All Five Of Us In England!

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We’re all back together!!! Well, at least the five people in the family; Macey’s and Starr’s absences are still felt a bit, but wow! is it great to have parents, children, brother, sisters, husband, wife all under one roof after six long months. We’ve all had wonderful adventures of traveling, athletics, learning, but nothing beats just hanging out together, and what super places to hang out together – London and Cambridge. Bill arrived on Monday June 29, about eight hours later than expected because he took advantage of United’s offer to take a later flight via Denver and snapped himself up $600 of travel vouchers. Yay! Another trip to be planned with those….

He was so sweet when he made it to Michelle’s house, after a two hour trek across London on Tube and trains, for after a quick cup of tea he set about doing some DIY for her. Michelle has been so generous to let us use her house as a base to come and go from for 4 and ½ months that we try to do as much as we can to pay her back, and Bill did his part by putting together a huge IKEA wardrobe and various other odd jobs. He was very patient with Benjamin and Michael as they desperately wanted to ‘help’. Benjamin spent most of the time looking for a pencil to put behind his hear so he could be a ‘real builder’ and Michael hammered in only a few nails cockeyed. I don’t know how Bill stayed up through all of this, he showed no sign of jet lag to speak of, just kept playing with the children, chatting and catching up with Harlowe and Anna, helping Michelle and hugging me every so often as he passed by. After all this work, we decided to leave Harlowe and Anna to babysit, and we took Michelle out for some much looked forward to margaritas at the one Mexican restaurant in a 15 mile radius. It was a very enjoyable adult dinner.

Tuesday morning Bill dragged me out of bed early for a run (ahhh, now the jet lag appears…), and then we dragged the rest of the family out of bed to head into London for a BIG day out. I am so happy, I can’t believe each day keeps getting bett

er and better, because now I was able to roam my favorite city surrounded by my whole family, seeing everybody enjoy it each in their own way. Careful negotiation was required for the day to progress peacefully, but for the most part we were able to pull that off. We started at the Imperial War Museum because I had promised Michael months earlier we would return here; this is a favorite place of all of ours. Once inside we split up in the main hall of tanks and airplanes, free to explore our own interests: Harlowe and Anna to post-WWII conflicts and Espionage, Michael and Bill to the submarines and the Blitz, and I went to read the love letters and poetry saved from WWI and the new Holocaust exhibition. This may sound like a grim museum, but it is so thoroughly and respectfully done that one cannot help but be captivated by the mass of information here. It definitely gives one pause, though.

From here we took a bus ride with a fantastic view over the Thames and onto Hyde Park Corner; Michael thought it was great fun t

o be peeking over the back garden fence of Buckingham Palace from the bus, just like the Big Friendly Giant did in Roald Dahl’s book. We grabbed lunch at the Hard Rock Café before a stroll through Hyde Park to Speaker’s Corner, which sadly seems to be a relic of the past now, there in name only – we told the children to expect to see strange people pontificating from the top of soap boxes, but there were no boxes and only tourists milling about. They thought it was very funny when I said, “But there’s always at least one crazy person railing about Armegeddon everytime I come here.” And Bill asked, “When was the last time you were here?” “1986.” Great laughter, and Harlowe managed to eek out, “Mom! Every time you come here?! That was 23 years ago!!! Do you realized how LONG ago that was?! The ‘80’s are like history!! They were in my textbooks this year!” Harumph, I was having a good day….

We decided to salvage our visit to Hyde Park, and because this day was a scorching 83°, we headed for

the Serpentine Lake and Princess Diana’s splashing fountain. Perfect idea: we splashed in the cool water and took naps in the soft carpet of grass in the shade. Fully revived with the rest and a 99 Flake ice-cream cone, we treated the family to a black cab ride to the Tate Britain art museum. This was my insisted upon personal luxury because I cannot come to London and not see the Rothko paintings, and right now for a special treat the museum has displayed them along the 19^th century landscape painter Turner’s works; Rothko painted large murals of color blocks, a roomful evoking a mood and bringing out deep emotions, and I love them. I also love Turner, and I hadn’t known, but it makes perfect sense to discover that Rothko was greatly influenced by Turner’s use of light, color and texture to capture the mood of landscapes.

Leaving the m

useum as it closed we had just enough time to catch a bus to Victoria to grab a quick dinner at the little diners outside the train station, eat in a local park sitting at the foot of a statue of some great white man riding a big horse, and then walk across the street to the Apollo Theatre to see the musical ‘Wicked’. We all enjoyed it immensely, good music, great acting, and even better story.

