When we were in London

The long awaited London vacation. I am normally a fearless flyer preferring small planes to jets. I take delight in the bumps and dips of flying into cloud updrafts and wind storms. I love the two-seaters, the six-seaters, the 32-seaters, but I hate flying over the ocean at night in a jet. What, if the plane goes down it’s better to see one’s impending doom as the ocean gets closer and closer while at least one passenger channels a hysterical Shelley Winters straight from one of those awful crash movies? It isn’t really that image that worries me, but sleepless with nothing but long hours to idle away I eventually contemplate my mortality. This is usually triggered by the screech of metal on metal, which jolts my body into a black surge of terror, and my mind runs rampant with the probability of metal stress in the aging jetliner where I’ve entrusted my life and limb. Was that sound from some component necessary to stay aloft, say a wing, searing off rivet by rivet? It all seems so dire in the darkened claustrophobic tube of the creaking jet body. But hey, this trip I popped a few valium and did just fine. Sometimes drugs are the answer.

Tyler and I queued through the hubbub of Heathrow security through a melee of people, exotic languages from our entire planet pleasant in my ears. Customs cleared we hopped the tube to our Islington hotel in London proper. We emerged to a sunny morning in London, a frequent occurrence during our stay. London did not live up to its rainy reputation, perhaps years of living in the Willamette Valley inured us to the vagaries of a rainy climate. I bet the word “sunbreak” originated in Oregon.

Tyler adores fashion and her first order of business was shopping. She mastered the subway system quickly, whoops, I mean the Tube. The Brits did a fine job mapping the warren of tunnels running every which way under over and around the city. I’m a reluctant shopper at best so I blindly followed her from one connection to the next in the hunt for couture knock-off shops. Limpingly followed her is a more apt description as the kid walks really fast plus is a lot younger than me. We shopped at Fortnum & Mason’s with their artful display of exceptional produce, fine meats, and exotic tins of turtle soup. They have the Royal Warrant and are the Queen’s official grocer but she wasn’t there when we were. We admired a slew of designer clothing at many, many, many shops, including Harrod’s which is huge and deservedly famed for their window displays. We were there at the right time for Harrod’s only sale of the year. Harrod’s had the Royal Warrant too until the owner, father of Dodi al-Fayed who was killed with Princess Diana, suggested Prince Phillip was behind the Paris car crash. Prince Charles, son of of afore mentioned Phillip, pulled the standard, and so no more Royal Warrant for Harrod’s.

Tyler was concerned about my ability to make it back to the hotel on my own one afternoon when I was shopped out, tired and certainly whining about sore feet, and in dire need of a nap. I made it back just fine proving the old girl still has navigational ability however plodding. Plodding is an apt description as later I missed the last leg of my flight home by waiting at the wrong airline, resulting in a three-hour delay. Hey, I’d lost my glasses and it was early in the morning. Besides I had no idea two airlines had flights departing at the same time to Redmond.