England 2018

“I nodded off somewhere over where the Titanic went down.”

After an uneventful drive, we arrived at O'Hare and, after a little difficulty finding F or G lots, ended up parking in E. A shuttle that we thought was going to take us to the terminal train ended up taking us right to the terminal. The security line was crazy long but more staff arrived and it started to move more quickly. This was the first day of the U.S. Government shutdown and the long lines may (or may not) have been the first indication of the attendant staffing difficulties.

Paul and I stopped at one of the restaurants in our concourse for a couple of pints and a bite to eat. The ten-dollar beers were, amazingly, the only sticker shock I had on the trip. I had a thrill of dread when an announcement was made that "maintenance issues" were to delay our flight for at least an hour. Fortunately, the issue, whatever it was can't have been too serious (vomit, as opposed to Pitot Tubes?) and we boarded within 90 minutes of the original time. I was excited about the aircraft, one of the newish Boeing 787 Dreamliners. "Dreamliner?" I'd be the judge of that. I usually can't get much sleep on planes - I was hoping that there'd be at least a decent movie selection. The interior was pretty cool - all curvy surfaces and color-changing mood lighting. The seats were miniscule, but we were in a weird, two-seat-wide window group and had a little more leg room.

Takeoff and the beginning of our long, great-circle arc over the North Atlantic towards Europe. We were thrilled to find that the seatback entertainment screen featured a fun flight-tracker and hundreds of movies, recent and classic. I picked "The Man Who Invented Christmas" - a sort of "Shakespeare in Love" treament of the development of "A Christmas Carol" featuring Downton's Dan Stevens (oh, the hair, the hair!) as Charles Dickens. It was fluffy, fun, and forgettable. I nodded off somewhere over where the Titanic went down.

After getting two or three hours of sleep in dribs and drabs, I woke up to see the horizon lightening behind the upswept port wing of the 787. As we passed over Ireland, the sun came up in a blaze.

Excitement built as we threaded the labyrinth of corridors at Heathrow on the way to passport control. After a visit to the facitilies in order to release some pent-up emotion, we joined a long, winding, but quickly moving queue to have our passports examined. Monitors overhead showed beautiful views of English castles and tourism sites. Thoughts of the Brexit debacle gave them, to my mind, a somewhat desperate edge. I reflected on the woeful state of both our countries' governements and how paranoid, anti-immigrant rhetoric got us all there. A bemused passport control officer queried me about my birthplace (northern Nigeria) - "Ever been back there?" he asked. We saw our bags as we approached the carousel (a good omen) and we made our way up and out onto a plaza outside the terminal. After a Charlie-induced detour, we found the transit center and started following signs for the tfl (Transport for London) local train to Paddington. At the entrance to that part of the complex, we were informed by staff that all rail service to Paddington was suspended and that we'd have to take either a cab or the Tube. Argh. Travel website descriptions of the scorn tube riders had for travellers with luggage immediately came to mind, but there was no helping it. We bought our Oyster cards at a kiosk and struggled onto a train. We wedged ourselves into a standing area at the back of one of the cars. From the route map on the wall of the car, I made the happy discovery that we didn't have to change trains - the train we were on would take us directly to the Gloucester Road stop which was closest to our hotel. A succession of rather sad suburbs flicked by - grimy windows with curtains askew, television aerials and satellite dishes, industrial parks. Mercifully few people boarded the train at the many stops en route. Finally, the train dove underground and we rattled on in the darkness.

At Gloucester Road we emerged into a grey, late morning. My navigational errors in Rome were, thankfully, not repeated and I led us confidently along a Google-Streetview-rehearsed route to our hotel which was only a block or two away. We learned at the desk that our room was already available so we trooped upstairs and deposited our bags in our home-from-home for the next four days.

“Brooding over the scene is a white marble statue of Darwin...”

Again, thanks to Heidi for fixing us up with rockin' accommodations. Our hotel was literally around the corner from the Natural History Museum which was our first destination. As our arrival day (the 23rd) was going to be the only day in which the museums and major tourist destinations were going to be open, we had to fit in a lot. Paul had purchased tickets in advance for a special exhibit in the museum: "Life in the Dark". After walking a circuitous path to the main entrance past a carousel and skating rink, we entered the amazing Hintze Hall and asked the way to the special exhibit.

I found the format of the exhibit to be interesting. There was a much greater focus on actual specimens than there would have been (I think) in an American display. Each area dealt with a different taxon (if that's the word I want) of nocturnal animals and in each case, there were preserved specimens (in jars of spirit, taxidermy, etc.) featured. It felt as though the other materials, printed words, projected video, models, etc., were all in support of the specimens. The exhibit was wonderful - there was some amazing footage of owls and bats, an intriguing lighting display supporting the section on undersea bioluminescence, and a fantastic sculptural installation depicting the ceiling of a bat cave. This last consisted of simple folded sculptures of bats hanging from the ceiling illuminated by animated strobe lighting that gave them the illusion of movement.

On exiting the exhibit, we made our way back to Hintze Hall by way of a lower-level toilet and cafe area. (I find it refreshing that the Brits dispense with euphemism when describing the facilities.) Hintze Hall is truly amazing. I'd been there with the family back in 2001 - Paul hadn't been as it wasn't on our itinerary when we were here with the family in 2005. The romanesque revival building is decorated in terracotta tile and brick and features sculptures and paintings of natural subjects, birds, foliage, etc. The centerpiece of the hall is a blue whale skeleton which replaced a diplodocus skeleton which had been in place during our last visit. It's an awe-inspiring place. Paul and I drifted along, climbing the stairs, taking photos, taking it all in. The relief sculptures, the wall paintings, the stained glass windows make the space a visual feast. Two levels of galleries served by the grandest of staircases allow one to see the room from every conceivable angle. Brooding over the scene is a white marble statue of Darwin located on the landing at the far end of the room.

After wandering the hall for a while, we made our way through the throng to the ocean life hall. I'd wanted to see that exhibit again for sentimental reasons - it's one of my clearest memories from the 2001 trip. Graham was around 8 years old and I remember experiencing the space, with its suspended whale models and skeletons, partly through the wonder that he showed. On our visit, the place was CRAZY crowded. Paul and I squeezed our way up the stairs onto the upper viewing level and looked at the exhibits along the walls and hanging in the cavernous space.

I think it was at about this time that I began to feel the effects of jet lag. Paul and I decided to perk up with coffee and a snack in the museum cafe, after which we left the building to walk down the block to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“...from high-waisted regency gowns to wild, geometric designs from the Swinging Sixties...”

It's regrettable that we didn't have more time to spend in the museums that day. Again, it was the only day they were going to be open and we'd lost time because of the flight delay and transit shutdown. Still, I'm glad we had the opportunity to spend as much time as we could at both institutions. On entering the V and A, we turned right into the Medieval and Renaissance gallery and walked among the sculptures, architecture fragments, and stained glass windows. Wandering through the labyrinth of halls, we came upon a large courtyard and stepped outside to enjoy the sunset light on the facades. I'm grateful that we happened on the fashion exhibit in our wanders - I'd had the idea that it was one of the signature exhibits of the institution. It was enjoyable to look at fashion through the ages, from high-waisted regency gowns to wild, geometric designs from the Swinging Sixties. The costumes are beautifully displayed on mannequins in settings appropriate to the period.

After leaving the museum, we embarked on a previously discussed mission to visit the Geox shoe store in Kensington. Making our way north toward the park, we passed the Science Museum and then an institution with a familiar-looking statue of Jesus behind its glass facade. The figure's open-armed pose rang a bell, and when I saw that the building was a Latter Day Saints church, I remembered seeing a statue of the same design at the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. We walked past the Royal Albert Hall, our destination for later in the evening, and passed Kensington Gore, a neighboring street which, as I'd learned recently, gave its name to a recipe for stage and movie blood popular in the 60s and 70s. Turning left at Queen's Gate, we put up our umbrellas against the light rain and walked toward Kensington High Street. The Geox store was right where expected (thank you, Google Maps!). Paul found a couple of great buys, after which we crossed the street to a mini mall containing the tube station and an Asian fast food place. Paul had a curry and I got outside of some sushi at a bar table against the windows through which we watched the pedestrians crossing and recrossing in the rain. Down into the tube for the short ride back to Gloucester Road

“The sounds produced by five or six thousand audiences members was awesome.”

It had occurred to me months beforehand to check and see what was on at the RAH. I bought tickets for the Royal Philharmonic Crimbo Spectacular for the night of our arrival. Leaving time for a drink beforehand, Paul and I made our way up the street to the Hall. I'd been at the Royal Albert Hall once before - on our Chorale trip in 1995, we sang Vivaldi's "Gloria" as part of a massed choir concert. We approached from the South and made our way up the huge flight of steps among trees adorned with fairy lights for the hols. The paper tickets I'd printed out at home back in August were scanned and approved - to say that part of me was surprised speaks to my wonder at being able to learn about something online, purchase tickets, and then turn up at a venue a third of the way around the world and have a barcode provide one with admission. Strange times.

Paul bought us pints at the cafe and we stood at a rail and got outside of them. There was a pleasant atmosphere of holiday hustle and bustle. Having made our way upstairs, I was happy to see that our seats, while high up, weren't behind a column or behind the stage, or anything. There had been a promising preview image of our view on the website, but I wasn't sure I trusted it entirely. As it was, we had a sweeping view of the elliptical auditorium and a good, if somewhat distant, view of the stage. The orchestra was on the floor-level stage and the multiple choirs and instrumental groups were ranked in the levels behind up toward the organ pipes. There were beautiful lighting effects throughout the evening - stars were projected on the architecture and audience followed by falling snowflakes and an animated disco ball effect. The columns and arches of the auditorium were bathed in colored spotlights.

The concert was loads of fun. The host was a comedian and/or TV presenter or something and he worked the crowd well without being overly smarmy. The program was a well-considered mix of traditional holiday favorites, classical pieces, and modern holiday songs performed by a Sinatra-ish guest vocalist. I was struck by how many popular American songs were on the program. The numbers were interlarded with eight or so audience participation carols. The sounds produced by five or six thousand audiences members was awesome. I was complimented on my singing by the father in a (visiting like us?) Asian family sitting next to us. Later in the concert, the host led the audience in the obligatory "Twelve Days of Christmas" relay. Paul and I were in the "four calling birds" section and had to stand and shout our line with our hands held on either side of our mouths. It was during that number that the time delay in the huge auditorium became apparent - each section came in progressively later during the iterations. Before the interval, the host requested submissions of holiday jokes from the audience, some of which were read during the second half. The same thing happened at the pantomime later in the trip and I wondered if it was a British thing. Our final experience with jet lag on the trip came toward the end of the first half of the concert. The air had been getting warmer in our upper section and we found ourselves beginning to nod off. Stepping outside during the interval to gulp down some cold air did the trick and we were revived for the second half.

