London Bates-Treleaven Travels Part 2

This is Marcia again. I just posted all the 'good' things that have happened since we arrived in London 24 hours ago. Now for the bad things...

It is impossible to sleep on the plane. Gabe and I tried several times to close our eyes, but we both kept peeking at each other and giggling. So no sleep was to be had, and we arrived at 8am London time.

When we got to the Best Western Hotel, Wyona (my mom) had switched to a family room in the basement. It was larger than our original two rooms, but Gabe was aghast at how small the bathroom was. When you sit on the toilet, your knees touch the sink plumbing, and the sink is the size of a tissue box. There is a very small shower in the corner and the shower head is no higher than 5 feet. If you stand in the middle of this bathroom, you can touch all four walls. Cozy for sure.

It is so hot here. It is hot on the tube, on the new busses, in the hotel, in the airport... but it is supposed to cool off in the next few days. Can't wait.

We had a 3 hour nap at the hotel, but then Wyona woke us up at 1:30pm. Gabe and I would have slept the day away if she hadn't. As it was, he was hard to wake up, and when he did, he woke up with a tummy ache. I went to the matinee show 'Once' while Gabe and Wyona went to 'Billy Elliot'. Can't say anything bad about those to shows, they were so entertaining. I did get a little nervous just before the show when I went to look for my money wallet and couldn't find it. I was a little bit sick to my stomach, and then I remembered taking it out at the hotel room and not putting it back in my purse. Oh well, as least I had my show ticket and a drink and snack in my purse for the Interval.

I went to Trafalgar Square to meet up with them, and they didn't show up for 45 minutes. My mom had forgotten the evening tickets for Merrily We Roll Along, so she and Gabe went back to the hotel before meeting me. He kept telling her to call me on the cell, but that is too expensive and we both know there is nothing the other person can do anyway. Funny how available we all are with our phones and texting. It is really fun to hang out in Trafalgar Square and watch the people and the traffic. Those cyclists weave in and out of traffic. I saw so many things that would have caused many vehicle honks in Calgary, but didn't phase the drivers or riders here.

We couldn't find a place that Gabe would eat at, he is sometimes quite picky. We were hunting for that ever elusive McDonalds, but found a Burger King instead. Not my first choice, but the fruit smoothie was good.

Then we were nervous about making our next show and the bus wasn't showing up, so we hailed this 'rickshaw' driver (for lack of a better word, not sure what they are called), and he drove us to the show. Gabe was on my lap since it was a little squishy. We were laughing so hard out of fear and embarrassment... packed in like that and being in bumper to bumper traffic with the busses, cars and cyclists. Three minutes down the road, and Wyona realized we were headed to the wrong theatre. We checked the tickets, the driver pulled out his phone to check where that was (I had a mild coronary watching him peddle and check his phone map at the same time) and we realized it was back where we had started. The massive coronary came a moment later when he did a u-turn in traffic! I just had to numb myself and close my eyes, it was so crazy!!! And no one honked at us. I just couldn't believe it. A wide rickshaw being driven in the narrow spaces between vehicles. Oh if only I had had my video camera out. I was trying to keep my 11 year old from falling off my lap into traffic. He drove us back to where we started (literally), we through him 5 pounds for his troubles, then ran. We ran past the Burger King we ate at, then past a McDonalds (!!), and right around the corner from the McDonalds was the theatre for Merrily We Roll Along.

It was 7:27pm and the show started at 7:30pm, so we rushed in, showed our tickets at the entrance, then again at the dress circle door, and ran in to this empty theatre! As my mom was saying "When does this start", I was checking the tickets and realized they were for 2:45pm. We had matinee tickets instead of evening tickets! Oh my! Exhaustion and the frantic last 20 minutes made me want to cry, but we laughed instead. Honestly, there was only 3 other people sitting in the theatre at that time. One of the fellows sitting in the theatre told us he thought it started at 7:30 as well, but he looked at his ticket when he arrived and saw it was a 7:45pm start time instead (he probably thought we were crazy for not looking at our own tickets for the start time). We laughed about rushing, we laughed about the 2 ushers we showed our tickets to not seeing the time, and we laughed about the mix up in theatres. W didn't dare leave the dress circle area just in case on reentry an usher would see we had the wrong time. Five minutes before the show started the seats started to fill up. We hung out at the back and took seats in the back row just as the show was starting. It was a fantastic show.

I was happy to get back to the hotel that night to find my wallet right where I had left it. We laughed again at all that went wrong. Gabe fell asleep at about 1 a.m. and Wyona and I kept talking. At 1:45 a.m. Gabe woke up and wanted me closer, so Wyona had this wonderful idea to move the beds around. Now my family knows how important Wyona's environment is to her. She moves furniture (I mean, has us move furniture) around every few months. There I was, executing her new bed arrangement... going from single, double, single to single, single, double so that Gabe and I could sleep side by side on the singles. I didn't completely clear the path of shoes and purses, so the single bed got stuck at the foot of the double bed. Not to mention that the room was just wide enough for the length of the double and the width of the single. It was a nightmare. At one point Wyona said "maybe we should just sleep like this" with the T-shaped bed arrangement and the beds blocking one side of the room off from the other. Laughing and crying again, we got it all set up properly. Of course, thinking it through afterwards, we realized we should have just slid the single and double together, and then had Wyona sleep on the single on the outside. But that would have just been too easy. As it was, Gabe reached out for me several times in the night, probably a time-change-induced restless sleep. But he was still asleep at 9 a.m. when I came to the foyer to right this blog.

As always, loving London. Here for my 3rd time and still can't get enough. I wonder what adventures this next day will bring.

