London

Twenty-two hours in London: how to spend them? Sleep: they must include sleep. But of course, there is the issue of adjusting to the time change, though not so much as is typically the case on trips to Europe: the UK runs an hour behind the rest of the continent and, too, daylight savings time comes here in two weeks, so I'm actually just five hours ahead of home (as opposed to the usual European seven).

Twenty-two hours. In a city like Paris, the night seamlessly blends into the day: it's really true that that city never sleeps. London is different. Especially now, in March and on a Sunday. It hasn't the pulse of a night city -- at least not here, not in Marylebone -- my neighborhood this time around. (And if you think you know how to pronounce that, well then, let me tell you, you're one better than me, because I have heard a million different versions, though the most enduring is some very quick rendition of Mar-lee-bone. The name comes from the days when the aristocracy spoke French and so it's actually a French name of "St Mary a le bourne" -- St. Mary being a local church, and le bourne being French for a stream that once ran through here.)

Twenty-two hours on March 15, 2015. That's Mothering Day in the U.K.: it falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent and has been, over time conflated with what we would call Mother's Day. A nice bit of history on this British holiday is provided in the Independent here, where you can also see the Google doodle honoring this day. (A funnier one minute clip depicting a parody on how Prince Charles celebrates his mother-the-queen's day can be viewed in the Daily Mirror here -- burnt toast and all. The British have a unique sense of humor.)

Let me run through my London twenty-two hours. You've read about my arrival at the hotel. Let's take it from there.

I do leave my room. It's warm, it's snug, but I have this itch, you see, the one that has made me endure the hours of travel to be here, far from home: it's the itch to explore.

I am very close to Oxford Street -- which is sort of like taking one of our great big malls and spilling it out onto a street (and it is, as a result, under high alert right now, since it has been threatened, but you wouldn't know it for the crowds here on this cold day). If I'm to buy an extra thick sweater, this would be a good place to search for it. I have a light sweater, I have a fleece jacket, but it's not enough for a damp mid 45F. People are wearing their winter coats and I can't blame them.

I go into one of the stores and I look at racks of discarded winter sweaters and I then I just turn my back on all of it. I can't do it: I have maybe a day more of cold weather. I can't give in to a season that I consider over and done with. I tell myself to walk briskly to ward off the cold. And I do. For three hours, I walk very briskly.

But where to?

So much traffic! Because London is under a "lorry control scheme" (basically no trucks are allowed on weekends), you'd think there would be less of a traffic issue here, but no. London also imposes a congestion charge on cars in the city, but only on weekdays. In effect, cars here have free reign on weekends and of course, there are plenty of buses and cabs. To my eye, there are far more buses and cabs moving around here than just about in any other European city.






So I take to the park. Hyde Park. (And I walk briskly!)

It's quieter here and of course, there are fewer people on a day like this. I enjoy that for a few minutes and I especially appreciate the daffodils.





Yes, makes you recall the poem by William Wordsworth, doesn't it?

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils...

Recalling these flowers later, warmed the soul of Wordsworth, but it doesn't warm the flesh and bone, I can assure you. Still, they are lovely flowers and since they come on the cooler days of spring, I always think of them as being unusually resilient.

At Piccadilly Street, I leave the park. I want to be tempted by a cafe. I haven't eaten anything since the half a yogurt I downed on the plane (I never like the inflight breakfasts -- they are an insult to my images of this exalted meal). But London isn't Paris and every street does not boast a cafe. I go in toward Shepherd Market -- a set of blocks that has a higher number of eateries. I peer inside the one obvious cafe with a very local looking clientele...





I go inside. I am accosted by the waitress. What would you like? Are you wanting something to eat? Oh, I recognize that accent. Polish, I'm sure of it. She follows me as if I required supervision and as I appear to hesitate, she continues the questions -- what..? what...? I finally ask about the heavy looking cakes -- do you make these yourselves? She seems visibly put off by the question and I know that no matter what the answer, I don't want to be here.