The concert over, we made our way back down the staircase and out into the night air. We had just enough remaining energy for the short walk back to the hotel. Sleep came VERY quickly.

Click on this icon to see the readout from Paul's fitness app for each day of our trip.

“As Paul put it, "for Charlie, it was Christmas in Heaven".”

After a brief bout of where-the-hell-am-I-ing on awakening, I became very excited about our first full day in London! Paul and I descended the stairs to the lobby and made our way to the dining room for breakfast. The hotel did a very nice breakfast buffet with scrambled eggs, sausages, mini-croissants, and a very good brand of yogurt. The coffee machine wanted a little figuring out - it took these strange pods and made alarming noises. There was jam in little pots - they had blackberry, my favorite.

Back to the Gloucester Road station to catch the tube to the Embankment Station. We walked up Craven Street where we had stayed with my family in 2005. Familiar sights in a strange city. We walked through The Arches walkway as well before making our way up onto The Strand. For once, I nailed it - I made a guess as to which cross-street would take us to the east end of the piazza at Covent Garden - not completely useless. Our first destination was the London Film Museum which is in the first street past the east end of the piazza. I'd scoped it out on Google StreetView but it took a little stumbling around to locate. We'd been waiting for about two minutes with a handful of other people when a staff member emerged to unlock the door. Once again, I marveled at our modern ability to click a few buttons on a website and print out a barcode that admits one to a venue half a world away. It's downright Bondian.

Talking of which, our reason for visiting the London Film Museum was that for the past few years (and the foreseeable future) the museum is entirely given over to the world's largest exhibition of vehicles and props from the James Bond films! As Paul put it, "for Charlie, it was Christmas in Heaven". So true.

The first thing we saw past the gift shop was a staircase going down to below street level. Above the staircase was suspended the "Little Nellie" autogyro from "You Only Live Twice". This was promising. At the base of the stairs were two magnificent Rolls-Royce sedans, from "Goldfinger" and "A View to a Kill" respectively. I'll reassure you right now that I'm not going to describe every single exhibit - perhaps I'll bung a few descriptions into the photo captions - suffice it to say that, without exception, every single object in the exhibit, including the 30-odd vehicles, the props, the costumes, the production sketches, the posters, elicited a gasp of recognition and pleasure. For the next couple of hours, Paul and I wandered through the space, elbowing each other and recalling scenes from the movies. "That's Camille's Ford Ka from 'Quantum of Solace'". "Do you remember when Bond drives through Black Park in that Beemer?" God bless Paul. He know's what a freak I am about the movies and he's so indulgent of my wacky obsession.

The exhibit occupied a series of rooms, all on the same level one below street. It was a fairly low space without long sightlines - an exciting new tableau would suddenly be revealed every time we turned a corner. Behind the exhibits, the interior was fairly nondescript except for one wonderful old cellar with a vaulted brick ceiling. Many of the vehicles were displayed along with mannequins modeling costumes from the associated films and with video clips of the scenes involving said vehicles projected on the walls behind. The Aston Martin Vantage from "The Living Daylights" was shown with its black and yellow striped snow outriggers extended, Kara's bullet-holed cello and case leaning against the wall on which the scene of their escape into Austria was projected.

For a rabid fan of the films, little explanation was needed for any of the items. If I had any issues with the exhibition, it's that there was little or no information about the role of the specific vehicles in each of the productions. Multiple vehicles are used in filming, particularly when the cars are involved in action sequences, as most of them are. It was clear that the two wrecked Aston Martin DBSs were used in the crash scenes from "Casino Royale" and "Quantum", but what was the history of the red Mustang Mach 1 from "Diamonds are Forever"? It had a custom paint job not present in the film which, I'm assuming, was added by some subsequent owner. Was it the actual car used in the two-wheel alley transit? Similarly, what was the provenance of the white Lotus Esprit submarine? Many were used in the film - was this one the fully functioning wet sub or one of the ones used for the transformation closeups? Also, didn't Elon Musk recently purchase the submarine version? Ultimately, I didn't really care. I was content to simply drift and reminisce. When Paul and I had gone through the entire exhibition, we heaved deep sighs... ...and went through it again.

When we finally managed to extricate ourselves, we trudged back up the stairs into the museum shop. I'm a little ashamed to say that I already own most of what was available for sale. We came away with two tea towels and a complete set of Bond movie poster postcards which Paul bought for me and which now are hanging in rows on the wall of my cubicle at my office.

“I think I was secretly hoping our bartender would be reminiscent of Lila Kaye from "American Werewolf" but she sounded Eastern European.”

Up past the London Film Museum again into the Seven Dials neighborhood. I had no idea Seven Dials was so close to Covent Garden (to be honest, I had no idea where it was at all). Our friends Josh and Eliza had recommended to us an Indian restaurant and when I looked it up, found out it was in that part of the city. Unfortunately, Punjab was closed - a gentleman at the door of the restaurant said it was being renovated. Womp, womp. Still, the recommendation led us to Seven Dials and we very much enjoyed exploring the neighborhood. Neale's Yard is a picturesque little courtyard with houses painted in bright colors. The Seven Dials intersection itself is picturesque with its seven streets converging on a monument bearing six sundials. On consulting that fount of knowledge, The Wikipedia, I learned that the original monument was part of a failed attempt at urban renewal back in the 1700s. The current monument is a reproduction - the "seventh" sundial is the column itself. I took a panoramic photo of the intersection from the monument which you can see here.

After exploring, Paul and I ducked into a likely looking pub for a couple of pints and fish and chips. It was our first pub lunch of the trip. The fish and chips were delicious, as was the beer - Brew Dog's Punk IPA. We ordered at the bar and the bartender retrieved our meals from a dumb waiter and delivered them to our table. I think I was secretly hoping our bartender would be reminiscent of Lila Kaye from "American Werewolf" but she sounded Eastern European. Throughout the trip, it seemed that most of the people working in restaurants and pubs were Eastern European. Interesting.

“I liked it better as the British Airways London Eye.”

We had a 3:45 booking for the London Eye. We'd picked the time to coincide with sunset and to allow us enough time to get back over to Somerset House for our ice skating session. We crossed the Thames at Waterloo Bridge and made our way down the stairs onto the South Bank esplanade. Paul split off to find a toilet and I joined the crazily long queue for The Coca-Cola London Eye. Coca-Cola. I liked it better as the British Airways London Eye. Taking a "flight" on the London Eye made sense under BA sponsorship. Coca-Cola made me think of the rotation as being the moiling of one's stomach after drinking same. God forbid it should ever be The Trump London Eye.

The line moved surprisingly fast. Just before we were siphoned off into one of those back-and-forth queues across the walking path, Paul turned up. We waited another fifteen minutes or so and were led into the final section of line before boarding. Paul and I had ridden the Eye on our prior trip in 2005 but were eager to have another go. There's not much I can say about the ride that isn't told by the pictures. We didn't see the sun actually set - it was too overcast, but the light was lovely.

“One didn't need to be a good skater - the ice was far too crowded to do anything but stumble around...”

Back out on the street, blinking against the daylight. I remembered that we needed to pop 'round Somerset House in advance of our evening ice skating session to confirm our booking. Down to the Strand and left - through a fairly discreet pedestrian/vehicle entrance into the vast courtyard of Somerset House. Built on the site of former mansions along the Thames, this government building is now home to the Courtauld Gallery (unfortunately closed for renovations), and part of the University of London, among other things. The courtyard is used for a variety of public events, including outdoor movies during the summer. Over the holidays it's given over to an ice rink. I'd booked a session, but the tickets never arrived in the mail. Ten seconds at the ticket office did the trick and, with tickets now in hand, we explored the courtyard, watched the skaters, admired the lovely Crimbo tree, and set off to explore Seven Dials.

In the evening, after our ride on the London Eye, we arrived back at Somerset House for our ice skating session. While impressive in the sunlight, the courtyard was breathtaking at night. The tree was lit, and the courtyard facades were illuminated with pink and blue floodlights. The letters S-K-A-T-E appeared in white over the facade on the Thames side of the space, adorned with something that I eventually realised was Charlie Brown's diamond kite, a decoration associated with a Charles Schulz exhibit currently on in one of the gallery spaces.

Paul and I checked in, got our skates, and sat down on the benches in the warming hut to lace up. I hadn't been on ice skates in a decade, Paul wasn't sure how long it had been for him, but after a couple of stumbling laps, he began to think that he had perhaps NEVER been on ice skates. One didn't need to be a good skater - the ice was far too crowded to do anything but stumble around, but it was lots of fun and very exciting to move through that amazing space among all the laughing holidaymakers. Paul decided to quit while he was ahead - I stayed on the ice for a few more laps. It was a brief but wonderful activity that, for me, was a defining moment in our London Christmas experience.

“It was while we were standing on the median strip in the middle of Regent Street that Paul was hit by the bus.”

We'd already seen a few beautiful light displays along the Strand and on the South Bank. Making our way once again into the western end of the Covent Garden piazza, we saw a huge metal reindeer sculpture covered in blue lights. Gorgeous. The market buildings were both decorated with enormous bunches of mistletoe with illuminated berries, and massive silver baubles which reflected fish-eye views of the interior. We were both getting a bit peckish and decided to investigate the possibilities. None of the food carts seemed to be open - we'd seen signs for mulled wine and suchlike. One restaurant on the lower level of one of the market buildings was open. "Merry Christmas" only produced an exasperated grimace from the host, who led us (grudgingly, it seemed to me) to a table. No-one appeared for a little while and we decided things were too weird and got up and left.

The only shop that was open was the Moomin Store. We nipped in there for a while and then emerged. Covent Garden's entertainment possibilities exhausted, we started to make our way to Trafalgar Square. At the western end of the market, in front of the neoclassical church, one of those street performers was about to start his bit. The street performances in such places generally seems to involve strangely costumed people pretending to be statues, or unfunny banter accompanied by loud, repetitive snatches of amplified music. This was looking like the latter - we didn't stick around to find out.

