In retrospect

A few afterwards afterwords...

1. See? I was there, too. I love this photo with Maddy, complete with drunken sleeping guy behind us.

2. Maddy sporting a fascinator. Let's all wear hats more, okay?

3. Sam is at the point where he just tolerates my picture taking.

Me: Come on, let me take a picture (with chocolate smeared all over his face after a nutella crepe). You know how much your mama loves a good photo.

Sam: Annnnnd...you know your son loves his good dignity. Sorry mom.

I didn't take the picture. Dignity trumps photography. Most of the time.

4. Pilgrimage to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. This insures that my kids never grow up, right?

. . .

Favorite times: the Fat Bike Tour around London | just sitting in the parks watching people (I even saw John Oliver doing interviews for the Daily Show in St. James Park) | 39 Steps via the Half Price tkts booth | Les Miserables (according to G, the musical that launched a trip to London. It's a little bit true) | Churchill War Rooms | walking around with G on a night out | Portobello Road Market (crazy fun on Saturday mornings) | the London Eye | the Hyde Park ward | seeing Rosetta Stone and Elgin marbles in person at the British Museum

The weather: The weather deserves a starring role in the story of our trip. It was extraordinary. The sun, the lilacs and every other conceivable flowering thing, the green grass, the warmth. We were there during a charmed stretch of days, that's for sure. You can tell in my photos (last post) that I was obsessed with the blue-blue sky. It sprinkled once for about an hour. Truly a London rarity. Thanks, mother nature. We owe you one.

Memorable moments: when I fell down the stairs at Pizza Hut (for starters, it's embarrassing that we were even going to Pizza Hut in London but we needed something fast before a show, okay?), Sam falling down the stairs at the Serpentine, looking over at my kids' faces during Les Miserables (tears were shed). Actually, I had many stop-and-bottle-up-time moments when I just felt so lucky to be with my family, at these ages, mindful of the fleeting time. This was a trip well savored, I promise. At least once we got over grumpy jet lag.

Food: Zizzi | Byron's | pub fish+chips | picnic food from Harrod's | nutella + strawberry crepes from a street vendor | truffles from Harrod's | awesome fresh fruit and delicious bread and croissants

Trip Reading: Vogue & Vanity Fair, Anna Quindlen's Every Last One (me) | The Book Thief (Sam) | Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer & The Fifth Witness (G) | The Secret Lives of Dresses & Jane Eyre (Maddy) |  Roma & The Postmistress (Lauren)  

Notes for next time (ohpleasemayIhaveanexttime?) things we missed but wanted to see: Hampton Court | Stratford | Bath | Cambridge/Oxford | St. Paul's | National Gallery | Beatrix Potter's Hilltop Farm & the Lake District | Stonehenge | Colchester and ancestral villages | Harry Potter sites | the V&A.

. . .

photos via my iphone + the instagram app

London blitz

 O town of townes, patron and not compare,
London, thou art the flower of Cities all.

~William Dunbar

Oh, London.

Hello! London was quite brilliant, really.

(And now there's a little British-accented voice in my head that dictates I write with a British tilt. Sorry. Cheers.)

I didn't take my computer with me and my phone only had very occasional coverage. Hence, no posts. Hence, the (soon, you'll see) barrage of photos and posts. We're in the middle of re-entry: unpacking and laundry and paying the piper for being gone a week. In the meantime, here are a few moments from our first day+, jet lag and all...

More soon, ready or not.

It's a jolly holiday

A bit ago the stars aligned (well, the stars and our wanderlust and an airline sale and our last spring break all together and a--knock on wood--nice tax return) and we rather spontaneously decided to go on an adventure next week over spring break. Not just any old adventure but the Queen of All Adventures. A royal adventure. I can hardly stand it, I AM SO EXCITED. If I were a cool, been-there-done-that kind of blogger I would wait and tell you once we already landed (oh by the way, we're abroad this week). But (clearly) international woman of mystery I am not.*

London, here we come! I've been waiting 20+ years to share my favorite city with my kids. It gives me happy chills just thinking about it.

Yesterday I was checking into tickets at the Globe Theatre (eep!) and, as I filled out the information form here were the choices for "title":

• Mr
• Mrs
• Miss
• Ms
• Dr
• Sir 
• Lord
• Lady
• Dame
• Prof
• Air Commodore
• Baroness
• Brigadier
• Canon 
• Capt
• Cmdr
• Colonel
• Count
• Countess
• Judge
• Lt
• Madame
• Marquess
• Prince
• Princess
• Rev
• Bishop
• Duke
• Viscount
• Viscountess

All of the above, please? Not in Kansas any more, I guess! I'm no fan of insults and put-downs but perhaps a little Shakespearean insult training (e.g., Thou spleeny rough-hewn dewberry!) wouldn't hurt in the name of cultural understanding and Hamlet prep?

. . .

*I am so lacking in mystery that a quick glance back through the last few posts reveal mentions of: Upstairs Downstairs (British), a quote by Winston Churchill (ditto), a letter to BBC's Blue Peter (yes, again), and a clip of Les Mis (yup).

Pubs & Pogues

A couple of years ago (back when G worked for a British company and I rode his coattails as often as I could when he went there for meetings) we wandered into a pub on a little side street in London.  As a non-British non-drinker, I was always fascinated by the whole pub experience (do I choose where I sit?  do I walk over to the bar and shout my soda order? is someone going to yell at me? and what about the crowd of people lingering outside?  do I just walk up and make conversation? are they already in groups of friends?)  

As you can tell, I overthink things.

This time it was irresistible.  It was the night of the European Football Playoffs  and there was a jolly chaos inside that we couldn't ignore.  So we went in, joined in the happy cheering and jeering, suddenly die-hard English football fans by virtue of pub-adoption. I grinned through the whole jubilant exuberant night and left feeling like I had jumped, Mary-Poppins-and-Burt-style, into another world.  Minus the penguin waiters.

* * *

Last Friday G and I had tickets to the Pogues concert at The House of Blues.  Let's see...Irish folk/punk band in Boston?  In a concert hall with five bars along the interior perimeter?  Think that'll be lively?

I'm pretty sure we were the only sober ones there.

I'm pretty sure lead singer Shane MacGowan was the least sober one there.

I'm pretty sure 85% of the attendees were singing along with the band at the top of their lungs.

It brought back memories of that merry pub experience (multiplied by 10). There aren't any seats at the House of Blues concert venue, which makes for a lot of dancing and interactions. Lots of grown tough burly Irish American men dancing jigs, complete with locking elbows and spinning.  Pretty much like this:

For instance: At one point I was walking on the way back from the loo and a guy put his finger on top of my head. I looked at him quizzically and he and his girlfriend said "spin! spin!" so I did and they all cheered.  (Apparently I was the first who did. I kind of felt like "Norm!" at Cheers).  It was amazing fun.   We laughed a lot--at the dancers, at the manic mood of the whole audience, at the enthusiasm.

And at the same time, a bit of sadness on the underside of the evening.  Looking at addiction's ravages in Shane MacGowan (he looks decades older than his age) you wonder why the extreme lows and destructiveness have to so frequently accompany the joyousness.

{In fact, the Boston Globe called the show "a blended blur of life's emotional extremes: joy, laughter, tears, and sorrow. Beating at the music's clamoring heart were the Pogues, who ultimately left us wondering whether there ever was a band so perfectly, equally suited to playing either a wedding or a wake." } 

Other Pogue favorites:  Fairy Tale of New York, Love You Till The End

photo via MaryElle St. Clare's Flickr page