Out and About with Loreen and Dinner Next Door

Saturday, April 25, 2009
London

When the day dawned all grey and dreary, I thought, Oh no....that's it, the end of the glorious week we had. But then, just an hour later, the sky cleared up miraculously, those clouds parted and the sun shone full upon our curve of the globe.

Not that I intended to get anywhere during the morning. I was too tied up transcribing the interview I did with Susan Lynn last week. Needless to say, it took hours and went into 11 pages! My friend Loreen called to find out when I could hook up with her as it is her last day in London (she returns tomorrow to Connecticut). I excused myself pleading work and told her to carry on to the Shakespeare Globe Theater with her daughter Alicia to see Romeo and Juliet as I intended to see it when Chriselle arrived here. I did tell her to come over to my flat for a cup of tea after the show. This left me time to complete my work, proofread it and email it to my office to be printed out.

But less than an hour later, they called again to tell me that the Globe was House Full and they could not so much as get their small toes in! Well, we had no option but to alter our plans. I grabbed myself a light lunch and ran in for a shower and, a half hour later, I was opening my door to them.

It was while we were enjoying a cup of tea that my doorbell rang--it was Tim, my next-door neighbor, whom I invited to join us for a cuppa. He did just that and we spent almost an hour chatting together. Tim had come in bearing an invitation to his place for dinner in the evening as he was fixing Spaghetti Bolognese. Well, I told him that while I would be there in a heartbeat, I was on a low-carb diet and would have to skip the spaghetti and eat only the bolognese sauce. Or, he suggested, as an alternative, I could eat a very small portion of spaghetti--which I agreed I would do.

Then, Loreen, Alicia and I left for a long ramble in Holborn intending to visit the Inns of Court at Chancery. Only most of them were closed (because it was a Saturday?). We were glad we were able to see Gray's Inn. We did arrive at Fleet Street where we decided to visit the Church of St. Clement Danes on The Strand. The bells of the church seemed to have crazy--the famous bells from the poem, that is: "Oranges and Lemons, Say the Bells of St. Clement's". The reason for the carillon was that a wedding had just ended and being the romantics we are, we stood on the sidewalk and watched as the bridal couple received warm wishes and hugs and kisses from their guests.

Interestingly, all of the ladies were wearing Phillip Treacy hats--I wonder if the bride had stipulated this--"You can only attend my wedding if you wear a Phillip Treacy hat!" She herself, dressed in a lovely cream lace gown, was a vision in the midst of so many gentlemen in top hats and tail coats--this is one aspect of English culture that I do wish had crossed the pond--the wearing of hats for ladies and top hats and tail coats for men at formal weddings, I mean. No matter how beautifully American women dress for weddings, none of them ever wears a hat. Pity, methinks!

The wedding party soon left the church 'yard' or what little is left of it in the middle of The Strand and filed into the two old Routemaster red buses hired for the occasion from London Transport to take them, presumably, to the next venue for the party! I watched all this, delighted to note that I had experienced an English wedding too while in London. Surely these folks could not have prayed for a better day. I mean there was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was just perfect!

When the bridal party left, we trooped into the church so Loreen could check it out and take some pictures (I had seen this church previously on one of my self-guided walks) and then, because Alicia informed me that her mother had not yet seen Covent Garden, we walked there and spent the next hour watching buskers perform, listening to a string orchestra and taking in the tourist energy all around us. Yes, with the weather having changed, London is fast filling with tourists and I can't help but feel pleased that I explored so many parts of the country and indeed Europe at a time when I had most of these sites entirely to myself.

Then, we were piling into a bus with the intention of getting to Holland Park so I could photograph some of the tulips I saw there before they have quite disappeared. But we were tempted on two occasion to alight: once by the crowds at Trafalgar Square where Mayor Boris Johnson was holding a free concert to celebrate St. George's Day (though the temptation was strong, we resisted alighting from the bus at that point and elected to stay on board) and once at Piccadilly where we did get off to explore Fortnum and Mason as we were all starving by this point.

In the food court, we bought ourselves Scotch Eggs and quiche (for Alicia), then settled down on a bench at St. James' Church Square and munched on our extempore snack as the craft vendors closed shop for the day. By then it was almost 6. 45 pm and time for me to return for my dinner with Tim and Barbara next door.

And what a delightful evening that was! Tim, of course, not only produced one of the superb meals I have grown to expect from him, but ever so thoughtfully had changed the menu completely in keeping with the dictates of my low-carb diet! To my enormous surprise, he eliminated the spaghetti and while he retained the Bolognese Sauce, he served it with sauteed mushrooms, glazed carrots and steamed beans--all of which combined to make a truly delicious meal and a most colorful plate! For dessert, I had taken along a Belgian Chocolate Cheesecake from "our larder" (as they like to call the M&S Simply Foods across our building) and together with coffee, it made another wonderful course which we enjoyed as we watched golf on TV, listened to extracts from a revue from the 1960s by Flanders and Swann, watched a portion of Top Gear, a BBC TV show of which I had never heard and generally talked about a lot of things! Time always flies when I am in their company and before I knew it was it was past 10. 30 pm and time for me to thank them and return home--all the way next-door!

I told Llew all about my day before I fell asleep but not before I wrote this blog.

Tomorrow I am off to Stratford-on-Avon with Stephanie to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday in his own hometown!