The buildings along Henrietta Street were beautifully lit in white. From there, we made our way along a somewhat dodgy street in which we encountered the first of the people who asked us for money. He had an approach suited to the Covent Garden setting - he launched into a song (Paul knew what it was - something from the 80s?) with the words changed to be an appeal for money. It was kind of frightening. As a rule, I don't give money to people in the street and I didn't at all during our trip. It being Christmas Eve made it feel worse not to. Giving because it WAS Christmas Eve would have felt doubly hypocritical somehow. Anyway, we didn't give, and there it is. Bah, humbug.

Service was just beginning or ending at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The entrance was bustling with people as we passed. There was an immense, real tree in Trafalgar Square, covered simply with blue lights strung top-to-bottom. It made a beautiful contrast to the warm, yellow floodlighs on Nelson's Column. We admired the view for a while at the terrace railing and then made our way down to the main level of the square. There was a nativity scene near the base of the column, protected by a rather ugly perspex box that, for me, pretty much negated any aesthetic appeal. A number of young tourists were mountaineering around on the lions - I wanted to shout "get down before you hurt yourselves, you whippersnappers!". Yeah, I'm getting old.

I think I meant for us to check out Leicester Square but we suddenly found ourselves in Piccadilly, which was so crowded, I began to wonder if Crimbo was a "thing". On Peevish, the context sentence for "losing one's face" is "I went to this really great Crimbo and I lost my face.". I'm thinking that maybe Christmas Eve parties have taken on a life similar to the night before Thanksgiving in this country - a time for people to party with friends returning home for the holidays. I don't know. In any case, Piccadilly seemed more Times-Squarified since we were last there. Not only have the iconic neon displays been replaced by high-resolution digital displays, but the base of the Shaftesbury Memorial has been surrounded by them as well. Poor Anteros can be seen peeking up over the top of animated ads and videos for posh luggage. A shame, really.

On to Regent Street for perhaps the most impressive holiday light display I've ever seen. A series of angels made of festoons of lights marched back along the elegant curve of the street. It was while we were standing on the median strip in the middle of Regent Street that Paul was hit by the bus. Alright, not so much hit as nudged. He was holding up his phone to take a picture of the light angels when the rearview mirror of the bus, moving at a walking pace, hit his elbow, knocking his phone out of his hand. No harm done to either elbow or phone, thank heavens.

We proceeded along Regent Street past shuttered Hamley's (womp, womp) and Liberty to Carnaby Street or, at least, a side street that led to Carnaby Street. The neighborhood was celebrated in the form of repeated instances of a light display that formed the words "SO-HO-HO", which I thought was rather clever. Also celebrated was the memory of Freddie Mercury by the words to the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" in multicolored neon script.

Peckish once again (rather, STILL peckish), we started looking for a restaurant and soon found a little Thai place on a narrow street decorated with suspended color-changing globes. The restaurant was busy but we didn't have to wait and were shown to a tiny table JUST inside the door. Several times I held the door for people going in and out, including a large family with strollers and baskets of kid gear. While getting outside of some Thai beer and curry (mine was chicken Panang, delicous!) it suddenly struck me, once again, that it was Christmas - so strange to be on our own, in a different country, away from family.

Paul, after returning from using the toilet, marveled at the apparent nationwide lack of compliance to the ADA (or British equivalent). I saw what he meant when it was my turn - in that restaurant, one had to thread one's way among tightly packed tables to the back of the restaurant, through a narrow doorway, down a precipitous flight of steps, along a narrow corridor to a restroom so tiny that there was barely enough room to open the door without hitting the edge of the toilet.

Before leaving the restaurant, we planned a walking route to a couple of gay bars in Soho. We followed it without difficulty and enjoyed the sight of some more holiday lights on the way (I quite like a spangly "Carnaby" crown hanging over the street). Unfortunately, "The Yard" was closed, or defunct, or something and the crowd in "The Duke of Wellington" was about four deep. We tacitly agreed that we no longer had the energy to try to prolong the evening and started walking in the vague direction of our hotel. After a brief stop in the hedges at the edge of Green Park to "spend a penny", we summoned an Uber in Grosvenor Crescent and were whisked to South Kensington.

Christmas Eve. We lay on the bed in our room channel surfing. Some natural disaster had occurred in Indonesia (I later learned it was the eruption of Anak Krakatau and the resultant tsunami) and we were confused by a foreign language news broadcast of the event. We clicked through scores of channels looking for we didn't know what - the vast majority of stations were in Arabic - perhaps the subscription choices of the hotel management? Christmas Eve ended unceremoniously with a click of the power button on the remote.

Click on this icon to see the readout from Paul's fitness app for each day of our trip.

“I vetoed the idea, being terrified of negotiating London streets on any vehicle.”

I had to keep reminding myself that it was Christmas. This was the first time that either of us had spent Christmas away from one or the other of our families. We didn't exchange prezzies or attend services or (obviously) go to any family parties so there wasn't anything particular in the way of ritual awaiting us that day. Knowing in advance that there would be no public transport available, we'd planned an epic walk from our hotel in South Kensington all the way to Hampstead where we were booked for Christmas lunch. I'd mapped out a route that would take in a number of sites of interest.

Breakfast WAS being served in the hotel that morning. We took a table and helped ourselves at the buffet. On the wall above our table was a TV monitor which had been showing morning news programs the day before, but today was displaying some sort of weird children's program with actors dressed in insect costumes. It appeared to be a video of a stage production and it only occurred to me afterwards that it might have been a pantomime. It was strange and mildly disturbing.

Walking up Queen's Gate, I imagined the scenes behind the windows of the residences on either side - children opening presents, families sitting down to festive breakfasts. I realized to my chagrin that my feet already hurt a good deal from the previous day's walking and I wondered if this was really a good idea. At the end of the street, we crossed Kensington Road and found ourselves facing the Queen's Gate to Hyde Park.

Through the ornate iron gate and into the park. Almost immediately we were confronted by the imposing Albert Memorial. Surrounded by sculptural groups representing British industries, the memorial seems poised for takeoff like a gothic-revival rocket with the gilded Albert as its only passenger. Few people were about - a couple of dog walkers. Paul and I eyed the row of rentable bikes - I vetoed the idea, being terrified of negotiating London streets on any vehicle. We admired the memorial as we passed - the marble figures and gilded fencing stood out against the grey of the morning sky.

On the south bank of the Serpentine we walked past a lovely sculpture of a water bird and then had a look at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain which was, not surprisingly, closed for the Winter. It's an interesting installation - a sort of circular river, by the looks of it. I'd read about some sort of traditional cold water plunge and, looking along the bank, we saw that it was currently taking place in front of a boathouse. Or rather, it was just finishing up. Rather than get closer, we went back to the Carriage Road and crossed the bridge over the Serpentine. Along the north bank we saw some lovely swans and walked along an avenue of trees toward the east end of the park. Turning north, we took a footpath across the middle of the park until we ran into the barrier wall for the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, a temporary amusement park which we'd considered as a possible destination but realized we didn't have time for. Now it served only to impede our progress - we followed the wall around to the right, which turned out to be a mistake as we ended up at Hyde Park Corner at the southeast rather than Marble Arch which is what we were aiming for.

After resting for a few minutes at another closed-for-the-season fountain "Joy of Life", we reached Marble Arch and left the park for the Edgware Road

“...their photographer stepping out into traffic to get the album cover angle and nearly getting run over in the process.”

The Edgware Road promised to be one of our "slogs", and indeed, it was. Researching the route on Google Maps, I tried to minimize the amount of time spent toiling along uninteresting streets and this promised to be one of the less picturesque stretches. The were a large number of Middle Eastern establishments, grocery stores and restaurants. We went through a grotty underpass where a number of people were sleeping rough. I think we were asked for money again, but I can't remember. There were a few familiar business names: Patisserie Valerie, M&S. I was relieved when we entered a more residential neighborhood with large apartment buildings and better-kept streets. At Hall road we turned right and cut through a quite nice neighborhood with pollarded trees in weird shapes. We arrived at Abbey Road and looked at the familiar studio doorway and the wall covered in graffiti. Trying not to infuriate drivers of passing cars, I took several pictures of Paul striding in the pedestrian crossing. Another party were being far more adventurous than us - their photographer stepping out into traffic to get the album cover angle and nearly getting run over in the process.

“...a different, serene world amidst the bustle of London.”

Doubling back southeast onto the Lisson Grove Road, we made our way to the Regent's Canal. We nearly missed it because I was looking to the right for where we'd cross the waterway, forgetting that Lisson Grove Road is where it emerged from a tunnel. On the left we saw a whimsical gate that opened onto the towpath on the eastern side of the canal. Paul and I descended to the towpath and started the walk that would take us to Camden Town via Primrose Hill.

The canal is a different, serene world amidst the bustle of London. The traffic noise almost disappeared as we descended, giving way to the creak of boats and the occasional splash of waterfowl. Almost immediately we came upon a large number of brightly painted houseboats moored alongside each other at a bend in the canal. We walked mostly in silence, occasionally stopping to take a picture or to comment on a particularly vivid houseboat color scheme. The underpasses were excitingly dark and mysterious - in one case too much so. While walking through one we suddenly realised there were people sitting and sleeping against the walls in the darkness.

We passed several VERY grand houses - their formal, classical facades perfectly mirrored in the still waters of the canal. I thought of Bertie Wooster's comment that "one half of the world doesn't know how the other three-quarters lives". I took another silly picture of my diecast car.

“I had made a parafoil kite specially to fly on the hill, but... it was clear that there wasn't so much as a breath of wind.”

Opposite the Regent's Park Zoo, we climbed back to street level to explore Primrose Hill. I had made a parafoil kite specially to fly on the hill, but as we climbed toward the summit, it was clear that there wasn't so much as a breath of wind. There was a small crowd of people at the top enjoying the view. We walked among them to the edge of the paved area and looked out over the city. The view was wonderful, taking in the skyscrapers of The City (Cheese Grater, Walkie Talkie, Gherkin), the dome of St. Paul's, the British Telecom Tower and the London Eye. Paul and I considered trying to run up the kite, just to get it into the air for a few moments, but the viewing area was swarming with dogs and we decided it wasn't on. Back down the hill, past some lovely pastel-colored townhouses and a pretty church and back onto the towpath.

