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 Beckie amused herself by taking pictures of various London icons and we talked to the very cold woman in front of us, who was 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 (Whoopi and Patrick Stewart, Dame Edna, Jackie Chan, Steven Spielberg, and Mel Gibson) and historical figures (Queen Elizabeth I, and Lady Diana).
From there we went around the corner to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street, pausing at the tube station to get shots of the statue there and a charming young man drumming up business with a very good impression of the Great Detective. I had been to the museum 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. There are also a few little scenes arranged with waxworks to recall moments from the various mysteries. 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 up and down the Thames and across London was very good, although it did get 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 could look right across the river into the very modern Charing Cross railroad station and peek through St. James Park to see Buckingham Palace.
We were glad we'd gotten a cab to get tp the Eye 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. We got some lovely views of St. Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the replica of Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind, and the Tower.
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 based 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. Unbeknowst to anyone, judging from the huge lines that are always out front of the main ticket office, it is possible to buy tickets for the Tower from the Underground. So we stopped at the Tower Hill station, where Beckie found the History of London sundial and the statue of Emperor Trajan in front of a section of the old Roman wall. Beckie's main interest at the Tower was the carefully guarded Crown Jewels, but it was also fun to see the main courtyards and the Traitors' Gate and take a picture with the Beefeaters. We saw some of the famous ravens and enjoyed the view of Tower Bridge from the steps of one of the several buildings in the complex. From the Tower 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. While we waited Beckie told everyone the story about getting yelled at for climbing on the statue of Victoria the last time she was in London. We watched the band head out down the Mall followed by a batch of carriages and the cavalry on the way to their changing ceremony at the Parade Grounds. 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. Our spot turned out to be very good, since it put us quite close to the gates and we had a clear view of the companies arriving, as well as all the marching and formations on our side of the palace, through the fence. We could also watch the bobby controlling the crowd and the guards watching the gates themselves when they were opened to let the carriages pass through. We were somewhat jealous of the members of the Scotch Guard and a few civilians who came out of the palace to watch the ceremony.
The whole thing lasted about an hour. Once we'd seen them all march out again, we turned and headed around back of the palace 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. The entryway is adjacent to the training ground where two grooms were working with a gorgeous black horse who only wanted to look in the mirrors down at the end. It was nifty to see the carriages that Diana and Charles used in their wedding and the astonishing Gold State Coach that looks like a painted ormolu clock on wheels and requires four pairs of horses--ridden by postillions and led, rather than driven--to pull its weight. Other highlights included the Australian state coach, with its unusual coat of arms, and the charabanc presented to Queen Victoria by King Louis Phillippe of France. We we just finishing up our tour when the carriages we'd seen that morning returned home, all closed up.
Beckie's foot had enough by that point, so we hopped on the tube at Victoria and came home for a nap. Later we went to Sainsbury's for a couple of hours so B. could see all the strange and different stuff. Deciding to have an evening at home, we ate paella and 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 mneumonics--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. We had thought to eat at the Cafe Diana, with its walls covered in photographs of the late princess, but it was packed when we arrived. 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 and geese around 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.