valeriesbookofme

  Richard really wasn't thrilled about going to Windsor despite my assurances that it was the kind of English town with old buildings that he would enjoy seeing and that there would be plenty of places to eat. As I wrote in my earlier post, our hotel at Heathrow certainly doesn't inspire the taste buds, nor is there anything to do around it. Especially not in the pouring rain. So we trudged out in the rain at around 10:00 a.m. and only had to wait about 5 minutes for a bus to the station at Hayes where we caught an Elizabeth Line train to Windsor & Eton. It's the "newest" line on the Underground system although a young man I was chatting to in the carriage said it had taken years to complete. It's very nice though and when we arrived at Windsor & Eton station Richard was charmed. Especially as we were able to find a table at Bill's Restaurant right in the station, which served probably the best breakfast we've had since we've been in London...

  As a friend of mine remarked after reading my blog and remembering her own experiences sleeping at an airport one long ago Christmas: “Just keep thinking of it as an adventure.” An adventure testing what stamina we have left  in our elder years for sure. At least we haven’t slept at an airport (so far, we still have tomorrow to get through.)  I didn’t see Elizabeth at King’s Cross yesterday. After writing my blog and taking a shower, I realized I was not feeling up to socializing. For Elizabeth’s sake as much as mine. I think Elizabeth might have been secretly relieved, she replied that we had looked a bit like the Marley brothers’ ghosts when she saw us on Wednesday—sans clanking chains but I certainly felt like I was dragging as did Richard. I was all for hanging out at the hotel all day but after eating what the hotel had to offer in the way of breakfast, Richard said he was up for going back to Piccadilly and revisiting Hatchard’s for reading material. So we travele...

 No, we aren’t flying home yet; that’s Saturday. We hope. Good thing we aren’t flying Southwest; daughter Laurie and family were meant to fly home from Sacramento yesterday but Southwest cancelled their flight (and about 1,000 others) with no rebooking until January 1st. CJ needs to get home for work so they hired a minivan for their 6 people plus luggage and according to the last update, having driven about 10 hours, they are 2 hours from Phoenix. They will arrive at roughly the same time they would have if they had flown; but they left several hours earlier of course. Traveling at Christmas, yuck. Driving home wouldn’t be an option for us of course :)  Although, R keeps saying that he would rather be taking the Queen Mary back. He’s not looking forward to another grueling 10 hour flight wedged into Premium Economy. I remind myself that the grandparents crossed the Atlantic in a whole lot less comfortable circumstances. I don’t think they would have any sympathy for our compl...

  Christmas Day 2022 was actually very quiet for us. R is still battling the “dreaded lurgy” (a term I picked up many years ago when I lived in England) and so wasn’t able to come with me to the Christmas Day service at St. Mary’s after all. Which was a great shame as the choir was very good. And the sermon touched me deeply. Father Christopher spoke of light, enlightenment, which was symbolic of what the Christ Child brought at his birth. Using Luke’s story of the shepherds, Christopher mused about how it is difficult to appreciate how dark the sky really is when you are in the heart of London. The stars are just faint pinpricks of light. He spoke about how amazed he is when he goes on holiday to a place where there is little artificial light, how endless the stars seem to be and he understands why the ancients called the sky “the Milky Way.” I thought of how lucky I am to live in a place where I do see the stars so very clearly at night and of other places I have lived in—especia...

  I didn’t read the museum websites very well as I didn’t realize that the museums would be closed all Christmas Eve. I thought they might close early but, no, all of them were closed all day. Thankfully, London is wonderful on its own and this morning R and I walked up to High Street Kensington from our hotel. Unlike some of the other journeys where I have consistently underestimated the distance, this time I was right, it was .6 of a mile so R was happy. We saw a church spire peeking above some of the buildings and walked down the street to investigate: The Church of St. Mary’s Abbot actually has the highest church spire in London, 278 feet. But we didn’t learn that until later. Our first impressions, as we walked through a small cloister and into the beautiful nave of the church, was of quiet reflection, space, and the traditional peace we always find in British, Irish and European churches. We walked slowly around, looking at the stained glass, at the plaques honoring those who...

  After we left Waterstone’s Bookshop on Piccadilly, we walked down Regent’s Street, thinking that we might go to Victoria Embankment Gardens. But Richard saw an art gallery and bang went half an hour. Realizing it was already 3 o’clock and the carol concert at St Paul’s was at 4, we walked to the nearest Underground Station. Unfortunately, there was no direct line to St. Paul’s from where we were and then, just as we had transferred at Oxford Circus to the right line, there was an “incident” on one of the Tube lines. Delays began and by the time we reached St. Paul’s, the line had closed for the concert. So all I managed was a very quick video of the bells ringing and the line up for the concert (that’s Richard beginning to say “there must be a thousand people in the line) as well as some obstructed views of the dome: We weren’t sure what to do next. It was still only 4 o’clock so at first we thought we’d head over to Tate Britain, another gallery we had wanted to see. But when we...