Rejecting that cafe, I think I should look for another. I walk further down Piccadilly. Nothing tempts me. But as I pass the Royal Academy of Arts, I notice the banners for the current exhibit:  Rubens and his Legacy. Maybe I should poke in?





I ask -- how much is the entrance fee?
Thirty pounds.
That's a lot! 
Are you a senior?
What do you call a senior?
Over 60.
Yes!
Then it's twenty five. Less if you just want the Rubens.

It's not that I wouldn't spend that money on an exhibit that I would enjoy, but I don't even especially like Rubens and the other exhibit is of an American artist (Richard Diebenkorn) and that just seems so wrong for my one afternoon in London!

But they surely have a cafe...

Well no, it's a cafeteria. And though it has a bit of a British cast to it...





...the whole large cafeteria space seems lonely in its crowdedness. I know, I'm fussy today! I leave.

Up Piccadilly once more, all the way to Piccadilly Circus which I remember as being such a disappointment the first time I saw it -- I expected dazzling lights. I expected a vast space. I don't know -- I expected more than a congested roundabout, with one statue of what is thought to be Eros in the center. Or rather centre. These days I just smile at these old expectations. London is what it is. Enjoying it requires discarding expectations.






And I walk on, turning right onto Regent, all the way down to the Mall, which borders St James Park and is known to many of us as the wide boulevard that leads all processions to Buckingham Palace. If you're a royal wedding watcher, you would have seen it many a time on TV. The street is blissfully free of cars. I don't know why. Maybe to give strollers some peace from the noise of traffic. Maybe for security reasons. I exhale. And I really love St James! Yes, those daffodils, for one thing...






They're really beautiful here! For a minute, I forget about everything else -- the hunger, noise, cold -- all of it. The British know how to do flowers well, even in these first days of spring!






(I'll throw in a quick look at a London favorite -- Big Ben.)






And in spots, there are other emerging flowers too. The English daisy is already visible. Here's a rather impressionistic rendition of a clump of this so English a flower!






And, too, I see the English primrose is up and running. The primrose here is a near evergreen and it grows wild in forests. This one is a variation on the traditionally yellow flower.






And there's another thing that the British really appreciate: birds. As I approach the pond, two gentlemen with huge cameras are eying this guy:





What is it? I ask. It looks like our heron, but it's all hunched into itself.
It's a gray heron, but a young one. 
Oh, it's quite pretty!
It's aggressive in the pond! 
Well, it looks gentle now!

The two chaps help me identify another funny looking guy: a coot, with feet that look like they should be webbed, only they're not.





(You can read about these two birds at site of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: here's the coot and the gray heron.)

The park has squirrels too and I watch as a couple feeds one. (Two things to note: the squirrel seems to be across between the Polish orange one and the American gray. And secondly, in the background, you see Buckingham Palace.)






Alright. I'm out of the park...






...and turning toward my hotel neighborhood. I give up on the cafe. Or at least on a breakfast-lunch-predinner snack. It's actually time for me to go for my evening meal.


Marlybone  (my neighborhood) is getting to be a bit trendy. I can tell, not only because the New York Times once said so, but also because walking along Marylebone High Street...





... I come across all the standard French left bank upscale shops and boutiques. But it also has a relaxed and quiet demeanor. It's not stuffy like, say, Knightsbridge (from what I remember of it). 

I've booked a dinner at Fischer's on the High Street itself-- a cafe-restaurant that serves what can be described as Mittel-European food. It's not that I'm in love with central European fare, but the description of this place appealed to me: informal, a cross between a cafe and a restaurant, open all day. The menu looked good and it would not exhaust my budget for the trip.

The crowd is lively -- possibly there are mother types being celebrated with big glasses of hot chocolate with whipped cream, like at this table...





Most people, like me, are eating a full meal now. And I enjoy mine tremendously! (Hunger will do that to you.)