“...we looked through the locked gate at a lovely tribute to Amy Winehouse...”

It was strange to arrive in a familiar place from an unfamiliar route. Back in 2005 we'd taken a bus to Camden from central London. I remember looking down the canal and wondering what it'd be like to walk along it. Now, we approached from that same direction. It was eerily quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of our visit those many years ago. Simon Callow didn't put in an appearance to heap abuse on visitors to the market. The market itself was, of course, closed. The wild and wacky shops along the high Street were all shuttered, but we could still enjoy the weird, sculptural decorations on their facades - the enormous running shoes, gargoyles, body-piercing hardware, etc. We walked past the locks to the high street and turned left toward Hampstead. Passing an alley, we looked through the locked gate at a lovely tribute to Amy Winehouse - a series of portraits in different color schemes a la Warhol painted on the wall. We looked in vain for the statue of her - I knew it was behind the wall of the closed market but there wasn't an opening or gap through which it could be seen. Bummer.

I worried that the Chalk Farm Road would be another uninteresting slog, but it was made enjoyable by some pretty architecture and interesting shop windows. I wish we could have gone into Daunt Books - their window was very promising.

“We pulled our crackers and put on our shiny paper crowns and waited for the first course to arrive.”

I'd rehearsed the approach to Pond Street several times on Google Street View to make sure I would know it when I saw it. My research paid off - I instantly recognized the huge, romanesque church at the corner as we walked up the road which, by this time was called "Rosslyn Hill". Our pub, The Roebuck, was across the street from the rather grim looking Royal Free Hospital.

We had about forty-five minutes before our lunch booking, just enough time for a walk up to the top of Parliament Hill for another, more distant view of the city. After a brief, Charlie-fault detour, we found the path and made our way to another of the places we'd visited in 2005. The view was, once again, beautiful if a bit stark. The city lay below us under a ceiling of grey clouds. We were part of a cheerful throng of holiday walkers, laughing and pointing at sights on the distant horizon. I looked down the hill towards the ponds where that wonderful sculpture "The Writer" had been in place during our previous visit - the enormous desk and chair were gone, as I knew they would be. The church spires of Highgate were as I remembered them. There wasn't any more wind than there was atop Primrose Hill so the kite remained in the backpack. We'd reached the end of our epic Christmas Day walk. Back down the hill to our dinner.

"A glass of Prosecco?" was our welcome to The Roebuck. We gratefully accepted and found a place to stand and sip in a corner of the bar near the stairs. After a little while, we saw that there was available seating just outside on the small veranda. I let the host know we were going to be out there and we sat down in the refreshingly cool air (it was quite warm inside). After talking over the day's sights for a while, we moved back inside to a newly-vacated high-top table in the bar. Eventually, I checked in with the host who apologise and said they'd completely forgotten about us. We were given another round of prosecco and led to our table in a cozy corner of the restaurant next to the gas fireplace.

We pulled our crackers and put on our shiny paper crowns and waited for the first course to arrive. The meal was lovely. I had salmon, Paul had lamb, I think. There were mounds of vegetables and a delicious mushroom tart and the meal was rounded out with a small plum pudding. Traditional holiday music was playing and the gas fire crackled merrily. The prosecco was followed with a couple of pints. We were full and happy when we emerged onto Pond Street.

Before trying to summon an Uber, we decided to walk up the road to The Pryors, the apartment building at the edge of the Heath that was used as a location in "American Werewolf" and which we'd seen on our previous visit. It was fun and creepy to see it at night as it appeared in the film. We walked around the side of the building and looked along the back where Harry and Judith met their messy end. I crossed my fingers as Paul launched the Uber app on his phone. My expectation was that rides would be infrequent and exorbitantly expensive. Astonishingly, it was neither. Our driver arrived inside of two minutes and the ride to Soho took about fifteen minutes and only cost as many pounds!

We'd asked to be dropped off in Wardour Street to see if we could find a bar I'd been to back in 1995 when I was in London with our church choir. The bar is called "The Yard" and is in an interior courtyard off Rupert Street. We found the entrance but, unfortunately, it was closed. We looked in at the Duke of Wellington and it wasn't QUITE as crowded as the night before so we ordered pints and found a place to stand near the back. We struck up conversation with a rather peculiar older gentleman who told us he was from Finland and knew someone who knew Tove Jansson, the author of the Moomintroll books. We also chatted with Kenneth who was visiting from New York City and was spending a couple of days alone in London before crossing to Paris to meet up with some friends. After an hour or so, we left the pub and walked to Piccadilly where we caught a Tube back to the hotel. Later, we would consult Paul's fitness phone app to discover that on Christmas Day alone, we had walked over thirteen miles. As we stumbled past the lobby I was vaguely aware of a shocking row occurring just in front of the registration desk - people shouting at each other in some foreign language. Sleep came very quickly.

Click on this icon to see the readout from Paul's fitness app for each day of our trip.

“The American tourists from "In Bruges" would never have fit.”

On the morning of Boxing Day, we made a tactical error by not eating breakfast at the hotel. I can't remember why - perhaps we got a late start and didn't want to delay the start of our sightseeing. I knew that Boxing Day was a holiday but I'd also read that a lot of stores are open for big holiday sales, so I didn't think it would be TOO difficult to find places to eat. How laughably wrong I was.

We took the tube from Gloucester Road directly to the St. Paul's station and emerged in the shadow of the dome. Paul and I had been to the west front of the church in 2005 - it was our turning around point on our walk down the Strand and Fleet Street. Wanting to stay ahead of the crowds, we entered the church straight away, getting our tickets scanned and picking up our electronic tour unit thingies. We soon learned that the electronic tour was awesome. The unit had a video screen and headphones and one could pick any location in the building and get a huge amount of information in the form of videos, diagrams, narration, animation, etc. We spend three hours in the church and weren't close to exhausting all the available information.

No photos were allowed inside, which was actually kind of a blessing because it was good for me to take break and focus on the building and its history. Paul and I coordinated our interactions with the unit so we were on the "same page" of the tour. We learned about the destruction of the old St. Paul's in the Great Fire of London and the design and construction of the current church by Christopher Wren. We saw the font and the nativity scene at the west end of the nave and then spent some time under the great dome. I was struck by the elegance of the interior. There are some colorful, ornate mosaics and ornamentation, but it's beautifully set off by the sweeping, coffered arches and the bold, black and white checkerboard of the floor. We sat in chairs near the crossing and gaped at the enormous space while listening to the narration of the tour.

Taking a break from the tour, we found the entrance to the staircase and began to make our way up the wide, gentle spiral to the gallery inside the dome. The wide spiral gave way to an extremely narrow passage before opening out into the circular gallery above the crossing. The American tourists from "In Bruges" would never have fit. The interior of the dome as viewed from the gallery is awe-inspiring. The trompe-l'oeuil murals inside the dome, the statues in their niches, and the mosaics above the archways made for an astounding spectacle. We tried to achieve the "whispering gallery" effect from opposite sides of the gallery. Paul said it worked for him - it didn't work for me but I don't think I properly understood the instructions.

On up to the next gallery which is outside at the base of the exterior dome. Wren created two nested domes - the lower one provides the interior space while the higher the exterior one. Apparently he felt that a single dome would be too high and imposing inside and not tall enough to be proportionally pleasing from the outside. After clanking up a couple of metal staircase and squeezing through more narrow corridors, we emerged out onto the first exterior gallery. The view was amazing! So many wonderful sights - Paternoster Square, the skyscrapers of the financial district, the Tate Modern and footbridge, the Barbican, the London Eye. We walked the circumference admiring and photographing the view from every angle. I particularly liked the view of the church itself - the roof of the nave ending with the west towers with Fleet Street beyond. Breathtaking.

Back inside and further up. More stairs, more squeezing until out onto the upper gallery at the top of the dome below the lantern. Here's where my fear of heights began to kick in. The walkway was narrow enough where one had to squeeze past anyone going the other way and that got me far closer to the railing and the drop than was comfortable. The view was even more spectacular. I noticed how low the river was - later that day we'd see it much higher - a lot of tidal variation. Someone, I can't remember who, pointed out the latest skyscraper to receive a silly nickname - "The Razor", so named because its three wind turbine openings look like the circular blades of an electric shaver. We could see it rearing up over the buildings on the South Bank. I can't say I like many of London's tall buildings. Most of the ones in the financial district are pretty ugly, with the exception of 30 St. Mary Axe "The Gherkin" which I think is splendid. Shard London Bridge is quite nice, I think. Pointy, don't you know.

Back inside and down the way we came... We spent some more time on the main floor. In the south transept there were a number of handsome sculptures, memorials to various historical figures, artists and military officers. The display seemed a little haphazard, as though this part of the church was being used as a storage area. Contributing to this impression was a stack of large wooden crates, one of which was prominently labeled "ass". We puzzled over this for a moment until realising that it was almost certainly the storage crate for one of the nativity scene figures.

In the space to the south of the choir there was an area devoted to a video art piece - four monitors displaying the martydom of four people by earth, air, fire, and water. It was beautiful, but disturbing. The choir was gorgeous. I remember the beautiful carved wood of the stalls and mosaics in the vaulted ceilings. I wish I could remember more about it - being able to take pictures would have helped.

Last on our tour was the crypt. We descended the stairs to the relatively low-ceilinged spaces of the lower level. I remembered that most of the tombs and memorials from Old St. Paul's had been destroyed in the Great Fire. The two most elaborate memorials were those of Lord Nelson and Wellington. I made sure to find Sir Arthur Sullivan in the northwestern part of the crypt. There was a wonderful timeline of the church's history along the northeastern wall - as with so many of the things we saw, we felt we didn't have the time to do it justice. After a brief stop in the shop to buy a few souvenirs for us and for our cat caregivers, we left via the exit near the west front.

Paul and I lingered in the public space opposite the west front for a little while to take pictures of the facade and scultpures. Our next destination was the Barbican Estate - we began our walk there by going through Paternoster Square, just north of St. Paul's, a beautiful, modern public space with a pleasing geometric pattern in the surface of the plaza radiating from a memorial column with a gilded pinnacle. I particularly wanted to visit the square because it's at or near the summit of Ludgate Hill, one of the three ancient hills of London. Our walk to the Barbican took us past the remains of a Christopher Wren church that had been all but destroyed in The Blitz. The tower survived, along with sections of the wall and the ruin has been turned into a lovely urban garden.

