Cheers
I feel as if I’ve no clue what’s really going on in the rest of the world. I’m lost in the tiny square mile of London and a few bits beyond. Writing this email I learned about the Bow Street Runners and Samuel Pepys among other things. Of course I do know how the Red Sox are doing, but not much more. Writing these emails seems to take forever because there’s just so much to learn about what we see. There’s no test on it so skip what you want. I’m not only writing this to share, but because it interests me too. And thank goodness for cut and paste!
Today was mostly rest day though we did walk across the river and around the Borough area and then later to the nearby Waitrose market. Tomorrow, who knows.
Ru
Our Roanoke friends Jane and Peter Field came to visit us! Peter had work/conferences in several places in the UK and lucky for us they also stopped in London. And their hotel was in Hyde Park, not so far away. We had a lovely visit with them here on DoraMac AND I WAS HAVING SUCH A GREAT TIME I DIDN’T ONCE THINK TO TAKE OUT MY CAMERA!!!!
Jane was free the next day so she and I planned a day out. Jane is a whiz with the maps and tube so I just followed her.
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Jane and me on DoraMac There are two long storied here. The first I’ll tell is about the photo. It was taken at my retirement party. Jane and I had worked together at the Roanoke County Public Library. Jane was heroic and worked part time including the dreaded Sunday afternoons. I once vowed that when she left, so was I. Alas the Roanoke City Schools scooped her up but Jane, public library supporter that she is, still filled in when she could. I’m in the center of the photo and Jane is to my left next to Darlene in the bright blue shirt. We’re all wearing black Reference Hats, my parting gift to everyone. As for the box: the Roanoke County Library Holiday Party gift exchange gift NOBODY WANTED!! “The John Edwards Collins Street Bakery Fruitcake” which Jane had won at a neighborhood party in 2001! She brought it to the Library party where it gained historic status as the one gift that came every year. My last library party, 2004, I deliberately took it and promised to drop it into the South China Sea. As you can see, I didn’t, as here it is and it has traveled the world with us…..one day maybe to return to the Roanoke County Public Library Holiday Party!! |
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One very old, hard as a rock, fruitcake : on our Turkish carpets in the saloon of Doramac. Proof I kept more than the box! |
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Off to see Rumpole. http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-the-city/what-we-do/Pages/Central-Criminal-Court.aspx “No electronic devices, bags, food or drink are allowed in the building.” Somehow I’d missed that in my reading about visiting the Old Bailey. I knew it was free and you could watch court proceedings, but somehow I missed the bit about no cameras or phones. That would make a visit to The Old Bailey something to do when you had no plans to do anything else. But we did take this fruitcake picture while we were outside the Courts. We thought it appropriate as John Edwards is responsible for its being here. John Edwards, Virginia State Senator from District 21, practices law in Roanoke and is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Virginia Law School teaching trial advocacy. |
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London Travel Etiquette |
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I’ve either seen this woman twice or there are at least two women in London with blue hair. Fun!! |
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A visit to Covent Garden Market on this gray day. |
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How does he do this? I gave him money because I wanted to take some photos. Jane guessed how it was done without smoke or mirrors; but I’m not telling. |
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So cute! |
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Jamie Oliver’s Union Jack at Covent Garden Time for lunch http://www.jamieoliver.com/ I have no idea how the gadget to Jane’s left work, but the top ones say Hot Seat and the bottom Toasty Feet. Probably heaters for when it gets chilly. We both like Jamie Oliver, but our soup came cold so we sent it back. It returned warmer but not hot like we both like it. The flavor was good. It was a mug of thick carrot and something soup. And the bread with it was tasty with a wonderful crust. There was lots of street food, but it wasn’t a day to sit out in the damp and eat. We were looking for a “sit down place” that didn’t cost a bunch. When you travel lots, eating out is less of an occasion and more of a, we need to eat type of affair. |
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Punch and Judy at Covent Garden “The earliest recorded evidence we have of Punch in England is from the 17th Century Diarist Samuel Pepys. Who, while on a visit to Covent Garden, on 9th May 1662, wrote… “Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw, and great resort of gallants.” Punch & Judy shows have stayed popular down the centuries because they have been kept topical. In wartime, Punch would fight and beat Hitler. In more recent times, Tony Blair, has even made an appearance! http://www.thepjf.com/history_of_punch_and_judy.html “Mr. Punch’s influence on British culture is unparalleled. In 2006, the Punch and Judy show was named one of 12 icons of Englishness by the British government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport—right up there with a cup of tea and the double-decker bus. To celebrate his 350th birthday in 2012, Mr. Punch was treated to an entire year of parties and was the focus of a six-month-long