I'll just post my appetizer -- three thin slices of rye, one with chopped sardine and beetroot, one with smoked salmon and goat curd (their terminology; it seemed like regular goat cheese to me and I'm from Wisconsin, home of the curd!), and one with artichoke.





The meal is entirely successful, though it doesn't do what I had hoped it might -- it does not warm me up after a day of chilling myself inside and out.

Only one thing can do that: back at the hotel, I pour myself a nice steamy tub of water and I do what I have never done in my life: I climb in and turn on the TV, which amazingly in this hotel room is placed right inside the bath-shower combo and I watch BBC news.

Honestly, I nearly fell asleep in that hot tub.

A warm quilt, a cozy, quiet room -- perfect conditions for a good night's sleep? Well, almost perfect. I do the usual first night in Europe thing: I sleep some, then wake up in the middle of the night and there's nothing to be done but accept the fact that sleep wont come back quickly or easily. So I take out my computer and write this post.

arrival

People have strong feelings about London. British people, old timers, new arrivals, visitors.

Except for me. I just tend to avoid it. Yes, I must sometimes pass through it (witness the two pass through trips recorded on Ocean), but most of my trips to the UK have entirely omitted this great big city from my consideration.

The reason for it? Well, you could say that I like other parts of the UK much better, so why waste a day here? And, London is so damn expensive! But, too, I think for me, London is a bit of a fairy tale. I passed through it as a kid (and promptly forgot it) but I really opened my eyes to it when my own children were very small, especially when my older girl was very small -- just turning three -- and she and I (pregnant with the second girl) had many wonderful weeks making day trips to the big city to see the museums while her dad worked in the libraries up in East Anglia (Cambridge). I walked that little girl to pieces then! Up and down, in and out of the Tube, in and out of museums, accompanied by wonderful kid books explaining everything from modern art at the Tate to the mummies in the British Museum.

So why touch a golden memory? Why go back at all?

Well, as always, I hate to form these rock solid opinions and not give cities a chance. When my younger daughter told me she wanted to visit Berlin with me a few years ago, I balked, but she, having the stamina to stick to her desires while I wilt and falter, insisted that we put Berlin on our travel map and I am so glad we went! (Even as I still don't regard that city as a chipper place to explore. Forgive me. My history is what it is. Perhaps I remember too well a visit to East Berlin when there still was an East and a West Berlin.)

When I planned this March trip to Europe, I was, of course, looking for decent weather. This is tricky: you can hit glorious skies in many parts of Europe now, but some hold a greater likelihood of rain -- day in, day out rain, the kind that drips down your collar and chills you inside and out -- it's best to avoid it. I picked two regions that hold the promise of a lesser likelihood of rain and the first is right here in England (yes, I'm serious!) and the second? Well, that's next week's story (and a rather predictable one, so don't go making wild guesses -- it's south and it's in France).

I could have gone straight to my English destination today, but London tempted me just a tiny bit. For a Sunday afternoon. Why not? (Even though it took me forever to find a hotel I might actually enjoy rather than just tolerate, given my budget.)

So after a terribly ordinary and very late flight from Detroit to London, I hopped on a train to Paddington Station in city center (or should I affect the British and write centre) and from there, walked, marveling how when you alight from the airport train in Paris, you immediately know you're in Paris and when you alight from the airport train in London, you immediately know you're in London.






 My hotel is a mere twenty minute walk from Paddington and I have two comments on that short trudge: first of all, I was delighted to see that England already has this to offer:






But secondly, the good weather I am slated to have (according to the weather maps) does not begin until Tuesday. It is in the mid forties now and the skies are pouty and bleak and I am cold. 

Never mind. As I check in to my small (but expensive for me, though okay with a prepaid special rate) hotel, which is very close to the Marble Arch, hence its name -- the Arch, not to be confused with the Marble Arch hotel next door, where I first went, to be greeted with blank stares! -- I am served a warm cup of peppery ginger tea and immediately I am reminded how the British solve many of life's crises with a cup of tea.