“I always thought "brutalist" referred to the stark appearance...”

The Barbican was easy enough to find - the three highrise residential towers were hard to miss. The mixed-use developement went up in the 1960s on an area devastated in the Blitz. It's named for the fortified section of the city wall that was there formerly. The complex is regarded as a prime example of Brutalist architecture. I always thought "brutalist" referred to the stark appearance of the unconcealed structural concrete used in the style. The term, however, comes specifically from the French for raw concrete: "beton brut". Two favorite movies of mine had scenes filmed there: "The Hunger" and "Quantum of Solace".

One can't deny that the project is impressive, if a bit stark. We poked around in one of the public areas and were able to look through to a playground and courtyard under the overhang of part of the complex. The arts center and theatre complex were all closed for the holidays. I had the idea there was an always-open area with public art installations, but if that was the case, we didn't find it. I should have done more homework. After walking around a little while, it came to me that the area reminded me of another 1960s Brutalist development - Lake Anne Center. It has the same exposed structural concrete, semicircular courtyard sweep, integrated scultpural elements, highrise residential tower with serrated balconies. Lake Anne is far more inviting a space, in my opinion. The Barbican is on too intimidating a scale.

“The streets had a post-apocalyptically empty feel to them.”

Here's where our miscalculation regarding breakfast came back to haunt us. We were getting hungry to the point of being hangry and there didn't appear to be ANY open restaurants. Searches both on our phones and in the real world were fruitless. The streets had a post-apocalyptically empty feel to them. We gave the Bank of England and the Cornhill Fountain (ancient hill number two) a cursory look and turned south in the hopes of finding ANYTHING to eat on the way to The Monument. On our way down one street we suddenly found ourselves at one of the entrances to Leadenhall Market which was one of the site on my list but which I'd completely forgotten. We took a brief detour to admire the wonderful interior spaces of that landmark. Paul would later describe his hunger at that point as sufficient to cause him to start gnawing on one of MY arms. Fortunately for same, a Starbucks hove into view. The most substantial food item on their menu was something called "sausage sandwich". It barely fulfilled advertising truth, being halved sausages on bread. The third ingredient of brown sauce made it half again more complex. We sat at a high top table and ate our sandwiches washed down with lashings of latte.

I suppose that, back in the day, The Monument was an impressive sight - towering above the surrounding buildings as a reminder of the Great Fire that all but destroyed the city in 1666. Now, as one approaches, one gets only the occasional glimpse among the buildings that all but obscure it. The stylized flame at the apex glowed dully in the waning light. The text blaming the fire on papist plots has since been (officially) chiseled off. I quite liked the relief sculpture on one side of the base showing London as a swooning female figure.

“From our seats, we had a magnificent view of St. Paul's almost directly across the river.”

Our very last programmed event in London was to be the Jack the Ripper walking tour at 7:30 starting at the Tower Hill tube station. We had a couple of hours to kill and decided to walk along the Thames to the Millennium Footbridge and cross to the South Bank to explore. I'd read that there was some species of holiday festival going on. We soon discovered that there was a somewhat formalised "Thames Walk" with signs marking where to go when the path at the river's edge was blocked by some structure. The changing light was very beautiful - the sun had set a while before and there was a lovely blueish cast to the light. Here, a neoclassical facade was floodlit in a warm yellow - there, ornamental metalwork on a bridge span was illuminated in pinks and purples. On one of the diversions away from the river, a low wall was decorated with a beautiful mosaic depicting the history of the city and the industries centered on the river. Decorative lights in the pinnacle of Shard London Bridge were switched on and changed color every few moments. Tiny figures could be seen moving about on the high-tech spiderweb of the footbridge as we approached. We mounted the stairs from the riverwalk and the dome of St. Paul's was revealed, framed between the railings. As we crossed, Paul reminded me of the photo I took of him on the footbridge back in 2005. I took a few of him from as near the same spot as we could reckon. I made a mental note to find the original for comparison.

Turning right at the end of the span we passed in front of the Tate Modern where the was a fun exhibit on the sidewalk of "icebergs" - irregular chunks of ice, perhaps created in forms, scattered at random on the pavement. We were hoping to find a pub near the embankment but were very chuffed to find one ON the embankment. The Founders Arms is a pleasant, modern, airy establishment with expansive windows and an extensive seating area outside facing the river. We bought pints inside and sat at an outdoor table near one of the gas fire jets. From our seats, we had a magnificent view of St. Paul's almost directly across the river. We passed a very pleasant hour or so, drinking in the view (and a subsequent pair of pints), watching people passing by along the riverwalk, discussing the trip so far and our plans for the remainder of our time. Paul surprised me by bringing up a certain topic - one that we've discussed occasionally over the years but on which we'd never decided. Happily, the matter was settled there on the banks of the Thames. The evening, already memorable, suddenly became infinitely more so.

After leaving the Founder's Arms, we walked back the way we had come along the South Bank, stopping in a bar for a drink and then a Pizza Express for a bite to eat. While walking to the nearest tube station we realized that we were going to be late unless we hailed a cab. Fortunately, one soon materialized and we were soon watching the blue supports of Tower Bridge sliding by the windows of the cab and the floodlit bastions of The Tower approaching on the left.

“The Ten Bells pub is still standing - we'd hoped to have a pint there...”

To swot up for our Jack the Ripper walking tour, I'd purchased Donald Rumbelow's book about the Whitechapel murders and had been reading it in the weeks leading up to our trip. Rumbelow is, I gather, a respected authority on the subject and is supposed to lead many of the walks. He apparently wasn't on duty that night. Someone else led our group away from the tube station. Actually, there were two groups that night - so many people turned up that the crowd had to be divided. Our guide began our tour at the base of one of the remaining fragments of the medieval London Wall. The wall, an imposing mass of irregular stonework about twenty or so feet high was floodlit and loomed above us where we stood assembled around our host. After he introduced himself and said a little about the scope and length of the tour, we set off for our first stop.

The tour was very good, I thought. Our guide provided us with a lot of factual information along with a good deal of historical and social context. Much of what he said is mixed up in my mind with what I read in the book, so I can't remember many specifics. The area in which the murders occurred is transformed out of all recognition. The dark alleys and rookeries have mostly given way to the vast, sterile lobbies of modern office towers. Our group did shuffle down a few older streets and alleys so there was a bit of atmosphere left.

Mitre Street (formerly Mitre Square) is one of the still-identifiable locations, although it must look very different from the night when Catherine Eddowes body was found there. The Ten Bells pub is still standing - we'd hoped to have a pint there at the end of the tour, but unfortunately, it was closed.

The tour focused only on the five "canonical" victims. Our tourguide addressed many of the topics about which I'd read - the jurisdictional conflict between the police forces, the effacing of the writing found on the wall. Our guide didn't address any controversy related to the "double event" - apparently, many scholars believe the first of the two murders that night didn't follow the Ripper's MO, others believe he was interrupted and wasn't able to finish.

It was eerie, walking behind the rest of group and seeing them turned into silhouettes by distant streetlights. The tour ended in front of a rather spooky row of townhouses. We applauded our guide and dispersed into the night. Paul and I had a quick shufti at the facade of The Ten Bells and began to make our way to Liverpool Street Station to catch the Tube back to the hotel. The station eluded us and we stopped at Dirty Dick's for a pint to regroup. After finally finding the station, I managed to get us onto a train going in the wrong direction. It turned out for the best - we took a different connection back to South Kensington that avoided Piccadilly and probably made for a much less crowded ride.

Click on this icon to see the readout from Paul's fitness app for each day of our trip.

“There was where Paul found the body of poor, sweet Lucy...”

I got up a little before Paul the next morning and showered and packed - Paul had more of the latter to do and I wanted to finish up and stay out of his way. He had just finished the complicated, Tetris-like process of packing his suitcase when he emitted some sort of groan, possibly "oh no". The extendable handle on his bag had extended, but wouldn't go back in. Of the two states, "in" was the more workable - we couldn't take it on the train with the handle sticking out. The bag had to be unpacked for us to reach the fiddly catch that allowed the handle to retract. Seeing how it operated made us wonder if we couldn't MacGyver it somehow. Only one of the two struts was malfunctioning - we contrived to jam it in the "open" position with foil gum wrappers and tape. It was a bit rickety, but could once again be opened and closed.

We said goodbye to our little home-from-home and bumped down the stairs with our bags. Nervous about hauling our luggage around in the Tube, we hailed an Uber for the short ride to Paddington. Our driver was a pleasant chap who engaged us in conversation about our trip. To his frustration, there were some street closures due to construction and he had to consult his map app to find a creative way around. Our train was waiting on the platform - for once, the kiosk ticket purchasing had gone quickly. Within thirty seconds of boarding, the train gave a lurch and rumbled off on its twenty-minute trip to Slough.

The latter part of the journey took us through a vast industrial park which I assumed was the legendary Slough Trading Estate. Disembarking, we followed the "way out" signs and inserted our tickets into the exit barrier. The narrow access lane and parking lot looked unpromising. I had expected something a little more impressive from Gretta's description. I asked the attendant and he informed us that we'd come to the "wrong" side of the station. He let us back through the barrier and we trundled our way over the walkway to the other side. After a brief wait at the pick-up area near the curb, we were whisked away by Gretta and Mary Ellen in their car. It was wonderful to see them. Gretta worked with my mom at the real estate company in Northern Virginia and had remained in touch over the years. Gretta and her partner Mary Ellen have been living in the UK for a decade or so - first in Wokingham (?), now in Eton. I had shared our plans for visiting Black Park on our "in-between" day and they had gamely agreed to join in on our scheme. Gretta welcomed us to "beautiful Slough" with, I think, I tiny bit of irony. The four of us caught up on our lives as Mary Ellen drove us to the park. They telling us about their lives in the UK and the places they'd lived, we giving them updates about Mom and the rest of the family and our lives in the Milwaukee area.