After all this, we were a little tired on Wednesday morning, but after a breakfast of tea and toast we headed out to Greenwich. We had such a wonderful time here a few days earlier that we wanted to bring Bill to see it too. Greenwich is indeed a special place because it captivated us agai

n, just three days after we were here. We spent hours in the Astronomy museum and caught the planetarium show, then we toured the Royal Observatory to learn about the Camera Obscura, the development of measured time, and navigation. The kids thought it was very cute that Bill and I met East to West over the Prime Meridian. After a lunch of sausages in the park, we walked down the hill to the Maritime museum, during which Michael and Benjamin had a ball using every tree as a hiding place for their spy games. The museum's building is beautiful, with its long, columned corridors – all very grand, pretty and white. I don’t know how many hours we stayed in here, again all going our diff

erent ways to explore our own interests at our own pace.

Unbelievably, Harlowe, Anna and Michael still had energy and enthusiasm to go see 'Transformers', so Bill took them there while Michelle, Benjamin and I went for a quiet dinner. Very late in the evening we all returned home and fell into bed.

And the week was not done yet….Thursday morning we rented a car and drove

up to Cambridge to stay with the Raffs. It was still very warm, a week of sunshine in England – lovely!! After strolling around Cambridge's riverside, colleges and narrow streets, and walking down lots of memory lanes we hit the Grand Arcade, the fantastic new shopping preceint in the center of the town. This was being argued over while we lived here years ago, and now to see it all completed and indeed 'grand' we felt the heavy debate had been worth it because the final result is a very pleasant

area to spend a little time shopping in. Harlowe finally found her Homecoming shoes, and they are absolutely beautiful - just what a pair of special shoes should be, Michelle picked up a dress in the sales she had been coveting for quite awhile, Michael chose a shockingly-colored candy rope from the market stall, and I was treated to a spontaneous gift from the Swarovski crystal shop which Harlowe thought was even more absolutely beautiful than her shoes. This wonderful day ended in the Raffs garden for a delicious sunset dinner as the younger boys splashed in the huge paddling pool Rachel had been so kind to set up for them, when they weren't knocking apples out of the trees. Mikey and Anna used the apples with which to play a hard-throwing game of catch, and the rest of us spent the evening catching up. As we watched the orange glowing moon rise at the late hour this far north, we finally said goodbye to Michelle and Benjamin for the next week, and found our comfortable beds Rachel had set up for us throughout their home.

I was so rested and at ease the next morning I didn't want to move; the air was balmy with a soft breeze and the morning light was shining in from all sides of our room at the top of the house. But, after a late breakfast and slow morning, we ventured back to the town center to meet my sister and her family, over from Oxford for the day, and do some punting. Michael continued developing his expertise with long pole, Harlowe proved she could push the boat through the water without hitting any bridges, and their cousin Sarah also gave it a go. My brother-in-law Dan, as King's College alumni, gets us access to their cellars and after hopping off the boats we took the opportunity to pick up a couple of bottles of yummy aged port. This was to be the last time, or so I thought, to spend some time with my sister for the next year, so we sent the rest on ahead and took our time walking down King's Parade to have our heads together in sister-to-sister heavy conversation.

After an afternoon's punting and walking, we headed back to the Raff's to get ready to see Ella off for her prom. On the way, I took an hour's excursion with Anna to have her 'colors' done. She has shown such an interest in fashion and properly presenting herself this spring, that Bill and I thought she would enjoy the pampering of our design friend Avril holding up swathes of material to her and telling her what colors and styles look best on her, in addition to having her make-up done. She was beaming!

Harlowe raced back to help Ella put-up her hair, and we drank Pimm's as we met Ella's date's parents. After all the photos and waving them off, it was our turn for a night out. Leaving the younger children at home, we went to a local pub to see some friends in a band and we brought Harlowe along to hear the music with us. The band was so good that I decided to call my sister

up, drag her out of her hotel and have her join us singing, dancing and drinking. My sister has a great voice and we are always trying to encourage her to explore singing in a band, and she always loves a drink in a pub (who doesn't?!). Bill was so sweet to hop in a cab and go pick her up. This late evening was well worth it, even though the morning was going to come too early to get up and catch our flight to Scotland and the Highlands for the next week's adventure. It was very sad to say goodnight to Rachel and Jordan, but hopefully we'll see them next year in San Francisco, and I'm sure we'll be visiting them in Oxford...their new home coming soon.