The hotel room is small, but warm and cozy...






... and the views are, well, very U.K.! Note, too, that it has started to drizzle and my optimism told me to leave the umbrella at home, as the forecast only spoke of a drizzly day today and tomorrow.






Oh, I shall go out, I must go out, I want to go out -- eventually. But Hyde Park -- a mere two blocks away, is at the moment uninviting and I just made myself a cup of coffee and opened my laptop.

Maybe later, when the drizzle gives a pause. For now, I'm enjoying my first hours in England from the warm quiet of my hotel room.

departure

A crazy night of wakefulness: it's a test, that's what it is! Does she have the stamina to take an overnight flight after having far too few sleep hour from the previous night under her belt? Does she? and more importantly, can she still enjoy the one and only day she has given herself in London on so little sleep?

These are the suspense questions I leave for you and for myself for today and tomorrow.

There's more: how the heck did I manage to book a connection with an eight hour layover in Detroit? Here I have an easy answer. I'm using up Ed's miles on this trip and beggars can't be fussy: this is the best I could do for myself.

And now the upside, because believe me, there is always an upside (please know that whenever I say this, I am excepting days of poor health: there aren't many upsides to poor health). I surely have time to post!

Up early, with plenty of time to pack my tiny case. And it remains half empty.  I have a lot of train travel ahead and light packing makes this a fun way to keep moving.

We eat breakfast. Leisurely, in the sun room. A bigger one for Ed as it's our last meal together for a while. I'm thinking -- I must make it grand and memorable! It is. Both. (I did ask him if he wanted a haircut before I left; he balked. Honestly -- I was glad: I love his hair as it expands wildly in all directions.)






The cheepers come to say goodbye (or so I project onto them). They hang out forever on the front mat. I'm glad they like it, but its usefulness as a doormat will diminish if they keep leaving for us souvenirs of their visit there.  But who can fuss today! It's sunny, warm, they're in their happy spring mode.






And then it is time to go. One tiny detour -- to return a sweater my daughter left at the farmhouse. And to peek. Just peek in on a girl who herself seems to be catching up on sleep. Be good to your family, and to yourself, little one!






And I'm off. I'm leaving Wisconsin at her most glorious moment: the snow is gone, the hope of spring is palpable.






(By contrast, Michigan, across the great lake, has yet to rid itself of all snow.)


I am in transit. Waiting for that last flight scheduled to leave this airport tonight. My flight. To London.

Friday

Having adult daughters puts me on a wonderful path of discovery, as each each day I learn something new (and wonderful) about each girl. One beautiful characteristic of my older daughter is that she wants as much of family for her young child as is possible, given the constraints of time and distance. Snowdrop has just two grandmas, but for my daughter, that is not a "just." It is a "hey!" I'm sure if Snowdrop had a hundred grandmas, my girl would be equally excited to welcome each to her home and make each feel like she is important. Because to her (and to her husband), each one is hugely important. The more family, the better!

Today, Snowdrop's other grandma, known to you, Ocean readers as grandma Charlotte, a frequent commenter on this blog, flew in to spend a good bit of time with Snowdrop.

It is also true that grandma Charlotte flew in just a little before I am to fly out, so that the young parents could benefit from her help in the weeks I am away. She is that thoughtful. Snowdrop is a very lucky girl.

Because it is my last full day here, I am in a complete kerfuffle as to what should  happen when. There are not enough hours in the day and so you must forgive me for the brevity of my story here. I have a huge check list of all that must be done before I depart. Let me run through the day with it in mind, because it surely is a guidepost to my activities throughout the day.

Breakfast? Yes, of course. Hurried, but yes. Check.






Feed cheepers who are en masse at the  farmhouse door. Check.





Go grocery shopping. I know it's weird to have that on the list on the day before I leave, but I have a dinner party at the farmhouse tonight and besides, Ed needs some foods stored in the fridge. Surely he can't do without the cheese curds and bananas that I pick up for him and certainly he'll benefit from tonight's dinner leftovers. Check.