"What the hell is Black Park?", you may be saying. Well, it's a smallish county park just west of London. It has a small lake, woodlands, meadows, and pine trees planted in rows to replace the ones cut down for the war efforts. For me, the attraction is that it's adjacent to Pinewood film studios - whenever a scene needs to be shot by a lake or in the woods, the crew simply jumps the fence and does the needful in Black Park. As a result, the park has been used as the setting for scenes in every single Harry Potter film, five of the Bonds, many of the Hammer horror films from the 60s and 70s, and any number of TV episodes including some of my favorites - UFO and Space:1999. It was a grey day and wet from rain the previous night. Gretta and Mary Ellen put on boots that they had in the back of the car. Leaving the car park, we took a path the led us to the shore of the lake and straight away I found myself in a recognizable location from a number of old favorites. There was where Paul found the body of poor, sweet Lucy floating in the lake in "Taste the Blood of Dracula". There was where Paul Foster and Anne looked out over the UFO landing site in "Sound of Silence" a favorite UFO episode. We walked along the path where the fallen priest tried to run down Zena the barmaid in "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave". At a crossroads where six lanes converged, I took a panoramic photo. It may well have been where Van Helsing and Jonathan stopped in their pursuit of the Count in Dracula (1979). So many memories. There was a light mist in the air which caused the sunlight to make dramatic rays as it came through the trees. This was particularly beautiful at the pine tree-lined avenue along which Bond drove his BMW Z8 in "The World is Not Enough". Gretta and Mary Ellen smiled indulgently at my reminiscences but I think they really thought I was insane. In any case, it was a very pleasant walk. Had we a lot more time I might have suggested exploring the paths closer to the northeastern end of the park near Pinewood, but we found ourselves back at the car park and by then, I think we'd all had enough.

“We stopped at one point to take photos with the Funko-Pop Prince Harry...”

Once back in the car, The Merry Wives (formerly of Windsor) suggested taking a little side trip to same to see The Long Walk. Mary Ellen dropped the three of us off just across the street from that triumphal avenue and we stepped out onto the beautiful, sweeping path that, from there, gently descends to the gates of Windsor Castle. As we walked, Gretta told us about their visit to the grounds during Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding and how they saw the Queen's carriage taking her back to the castle from the festivities. We stopped at one point to take photos with the Funko-Pop Prince Harry and my Aston Martin, much to Gretta's amusement. The walk ended at the gatehouse - Gretta suggested we duck into the adjacent pub for a pint. We had just enough time to get outside of our drinks before Mary Ellen arrived to collect us.

“I remembered it only as the "Frankenstein Place" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".”

The day had flown by - somehow it was late afternoon when we arrived at Oakley Court on the south bank of the Thames opposite Eton. During the run-up to our trip, Gretta had suggested taking tea at Oakley Court, a 19th Century house which had fallen into disrepair in the early 20th Century and had been used for a time as the home of Hammer film studios. Hammer eventually moved to the nearly adjacent Down Place where most of their trademark horror productions were based. Oakley Court was used as a location for many of their films. I remembered it only as the "Frankenstein Place" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". It had been fully restored since and was now a hotel, restaurant, and event venue. The grounds are lovely, with close-cropped lawns and paths winding along the banks of the Thames. The house itself is practically a parody of an English country house with its crenellations, towers, and heraldic sculptures on columns. After a brief stroll around the grounds, we went in to tea.

Tea was lovely. Gretta and Mary Ellen had ordered a cream tea for themselves and the "gentleman's" tea for us. The former consisted of finger sandwiches and little pastries, the latter was more of a full meal with a vegetable tart, black pudding, salmon, and a number of other delicious items. We were served in a corner of a large room at the north end of the house - an airy room with tall windows looking out over the grounds. We relaxed on the sofas and squashy armchairs and nibbled on all the lovely eatables and sipped our tea. WHAT a treat! To partake of a delicious meal with good friends in a beautiful setting - truly a highlight of the trip! And, as a bonus, the venu had associations with me for my silly taste in British horror films. Talking of which, Gretta remembered that there was a corridor in the house devoted to a display of Hammer Studios movie posters. Paul and I left our nook for a few minutes to use the euphemism and to try and find the "corridor of horror". A helpful member of the staff pointed us in the right direction and we found the display. I need to watch "The Reptile" and "Plague of the Zombies" which are two of the films actually shot on location at Oakley Court. Among the posters was one for Hammer's "Dracula" rom 1958 - the first of their series of Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee (all seven of which I have on Blu-Ray, thank you very much).

“Steph's house... the coziest, warmest space imaginable.”

It's a mark of a successful itineray that all departures are reluctant. We left Oakley Court with its crenellations and grotesques silhouetted against a pink and purple sunset sky. We had gratefully accepted Gretta and Mary Ellen's offer to drive us all the way to Reading to catch our train, obviating an additional leg of travel twixt Slough and same. Rain and (according to The Wives) an unusually dense fog accompanied us on our drive. Thanks and well-wishes for the rest of our journey were exchanged as were deposited at the curb in front of the very modern-looking station at Reading. Once again, I was astonished at how quick and easy it was to retrieve our tickets from the ticket sales kiosk. After consulting the electronic notice board, we walked down the platform to our designated area and waited for the train. My nervous obsession with departure times paid off, for once - within ten minutes of our departure time, the platform location for our train changed, requiring that we take the escalators up and over the tracks to another platform entirely. Our sleek, Great Western Railway train glided into the station. We took our seats and I pulled out my antediluvian iPod to listen to my "England 2018" playlist and almost immediately started to doze.

I think I must have slept for much of the two-and-a-half-hour journey. I vaguely remember waking up briefly to see lights from across some body of water - perhaps we crossed a causeway over the mouth of a wide river or harbor. We didn't have to even look for the way out when we arrived - Stephanie met us right there on the platform as we descended the steps from the train car. It was, as always, wonderful to see her. This time, I realized, we were being greeted by her in her own stomping ground. She quickly led us through the station to the car park and we piled in to her lovely little VW.

Someone asked us sometime before our trip if we were going to be renting a car - "not even at gunpoint" was, I think, my response. The idea of driving on the left gives me the leaping fantods, but driving on left along hedgerow-lined country roads in the dark with barely enough (or often not enough) room for passing cars is beyond my comprehension. It was scary enough being a passenger, thank you very much. Stephanie obviously knew the roads well, and chatted blithely as she hurled the car around the sharp bends of what reminded me of a twig-lined bobsled run.

Arriving in South Brent, Stephanie parked in the High Street and we walked over to see her house which is reached through a covered walkway which leads to a narrow courtyard. Steph's house is awesome. It's the coziest, warmest space imaginable. We were given a quick tour and walked back to the car to get our bags. During the time between making our booking at The Oak and the beginning of our trip, The Oak had gone out of business permanently. Stephie booked us at The Pack Horse instead. The Pack Horse is all of fifty yards from Stephanie's door, so a more convenient lodging couldn't be imagined. We stowed our bags in our lovely, second-floor room and sat down in the bar for a pint with Stephanie. After a few minutes catching up and regaling her with stories from the trip so far, we made arrangements to meet in the pub for breakfast the next morning, Stephie left for home, and we toddled upstairs to bed.

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“There wasn't a right angle or a plumb vertical in the place.”

The Pack Horse suited us VERY well. I haven't enough experience with English pubs to describe it as the quintessential English pub, but if it isn't, it's the next thing to it. The bar was decorated for the holidays with garland and baubles strung along the beams. Fuller's London Pride was the first in the line of tap markers. The carpet throughout the bar was of the perfect, faded glory. There was a small Crimbo tree in the back room near the pool table. There wasn't a right angle or a plumb vertical in the place.

Our room was very comfortable. On waking, I looked out on one side to the roofs and chimney pots of neighboring buildings silhouetted against the dawn - on the other side, the first rays of sunlight were illuminating the summit of Ugborough Beacon, the Tor we were to climb on our last full day in England. A bare tree in the yard was currently hosting a flock of blackbirds. I thought of the folk song: "There were three ravens set in a tree...".

Down in the bar, the proprietor took our order for three "full English" breakfasts and vanished down the wonky corridor past the snug to prepare them. Stephanie and the two of us discussed the plan for the day over coffee. The breakfasts arrived and were wonderful: grilled tomatoes, mushroom, eggs, crispy potatoes, sausages, thick bacon, baked beans, and toast. Surprisingly, there was no black pudding, but it wasn't sorely missed. For our first full day, we'd decided to visit Greenway, Agatha Christie's holiday home in Devon. On subsequent mornings, we'd plan the day's events - our pub breakfasts were a perfect start to our days in Devon.

“...we came to a grove of trees on the riverbank that were all covered in shaggy, green moss.”

We went on two lovely walks in and around South Brent on the first and third mornings. On the first morning, after breakfast, we walked through South Brent with its lovely houses painted in pastel colors. We passed through a pretty square with a sundial on a plinth commemorating Queen Elizabeth's silver, golden, and diamond jubilees. Passing out of the town proper, we saw a lovely old house at the back of a field on which several sheep were grazing. Over the Lydia Bridge, it's stone walls covered in moss. The trees on the banks of the stream were covered in moss as well - the region must be very damp. Passing several lanes, at least one with elaborate gateposts, we came to an open field where we could see the summit of Ugborough Beacon rearing above the trees. Stephanie pointed it out and said that it would be the best destination for our walk on Dartmoor on day three. Down a flight of stone steps and along a wall next to the River Avon - we came to a grove of trees on the riverbank that were all covered in shaggy, green moss.

On the morning of our third day, we further explored the river valley, this time crossing a bridge onto an island created by a split in the stream. There were more lovely views of Ugborough Beacon which we were to climb later that same day. It was here on the island that, through her words and her gestures, Stephanie gave me the impression of a very strong connection to this place. I was very glad we'd FINALLY made the trip and seen her in the community she'd described to me many times over the years. It made me a little sad to think about the end of both our visit and Steph's residence there (she's considering a move back to the U.S.) but again, all the more glad that we'd had the opportunity to spend time with her in South Brent.

“...Islamic art, Chinoiserie, Dresden porcelain, and unclassifiable objects like a box made of a human skull.”

Back into the twiggy bobsled run. After a surprisingly short while, I was able to get over my nervousness and enjoy the scenery of which there was loads. The road rose, dipped, and curved through the hedgerows, occasionally rising into the clear to give us glimpses of the surrounding landscape - rolling hills with alternating patterns of sun and shadow crawling over their contours. We went through pretty little towns with houses and shops nestled in front of a soaring backdrop of hills.

