Snow White. He said that when she was baptized, three fairy godmothers were invited to bestow blessings on her, but the fourth was shunned either accidentally or purposefully. She feeling snubbed placed a curse on Snow White. He went on to make the analogy that we grow up thinking that only good exists, but there is also evil in the world. He said we had to be the godparent to ourselves and not wait for life to be good to us. Of course, he delved into this theme to a greater depth than I have here, but that is the focus.

From the sanctity of the church service, I ran over the Internet café while Ron went to the train station to check schedules. As I was typing away, a porno sight popped up. I immediately closed it and another one popped up elsewhere on the screen. I rapidly closed that one to no avail as another smaller window then appeared with four letter words on it. All of my attempts to close them were fruitless, so I just switched back to Yahoo and kept typing. When Ron arrived, he was sitting next to me and one of the sights jumped to the forefront. He was startled and dumbfounded at the same time. He asked how long that had been happening and I explained since I got there. I did not tell the attendant since she was this young woman and I did not want to be standing there while she viewed the scenes that were plastered on the desktop. When we finished out session, I did close as many as I could and then I did tell her. I did not want someone else to have to deal with this. She came over and of course then they were all gone. No matter how many of the X boxes I clicked on they continued to come from nowhere, but now there was no evidence left to justify my concerns.

One of our sub-hobbies of traveling is collecting Hard Rock Café pins from the restaurants in the cities we visit. London is the mother of all Hard Rock Cafes. This is where it all began, so getting a pin from here was a real coup. From the Internet café we had to take the tube to get close to the Hard Rock. It was raining heavily and again the gusts were beyond normal. The announcer came on the overhead in the tube station declaring an emergency with the tube. It had broken down and would not be arriving for quite awhile. We were strapped for time as Bruce was going to drive over at 6:00 pm to collect us with our luggage to bring to their home for safekeeping. We decided we would have to take a bus and found the correct one, eventually.

The Hard Rock is small. Being the birthplace of a multi-continent business, one would think that it would be huge. It was not disappointing though. We saw memorabilia from the bands we grew up with and of course there was a good amount of Beatle’s things to gawk at. In the dining room, there are screens everywhere with music videos playing. Some were stars and songs we had never heard of, but others were songs we knew and loved from years past. Then one started that we really could have done without. The theme song and video to the Sopranos was the next in queue. Ron had successfully forgotten about the show he loved to watch. This refreshed his memory and his eyes were glued to the screen. His next comment was that he hoped he would be able to find the videos in a video store to keep up with the series and I just silently groaned, hoping this too would pass.

One of the public bathrooms we went into had a sign on the wall “1996/97 Loo of the Year Award”. Somehow we missed the latter year presentations on our television satellite dish system, but the award ceremony must be a real treasure. …And the winner for the most sparkling bowls that are consistently supplied with sufficient paper goes to…. I got to thinking that if they did not win the award since 1997, shouldn’t the sign come down by now? Maybe it is time to rethink bowl cleaner or retire the bowl brush if there is ever going to be a chance of picking up the award again.

The same thing goes for the B & B we are staying in. They have the Pink Paper Award for Outstanding B & B for 1995 and 1996. Did the paper fold after that or did some other more deserving B&B displace them? If the paper folded, they should have yet another sign that says “We may have continued winning, but the paper folded in 1997 and our attitudes soured the same year.” For heaven sakes, if you have not won anything since 1996 and it is now 2001, get over it and take the signs down. Your day of glory has faded and all who stay with you now are certainly not going to vote for you in any positive categories.

We made it back home by 6:00 pm, but we still needed to rearrange our things to leave with Anne and Bruce and then decide what we would need to take with us. More decisions! Bruce came for us at 7:00 and we carted the luggage to their second floor, a chore that reminded us how grateful we were for their generous offer so that we did not have to lug them with us for another few weeks. Bruce was gracious enough to drive us home again. We finally had an early evening in London with me on the computer and Ron reading. It was wonderful to relax. We had covered miles and miles of London on the tubes and buses, but also a huge amount of miles by foot also. We had climbed thousands of steps since not all of the tube stations have escalators and those that do also have steps that need to be climbed. Every sight we went to had steps that needed climbing. Steps were everywhere we went that needed ascending or descending. It was time to put the feet up. I had been doing very well about staying in the moment and not anticipating what was coming next. This is not easy to do. I have always had to make plans and then reassess the plans and make adjustments as things went on. Now, I was just enjoying the moment and not planning the next hour, let alone the next day, week, or month. But we were leaving London tomorrow and we had to make some decisions.

If you want to know where we went, keep reading.

Keep going…

A little farther…

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An Audience with a Queen

An Audience with a Queen

After breakfast, I called Anne and firmed up plans for dinner later this evening. They offered to pick us up at 7:30 pm. That would save us from hunting down buses and possibly getting lost, so that was perfect. It was raining this morning and the forecast was for it to continue on and off all day. That meant the brollies (umbrellas) would have to be close at hand all day.