Then onto Snowdrop's home. Her mommy needs to get the house somewhat in order for the guest from Buffalo (that's you, grandma Charlotte!), so I babysit a little. Snowdrop is just waking up when I get there...






... and then the three of us -- my daughter, Snowdrop and I go for that long walk around the lake (1.5 hours).


 
("let's go, mommy and grandma!")


It's glorious outside! Mid sixties! A beautiful, sunny day! Check.



(mommy's sleeves are rolled up)





(even as the ice fishermen are still out on the lake)


Oh, but time's running out! And I need to give Lily a wash! Of course I do! I can't leave that car all encrusted in salt for 2.5 weeks! And I forgot to buy some Dijon mustard! How can I sizzle mustard chicken thighs for dinner without the principle ingredient? Back to the grocery store. Check.

Late afternoon. Back at the farmette. Ed shows me the wood carving that he did for his friend on his mini CNC milling machine. I must take a picture! Check.






And we had planned on moving the cheepers' coop today from the barn to the outdoors! That's a big project. I roll up my sleeves and shovel a winter's worth of soiled wood shavings out of the coop. And we move it! Check.











Print boarding pass, fold laundry, water plants -- check!

And I cook -- to the chicken thighs and drumsticks, I add a celery root puree and we have a beautiful family meal and I tidy up -- check check check!

Throughout, Snowdrop is a little uncertain. The routines seem different. The sounds, the movements, the dinner hour here, at the farmhouse. Her mom extends a reassuring hand.






She'll be okay. She has a great mommy and daddy.






I take her for one last glance at her favorite red elephant in the mobile above her farmhouse crib...







...I feed her and hand her over to a loving grandma Charlotte, who helps Snowdrop master her newest skill -- finding her own fist and thumb to suck.






I say goodbye to Snowdrop. She has many pairs of loving hands to care for her. Knowing that, makes me very very happy.

(Even as I miss her intensely! Check.)

Thursday

It can't last. Nothing goes on without interruption except the progression of time. So, too, these brazen and brilliant spring days will taper off, but for now, it is glorious outside!

And who said chickens don't have memories? A whole season later, they are at the farmhouse door, clucking and waiting on the doormat, knowing darn well that I will soon step out and bring them treats.






Isie boy joins us for breakfast. He passes on the food but feeds on the warmth. I like that about him: right now, in his old age, he thrives on affection. And so I tolerate his stomach issues, his trampling over us all night long, his incessant meowing to get a morsel of food. He has become a sweet old cat. Nothing else matters. We'll never have a cat like him again (and therefore no one will convince me to have another cat here once he's gone).






Snowdrop comes over shortly after. Her parents have appointments and meetings galore and they sweetly offer to bring her for the long stretch to the farmhouse, where it's easier for me to play with her and keep an eye on, say, the laundry. (I'm leaving the day after tomorrow and I have the usual boatload of things to attend to before.)

Here she is, doing what she loves so much at the farmhouse: staring at the red elephant in her musical mobile.






I have this terrible fear that the sunshine will not be with us all day today. And so we head out early for our walk -- Ed, Snowdrop and I.






I check on her. A lot.






And the skies stay blue. All day long.






After the walk, I take Snowdrop out back of the barn, to reintroduce her to the cheepers. The girls come out hastily, as if excited by the prospect of future play!






Indoors, Ed holds her as I get her feeding ready. Ed is a laid back kind of person. It rubs off a little on Snowdrop when she is with him. As always, she looks so tiny in his big arms!






And now you're going to get a series of the Snowdrop laughs and giggles. Every day they are more varied, more lovely, more delicious.





















All that is spring has entered her little heart. Mine as well.











She is so full of energy, sweetness and movement. Total joy. It's her gift and I am so so lucky that she shares it so freely, without reservation.