Presently, we arrived in Dittisham (pronounced "Ditzum", according to Stephanie). Stephanie parked on a residential street and we walked from there down a lane to the edge of the river Dart. It was high tide, so the path at the base of the seawall was underwater. We instead took the alternate path through the town to the little harbor where we boarded the ferry that would take us across the waterway to Greenway, Dame Agatha's home. The harbor was very picturesque with colorful houses and sailboats moored in the channel. Our ferry was a small wooden boat with brightly colored signal flags strung between posts. Disembarking on the other side of the Dart, we followed signs to the National Trust site along a pretty path with views of the town opposite. After buying our tickets we walked to the main entrance of the house which faced a lawn sloping down to the river. Music of a bygone era greeted our ears as we entered the house. Two dear older ladies in antique dress were performing old songs - one singing accompanied by the other on the banjolele. We started our tour, moving through a sitting room into the music room where the ladies were performing.

The house remains in much the same state as when Dame Agatha and her husband Sir Max Mallowan lived there from the late 30s until their deaths in the late 70s. Christie's daughter continued to live there until the complex became a National Trust site so pretty much everything in the house must have belonged to the family. It felt a comfortable home. There were personal touches everywhere. Mallowan was an archaeologist - he and Christie met while he was on a dig in northern Iraq. Everywhere one looked, one saw Islamic art, Chinoiserie, Dresden porcelain, and unclassifiable objects like a box made of a human skull. There was a lovely collection of ornate snuffboxes in a display case in one of the bedrooms. Apparently, Dame Agatha didn't do much writing at the house - the typewriter in the upstairs study was used mainly by her husband and by the household for typing letters. In that same study was a complete set of Christie first editions. I was a little surprised at how many of the titles I remember reading - twenty or so, at least.

During World War II, the house was requisitioned as the headquarters for an armed forces unit stationed in the area. In the large downstairs room which served as the commanding officer's office, there was a mural depicting the history of that military unit that went all the way 'round the room just below the ceiling. Sadly, parts of it were water-damaged - I gather that the restorations to the house are ongoing.

The dear old ladies were taking a break and we'd seen a sign on the grand piano inviting visitors to play (but no chopsticks!) - I asked a docent just to be sure and they affirmed the invitation. I played one of the Handel keyboard suite movements I've been learning. Dame Agatha was a classically trained, accomplished performer at the piano but, according to the guides, was so diffident, she hardly ever performed for her family, even her husband. I had no such qualms and happily banged away. Strange to be touching the same keys touched by the fingers that wrote so many books I've enjoyed over the years. I'm not saying that any actual channeling occurred - it was just a lovely moment for me

Leaving the house, we made our way around to the gardens where we walked along the formal paths, went through intriguing wooden doorways in the stone garden walls and explored the beautiful greenhouses. There were a surprising number of blooms OUTSIDE the greenhouses. One fuchsia was covered in flowers.

Back down the path to the ferry which was waiting to depart. The tide had ebbed to where we could now walk along the beach just below the seawall. There were so many aspects of the property that were evocative of Christie's novels - island (or peninsula, at least), ferry, boathouse, exotic objets d'art, country house - I wasn't surprised to learn that several of her novels consciously incorporate aspects of her life there, "Towards Zero" being one of them. I need to check the library for that one.

Back to the car for a very scenic drive to Blackpool Sands, a beach just west of Dartmouth. The road swept down into the bay, giving us a lovely view of the cliffs and the stretch of beach. Steph parked at the Venus Cafe, and we walked around onto the pebbly beach. Shades of Agatha Christie, once again - I was reminded of the Devon settings of some of her novels - "Evil Under the Sun", and "And Then There Were None". There was a house on the cliff at the western end of the bay which looked ready-made for a murder intrigue. I hung back to take pictures while Paul and Steph walked down to the surf line and skipped stones.

We ordered food and pints at the Venus Cafe and sat at a table by the windows looking out onto the beach. Stephie knew a couple of people in the cafe - once again, it was good to see how much a part of the community is our Steph. The food came and was delicious - I think I had a seafood salad sandwich, but I'm not sure. We made plans for the following day: the most haunted castle in England and a traditional Christmas pantomime!

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“The castle doesn't need any ghost stories to produce atmosphere - it's already got it in spades.”

It was just the two of us in the pub for breakfast that morning. During the meal, we struck up conversation with another couple staying at the pub. They were from Reading and were regular visitors to the area because the lady's father lived nearby. We enjoyed telling them about our trip so far - they shared stories of having visited some of the same locations, and some different ones. Brexit and Trump were two subjects that we danced around, eventually discussing them only very briefly. We met that couple several times there in the bar of the Pack Horse - it was lovely to make their acquaintance.

On the way to Berry Pomeroy, Stephanie drove us through the Dartington Estate with its beautiful lawns, groves, and manor house. As we approached the castle, Stephanie told us the story of an acquaintance of hers who decided to spend the night on the grounds of the castle. This chap and his girlfriend walked in from the main road and rolled out their sleeping bags near the walls of the castle. Not long after dark, they suddenly heard a horrible shrieking coming from some indeterminate source. The shrieking went on and on until the woman's nerve broke and she ran pell-mell back down the access road with her boyfriend at her heels.

I had no idea what to expect of the castle. Perhaps I had similar expectations to the ones I had of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome - a miserable outline of three-foot-high ruined walls. As with the Baths, I was very pleasantly surprised. Much of the original medieval fort was still standing including the magnificent gatehouse. The manor house which was built within the walls in Elizabethan times still had sections that were three stories high. It's a wonderfully romantic scene - the castle is nestled among the trees at the edge of a river valley. From the back part of the ruins, one can look over the walls down to the river and the rolling hills beyond. We bought our admissions at the tiny office along with a set of audio tour machines. Once inside the main gate, we explored the chambers and stairways in the imposing gatehouse. The spaces were intriguing - vaulted chambers, arrow slits, spiral staircases that went down to dead-end chambers and passages on the lower levels.

The audio tour described the history of the two ghosts said to haunt the castle. One, the White Lady, was from medieval times and was supposed to have been imprisoned in one of the dungeons by her sister in some power struggle. The other, The Blue Lady (I may have them reversed) is from the location's later history and, according to the tour, killed herself after murdering her illegitimate child. Lovely. Anyway, if one sees either one of them, one is supposed to snuff it without further ado. We three are living proof that we saw neither in the course of our tour. The castle doesn't need any ghost stories to produce atmosphere - it's already got it in spades. In the Elizabethan part of the ruins, the walls still soar to three or so stories and, with the floors all being gone, create wonderfully spooky vertical spaces with the empty windows framing rectangles of grey sky.

“Oh yes it is!" "Oh no, it ISN'T!”

Off to Paignton for our Christmas pantomime! Steph picked the production in Paignton over another city's because she felt it would be less slick and professional and more in keeping with community tradition. We found the Palace Theatre with little trouble and made our way into the crowded lobby. Tickets and pints in hand, we went into the theatre and found our seats. "Mother Goose" was the theme of the performance.

Pantos, I gather, usually take as a jumping-off point one of the popular fairy tales - "Puss in Boots", and "Dick Whittington" being popular subjects, I seem to remember. I swotted up on panto a little before the trip and wasn't surprised to learn that it has its origins, at least in part, in the Commedia dell'Arte tradition with its stock characters. There's the Principal Boy and Principal Girl, usually both played by female actors, although in this production the Principal Boy was played by a male. There's the Pantomime Dame, always played by a man. There's the Pantomime Demon who might emerge from a trapdoor and who traditionally enters into dialog with the audience. And, there are the pantomime animals - no horses in this one but there was the magnificent goose of the title in a costume that towered over the rest of the cast.

The story was pleasantly silly, involving Mother Goose (the Pantomime Dame drag character) in conflict with the evil local landlord who keeps threatening to raise the rent. Priscilla, the enchanted goose princess who comes to stay with them (for some reason I can't remember) helps to solve the family's money woes with her golden eggs, amusingly "laid" with the help of a stagehand who chucked them in from offstage. Mother Goose had a funny recurring gag concerning her bras for every occasion which she described using awful puns. The Demon and his minions gave everyone an opportunity to shout "he's right behind you" when creeping up on the oblivious protagonists. He also entered into the traditional shouting matches with the audience concerning some obvious falsehood - "Oh yes it is!" "Oh no, it ISN'T!". The music was a pastiche of popular songs with the lyrics sometimes changed to suit the story. The Demon and his minions launched into a surprisingly effective rendition of Wings' "Live and Let Die" at one point. One character, Billy, arranged with the audience to shout "Don't be silly, Silly Billy" at a recurring prompt (which now escapes me). During the second act, Mother Goose and several other members of the cast produced SuperSoakers and proceeded to go up and down the aisles squirting water at members of the audience. Sweets were thrown, if memory serves, and there was an interlude where jokes submitted by the audience were read aloud. Oh, and there was a raffle for... something.

It really was a wonderful show. The costumes, sets, musical arrangements, and performances were ideally suited to the production. For me, it ticked all the boxes to my understanding of what pantomime was all about. I particularly enjoyed shouting "he's right BEHIND you!"

After the show, we walked past where we'd parked the car, down to the seafront. Stephanie made it clear that Paignton is not her favorite place in the world. Knowing her disdain for commercialism, I could see why. It was up there with the Wisconsin Dells for hucksterism. Within two blocks of the waterfront, all the businesses were garish souvenir shops and amusement arcades. The harbor was pretty enough - a sweep of sand between two headlands, an amusement pier jutting out over the water. Gulls swooped and a man made his way across the mirror of wet sand with his dog. Facing the water was a row of pretty townhouses painted in pastel colors - in front of them a row of palm trees! It's amazing how temperate the climate is - fingers crossed the Gulf Stream doesn't shut down.

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“A reshoot of "American Werewolf" could have been done then and there, no questions asked.”

For the hike up onto the moor, we were to join forces with Stephanie's friends Ian and Petra. There was talk of driving to the base of the hill, but I guess there was doubt as to finding a good parking space. So, we set out from Steph's on what turned out to be another fairly epic walk. I was a wee bit nervous about walking along the winding, narrow country lanes, particularly as it would almost certainly be after dark by the time our walk was over. In retrospect, I'm glad we walked the whole way, because the experience was lovely from start to finish. There were beautiful prospects revealed at every turn in the road: here a lovely tree silhouetted against the sky, there a cluster of gorse blossoms, cows in a field, the arch of an old bridge, moss-covered tree limbs, lines of trees and hedgerows arcing across the nearby hills. I got to climb over my first stile!