With our London Pass and travel cards in hand, we were off to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards. I warned Ron that they start to line the gate early to see, though the changing isn’t scheduled until 11:30 am. We had stopped at the Mews, the place where the Queens carriages are kept, but it is only open Monday through Thursday. We knew we would have to return. It started to sprinkle a light mist, but it was welcomed and we did not yet need our umbrellas. When we arrived at the Palace at 11:00 am, I was proven correct and all the good viewing spots were filled three deep with tourists. Ron’s plan B was to stand on the steps of the Queen Victoria memorial directly in front of the Palace, but about 6 dozen people already had that idea too. That is where we perched anyway, he with his video recorder ready for action. The plan was to leave the ceremony at 12:15, fifteen minutes early and beat the rush to get our tickets to the Palace tour. The rain started and was getting to be beyond sprinkles. Our plans were thwarted when at 11:15, people started leaving in droves and we made the assumption that the changing of the guards had been cancelled due to the weather. By 11:23, we were numbers 321 and 322 in line for our Palace tickets, umbrellas in hand and bladders starting to call out for relief. Seven minutes later, the guards started to process down Buckingham Palace Road. Never assume. Ron took off to catch a few minutes on video, but missing the best part, in the Palace courtyard. By the time we reached the ticket office, we were given appointments for 1:30 pm.

We had an hour and a half to find something to do. Not enough time to do anything substantial, we wandered through St. James Park and found the Guard’s Horse House. There are two guards in full regalia that stand without moving in the walkway of the Guard’s Horse House. They do it with pride being of service to the Queen, but the thought of standing in one place for hours while people are staring, cajoling, and snapping your picture sounds like torture. Two others sit stiffly while on horses at the entrance. Amazingly, the horses stay pretty still also, in spite of dozens of people pet the horse’s noses and stand next to them to have their pictures taken. My feet had started to hurt by this time and my ankles were swelling, so I could definitely empathize with the guards as well as the horses.

At 1:15, we decided we had better get in line for the tour of the Palace, but one of the guides told us we would have to come back at precisely 1:30. That meant that aching feet had 15 minutes to find relief prior to two hours of standing and walking. We found the children’s park across the street from the palace and planted ourselves there trying to get some relief.

When we started the tour, we had to go through a major security check, then walk through all of the gift shops to get to the opening of the palace. What can I say about the inside that we were able to see? I have seen more ornate in France and Germany. The outside of the palace is definitely not an architectural wonder, but it was build by and from Lord Wellington, not the royal family, so that is understandable. Inside, one would expect more. I think I was underwhelmed more due to the simplicity of it rather than the extravagance of it. The colors were really rather dreadful with red and pink being overdone. I am not sure if the pain I was feeling was clouding my judgment, but the best room was the theater where you could sit and watch a movie on Elizabeth’s coronation. I stayed for three viewings. It was a short movie. The tour was one of those things that you are glad to say you have done once in your life, but once is enough, for this palace anyway. I still want to see Kensington and Windsor Palaces.

After the tour, we took the bus to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It started out as a Catholic Cathedral, but was taken by Henry VIII for the Church of England. By the time we reached there, it was too late to use our London Passes for whatever tours were covered, but we were able to see enough to satisfy us without feeling a need to return. I had been here before in 1983, but this was Ron’s first time.

We decided to take a bus for a change and walked down the street from St. Paul’s. We found a nice wine shop and bought a bottle of Gallo Turning Leaf label of wine for Anne and Bruce for dinner. As we were leaving there, we spotted a pub called Bell, Book and Candle. Some of you may remember the movie by the same name with Kim Novak, Ernie Kovaks, Jimmy Stuart, and Elsa Lanchester. This was one of my favorite movies for years, so we decided we needed to explore this pub further. It bills itself as the spookiest pub in London. It is done in a real Halloween type theme on both the street level and the downstairs bar. When I went and ordered two espresso coffees, the barmaid said she would have to call downstairs to put the order in. Just as we made cozies with our seats, she came back and said “Sorry, we are closed.” We thought that was bizarre as it was only 5:00 pm, but we left anyway. It would give us time for a nap before dinner.

Bruce came for us at 7:30 pm and took us home. Bruce is a psychiatric nurse and has just accepted a new position as a manager at a new hospital. His specialty is adults, but he just passed the qualification for children also and is now working with children. Anne is a therapist and has been teaching. She is currently finishing her doctorate as she continues to teach. It was lovely to see a London home first hand. We seem to migrate to kitchens so that is where we started and we never left the kitchen that evening until it was time to leave.

We started with a delightful platter of two types of marinated onions. We had never had either and both were real taste treats. Anne said they are typically British, but not like anything we had ever had in the States. There were cheery tomatoes from their garden which were ruby red and full of flavor, green olives that were marinated with sun dried tomatoes, and marinated mozzarella balls. Bruce had made a Moroccan lamb dish that made our mouth continually discover new flavors with each bite. Two of the more unusual spices he used were sumac and dried lime. It was served over rice and of course we had to have two servings to show how much we appreciated his hard work. Actually, two servings were needed to satisfy our desire to maintain the tastes in our mouths for awhile longer.

Dessert was a wonderful mix of assorted cheeses, a few of which we had never had sampled before, so that was another taste treat that we would never have had left to our own devices. With the wine we had all consumed, it was the best option that after a lively night of sharing food and good conversation, that we take a cab home. This is another example of people’s generosity and caring to nurture new friendships and we were fortunate enough to be the beneficiaries for two nights in a row.

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