exhibition about him at the venerable Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood. But this most English of entertainers isn’t actually English in origin—he’s Italian Samuel Pepy (another one of those people a liberal arts education should have included.) “Pepys’s diary is not so much a record of events as a re-creation of them. Not all the passages are as picturesque as the famous set pieces in which he describes Charles II’s coronation or the Great Fire of London, but there is no entry which does not, in some degree, display the same power of summoning back to life the events it relates. Pepys’s skill lay in his close observation and total recall of detail. It is the small touches that achieve the effect. Another is the freshness and flexibility of the language. Pepys writes quickly in shorthand and for himself alone. The words, often piled on top of each other without much respect for formal grammar, exactly reflect the impressions of the moment. Yet the most important explanation is, perhaps, that throughout the diary Pepys writes mainly as an observer of people. It is this that makes him the most human and accessible of diarists, and that gives the diary its special quality as a historical record. Instead of writing a considered narrative, such as would be presented by the historian or biographer or autobiographer, Pepys shows us hundreds of scenes from life – civil servants in committee, MP’s in debate, concerts of music, friends on a river outing. Events are jumbled together, sermons with amorous assignations, domestic tiffs with national crises. The diary’s contents are shaped also by another factor – its geographical setting. It is a London diary, with only occasional glimpses of the countryside. Yet as a panorama of the seventeenth-century capital it is incomparable, more comprehensive than Boswell’s account of the London a century later because Pepys moved in a wider world. As luck would have it, Pepys wrote in the decade when London suffered two of its great disasters – the Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of the following year. His descriptions of both – agonisingly vivid – achieve their effect by being something more than superlative reporting; they are written with compassion. As always with Pepys it is people, not literary effects, that matter.” |
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Bow Street Police Station Anne Perry’s Thomas Pitt is one of a long line of characters connected with Bow Street. Here is how the real Bow Street Runners were started http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/sir-john-fielding-blind-beak-of-bow.html by the author Henry Fielding and his blind brother Sir John Fielding. |
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New fall colors : we passed this shop on our way to visit Harrods |
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A visit to Harrods http://www.harrods.com/ Sizes chart of women’s clothes UK and US. UK US 4 0 6 2 8 4 10 6 12 8 14 10 |
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Jane taking her photo : and writing the following to me….. “one of the good things is that you stop to take photos of the same kind of things that I take photos of– so it was great that I didn’t feel like I was holding anyone up– lately the folks I’ve been with wonder WHY I am taking a photo of THAT!??” I never wondered because I was taking a photo of the same thing! |
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And if you’re 5’3.5” and weigh more than 100lbs how will this look? |
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Could be Vegas except for the bags rather than slot machines : this is the Egyptian room |
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I can’t imagine what was on floor 4 considering what we saw ground level. But the store was crowded and some people were even shopping. |
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Grand stairway to somewhere |
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The displays were lovely. |
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Not you Passover Manischewitz macaroons Renowned chocolatier William Curley has partnered with Champagne Laurent-Perrier to launch the new Friday evening Dessert Bar. Existing fans and dessert devotees will be able to take a seat in the decadent surroundings of the William Curley Belgravia Boutique, sip on Laurent-Perrier and watch the dedicated and specially trained in-house chefs at work. The five-course seasonal dessert menu, created by William Curley, consists of a range of hand-made delicacies served with a glass of Laurent-Perrier Brut, celebrated for its lightness, freshness and elegance. Dishes include: Bellini granita & poached peaches Chocolate sorbet, cassis compote and cassis tuille Coconut Rice pudding with mango & passion fruit compote and ginger madelaines Pain perdu, caramelised pears & almond milk ice cream Sesame Chocolate Tart, raspberry sauce and jasmine ice cream The Laurent-Perrier Dessert Menu will be available every Friday evening from 6pm throughout September at the William Curley Belgravia Boutique, costing £30 for the full menu. They all sound wonderful, but not all at one time; unless they are very very tiny. Randal makes the best pecan pie so we’ll stick with that and spend our money on Charing Cross Road. |
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Twinings Tea and Harrods Coffee |
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Lovely ceiling and chandelier |
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I probably won’t be having one of these ever. Marks & Spencer is more like it. As a matter of fact Jane and I each bought a rain/cold hat in M&S. |
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It doesn’t have a big red B, but it will do better in the rain and cold. |