Along a lane flanked by an ivy-covered rock wall and out onto the moor. At this point on the walk I realised that the weather was perfect (to my mind) for the setting. It was a grey day, with drifting clouds - looking uphill towards the summit, I could see swathes of mist drifting through, alternately obscuring and revealing the upper edges of the hills. It was a wonderfully mysterious scene. Clumps of reddish growth, dormant for the season, lichen-encrusted boulders, and gnarled solitary trees, bent by the prevailing winds marched back into indistinctness in the mist. A reshoot of "American Werewolf" could have been done then and there, no questions asked.

We struck out for the summit, marching straight uphill. I looked up occasionally to make sure I didn't blunder into one of the sheep grazing on the hillside. As we rose, the distant view rose with us, revealing yet more hedge-lined, rolling hills. Ian mentioned that he was planning to be hiking the same hill the very next day for New Year's Eve and, from the way he spoke, I gather that moor hikes were a frequent occurrence for him and Petra. My response was to quicken my pace - I didn't want for us to seem like Midwestern Flatlanders unequal to a hike up a tor.

Within a couple of hundred yards of the summit, I noticed that the breeze had become fairly steady and we pulled out the kite I'd made for Primrose Hill. I very much wanted to fly it in England, if not London and before the "LONDON 2018" design became obsolete in time as well as location. To my intense gratification, the wind pulled the kite aloft directly from my hand. From our window at the Pack Horse and from the streets of South Brent we could see that the Beacon was surmounted by rocks, but I wasn't prepared for the spectacle at the summit. Several groups of enormous, wind-sculpted boulders were ranged out across the gently sloping hilltop. Paul got the other kite, another parafoil which we bought in Galveston years ago, flying as well, and we walked among the boulders exploring the interesting spaces between them. Paul and I climbed onto the highest, most central mass and surveyed the scene which dropped away in all directions. Amazing. To the southeast, one could catch glimpses of the Channel when a brief gap in the clouds permitted. We took a few pictures of each other flying the kites and exploring the rocks. By tacet assent we reeled in the kites and began to move back towards the edge of the summit where we'd arrived. It was a little sad to leave - I felt as though we were not only leaving the summit, but England - this was the last item on our itinerary.

It was near dark when we got to the end of the stone wall that flanked the lane. The atmosphere had gone from mysterious to downright creepy. We passed a stone farmhouse with one or two lighted windows, crossed a stone bridge to a road which would take us back to South Brent. The walk back seemed longer, possibly because there was less to look at in the absence of much light. I was less nervous than I'd anticipated - in the darkness, one had advance warning of approaching cars by their headlights. We made it back to town without any close calls. Saying goodbye to Petra and Ian, we went back to the Pack Horse to clean up. Stephanie had invited us to dinner and we were to meet back at her place in an hour or so.

Arguably, the rest of the evening belongs in the "South Brent" and "Down the Pub" sections of this page, but it's more convenient to just bung 'em here. Paul and I, after arranging our wet shoes near the heater to dry and showering and changing clothes, made our way back to Steph's via the Co-op to buy some beer and nibbles. My memories of that evening are sort of blended with the other visits to Steph at her house those few days. We watched the AbFab and Blackadder Christmas specials, we talked about the trip, about the family, about Steph's plans for the foreseeable future. That meal our last night was wonderful - eating the delicious food Steph prepared in that cozy, warm setting, after the exertions and wonders of the day was fantastic. None of us had the remaining energy to make it a late evening. Paul and I had to finish packing and we needed to get something like a decent night's sleep before our day of travel.

We arrived back at the pub to find the bar and parlor crammed with people playing pub trivia. We considered trying to join, but from the shouted question numbers it was clear that it was already well underway and we felt a bit of "Slaughtered Lamb" nervousness at intruding. We slinked upstairs and, as we continued with our packing, we could clearly hear the trivia questions as they were read out to the crowd below. Now we were regretting having missed it as we realised we knew the vast majority of the answers.

The packing complete, we went back down to the bar to have a last pint and perhaps play a round of pool. In the back room we struck up conversation with a gentleman from South Brent (Michael?) who bought us pints and invited us to join in a bingo game that was being organised in the wake of the trivia. The cards were laminated grids of real playing cards - the caller flipped cards from a deck and shouted them out - we marked our matches with bottlecaps. Michael told us about some local conventions of the game - apparently when certain cards are turned over, the women or men will all make some sort of standard vocalisation, like "Ooooooh!". I guess we kind of heard it happening - couldn't discern the pattern, though. Paul and I both came fairly close to winning a couple of times, but didn't quite get there. Our friend in the pub said he knew Steph and we talked for a while about South Brent, London, and where we were from. It was that evening that really gave me a feel for how a pub serves as a resource for a community like South Brent. With The Oak having closed weeks before we arrived, I'm hopeful that the Pack Horse can remain a going concern and continue to serve that community.

Once again, I felt a trip-ending milestone: calling it a night and going upstairs would, in effect, be the end of our trip. We said our goodbyes, settled our bill, and up we went.

In the blue light of the morning, I had one last look at the summit of Ugborough Beacon through the window of our room.

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“Totnes is picture-perfect seen from the castle - pastel-colored houses with moss-speckled roofs marching back towards the distant green mounds of the hills.”

On the way back from Blackpool Sands, we stopped in Totnes for a look around. Totnes is the nearest town of any size to Steph's and I know that over the years, she's sent a fair amount of time there for a variety of reasons. Is that where the dojo is, I wonder? It's a lovely town whose centerpiece is Totnes Castle, a motte-and-bailey fortification from the 14th Century. Occasionally, one would catch a glimpse of the castle walls at the end of a street. Steph lead us on a walk past an old church to a street near the castle where we could look up at the crenellated walls looming above shops and houses and silhouetted against the dark blue evening sky.

A feature of Totnes that I'd seen in many pictures is a wonderful bridge that goes over the High Street. It's an enclosed passage with a small tower, clock, and bay window on each side. We walked up and down the High Street looking into shop windows and thinking about where to have dinner. An Asian place was suggested and Stephanie readily agreed. As we negotiated the multi-level, cramped space we once again marveled at the inaccessibility of most UK businesses. The meal was wonderful. With full tummies and exhausted by the exertions of the pantomime and the threat of instant death from the Berry Pomeroy manifestations, we sank gratefully into our beds at the Pack Horse.

The next morning found us once again in Totnes. After breakfast (Steph joined us that morning at the Pack Horse), we drove over to Totnes to tour the castle and to lay in provisions for our hike up Ugborough Beacon. We fiddled about for a little while again on the High Street. All three of us went into a lovely variety shop with books and toys on the inaccessible second level. It's a happy fact about where I am in my life that I'm now disinclined to acquire "things". I'm perfectly happy fiddling about with downloaded paper models and, apart from James Bond diecast vehicles, I have little desire to get anything new. Another time I remember feeling that was at Hamley's in 2005. It was fantastic walking around and looking at everything, but when it came down to it, I didn't feeling inclined to buy anything.

Leaving the shop, Stephanie bundled us off in the direction of the castle and went her own way to do some more shopping. Paul and I went down the same street as the night before and walked up the steps to the entrance to the English Heritage site of Totnes Castle. I had only a vague notion of what a "motte-and-bailey" castle was. I knew it was an early, fairly simple arrangement. Apparently, Totnes Castle is one of the best preserved examples of the type in all the UK. The "motte" is an artificial hill surmounted by a fortification, in this case a massive circluar stone wall. The "bailey" is a walled courtyard at the base of the motte, sometimes a wooden palisade but, in this case, again a stone wall. Within the bailey there would have been a variety of wooden structures, a hall, stables, chapel, kitchens, etc. We mounted the stairs along the slope of the motte and entered the castle through the portal at the top. The interior space is striking - vivid green grass surrounded by the stone wall topped by broken crenellations. It had a theatrical feel - I wanted to see drones festooned in colorful fabrics swooping through the space... or something. We simply drifted through the space. Paul climbed the stairs to the wall walk first and slowly made the circle, looking at the views inside and outside of the walls. I followed him up and did the same. Totnes is picture-perfect seen from the castle - pastel-colored houses with moss-speckled roofs marching back towards the distant green mounds of the hills. There's something minimalistically elegant about the site - hill, wall, town. There was a simplicity to our visit. Up, up, around, down. We descended and walked around the wall of the bailey, exploring the different views of the castle and town to be had along, above, and through the stonework.

Reversing our route through the town, we rejoined Stephanie at the same corner of the High Street and went into The Happy Apple, a variety/grocery store where we bought provisions for our hike up Ugborough Beacon. I love going into foreign shops and looking at all the unfamiliar brands and foodstuffs. English chocolate is a favorite. I bought a crunchie bar, I'm pretty sure. Equipped with sandwiches, crisps, drinks, and chocolate, we made our way back to the car park.

And at the end - Steph accompanied us onto the platform where we sat on a bench and talked of our trip and Steph's plans for the next few months. As is usually the case, I was sad to see our vacation drawing to a close, but excited to get home to familiar surroundings and to see our Kitty Boys. Our train pulled into station, we said our farewells and boarded.

I dozed through much of the trip to Reading, missing the Vale of the White Horse, which we were told to look for. Oh well. Our bus transfer to Heathrow came off without a hitch. The shopping mall in the terminal gave me the opportunity to buy some tea for a friend at the Harrod's outpost - Paul and I grabbed a final pint of Punk IPA and burgers at a pub/restaurant. We spent an hour or so on a bench in the antiseptic corridor outside our locked departure lounge - I played "Arrival (or, more appropriately "departure") of the Queen of Sheba" on one of the pianos (!) in the concourse.

I watched "Alien", "Hotel Transylvania", and half of "Hotel Transylvania 3" on the flight. I slept for a couple of hours here and there as well. Our arrival and processing went as smoothly as can be imagined - we walked, seemingly without stopping, through arrival, customs, passport control, baggage claim, the terminal, the train to the parking lot. The new year's eve revelers must already have settled in to their festivities because the highway was fairly clear on the way north to Wisconsin. After a brief stop at the house to give the cats some food and lovin's, we made our way over to the house of our friends the Mathises for the neighborhood new year party. The party made for a great homecoming - we had fun telling stories about the trip and sharing our news. It had been a long day - it had started with the blue dawn light in our room at the Pack Horse and had ended in the downstairs bar at the Mathises early on New Year's Day. We completed the final leg of the England trip by walking home from Jen and Jed's at around half one and collapsing into bed.

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