Cheers, 
Marcia

London Bates-Treleaven Travels

This is Marcia typing from Wyona's account (my mom). Gabe and I arrived in London 24 hours ago, and a lot has happened since then. I don't know whether to start with the good list or the bad list. Let's do good first, it is shorter.

We saw Life of Pi on the plane. Gabe had never seen it before, it was my second time. We both really enjoyed it. We arrived at the London airport, and we took an express train from Gatwick to London, quite an enjoyable ride.

Wyona had switched things up at the Best Western we are staying at; originally she had a single room on the top floor and we had a double room close by. It has been so hot in London, so she went and checked at the front desk about other rooms available. They had a family room with a double bed and 2 single beds available in the basement. We switched to that instead and it has been fun to be in the same room. When we arrived at 10am she was still sleeping. She had switched to that room the night before because it was 10 degrees cooler than the sweltering upstairs room. Gabe and I checked out the room and really liked it... except for... that will have to wait for the next list.

We had a 3 hour nap while Wyona went to get us show tickets. Then at 2:30pm she and Gabe saw Billy Elliot and I went to Once at 3pm. Oh, Once was so beautiful. What talented musicians/singers/actors. Is it ok to cry in a show when you are by yourself? I wondered if Gabe was crying at all the right parts in Billy Elliot. He loved it and spent the evening singing 'Solidarity'. He also bought a hoody with Billy Elliot London on it, he loves that jacket already.

We met at Trafalgar Square after our shows. There was some big screen Opera event being set up, the crowds were already converging, and we snagged 6 free inflatable seat cushions before going to find a bite to eat before our next show. Always resourceful, those Pilling Aunts! I'm just not sure they will get used before we return to Canada, so far we haven't sat long enough to have sore bums that need seat cushions.

We took a 'rickshaw' ride to our next performance (more on that later), and we saw Merrily We Roll Along. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. A little too adult-themed for Gabe's understanding, but he still enjoyed the musical numbers. Gabe and Wyona went back to the hotel room during the interval (intermission), he was so tired... he put on a brave face, but with only 3 hours sleep in the past 36 hours, he was fading fast. The best number was in the second half. When they started singing The Blob, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, yet another show I cried in.

I went to Trocadero on my way home... what a lively place at 11pm! Took the tube back to the hotel room, called home to see how Art, Zack and Audra were doing, then slept soundly until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. Oh yeah, those two were still awake watching Waterworld on tv when I got back to the hotel, so we didn't go to sleep until 1 a.m.

What a wonderful first day... although now for the post about all that went wrong... 

The Travellers in First Class

Yes, Tonia -- I am one of those who love train travel.

To get Wyona's and my tickets for the Britrail passes, there was only once choice, due to our advancing ages. We had to travel first class.  That was hard on two women who are always looking for sales.

Still, I am hooked on train travel.

That would make sense, considering the number of times I have stood at the side of the tracks and waved to those who are passing by. 

 2... our passes let us travel through England, Scotland and Wales ...

And I am missing my travel companion
Greg and I were lucky.

We had Wyona who would figure out the schedules, look for destinations that would work between stations, pack a lunch for us, make reservations for hotels if we had to stay over, and she would act as the alarm clock -- the one who got us out the door on time, for trains wait for no one. 

... the feast?  Wyona's box lunch for  us ...

When Greg retired he got a new life and I lost an old one -- the one where I did lots of train travel.

What would be good for me is if he would go and find some contract work.

Then Wyona would be mine again. l

I miss those picnic lunches on trains. 

Arta

After the Fact... London with Arta

After the better part of a week spent in London hounding the streets for a home to rent for the year, I was left with one free day to spend with Arta. The three of us headed off to Leicester Square, to the half-price booth to get theatre tickets for the last night. The plan was to head in different directions: Arta wanted to see "Love Never Dies" again, and Wyona wanted to spend her last night with "Dreamboats and Petticoats".

Ten minutes before hitting the Tube station, we'd had a long talk about how to meet up with each other if we got separated... the easy answer is of course just to look back for Rebecca's hair. :-) In a moment of irony, the two women went through ahead of me, and my Oyster card ("bus pass") denied me entry (I had run out of money and hadn't noticed).... the line up to re-nourish my depleted Oyster card was long, and the women were gone...Arta, though, in typical Arta way, had decided for fun to see how easy it was to find me, and had noticed I was gone. They came back, spoke to me through the barricade, and we sent Wyona ahead to wait in the ticket line up while I lined up for the Oyster card. Nice start to the day... way to practice finding each other after getting lost.

Just proving that different paths do not always run at the same speed, Arta and I somehow still managed to arrive at the Leicester Square before Wyona.

Go figure. 

So... tickets purchased, we split up for the day: Wyona to visit her favourite scarf sellers (What?! More scarves?!), and Arta and I to visit the National Gallery.

One of the recent 'installations' at the national gallery is the "Eco Art" outside. VERY westcoast!

They have planted grasses and small mossy growing things all over one of the walls of the building.

Not sure how visible it is in the shot, but the effect from some ways back is a bit like a Georges Seurat painting... it just looks like a lovely watercolour painting. Pretty groovy!

Arta and I have not spent much time in museums TOGETHER (as adults, that is... i certainly spent time following in her path of educational exploration as a child...you know, "fossil rock walks in downtown Calgary", "identify bat guano in fish creek park", etc).

But it was a revelation to see that she is just as bad as me in her desire to consume til your belly/brain explodes.

In between our own wanderings, we took in the 10:30 and 2:30 guided tours, each of which offered a more close exploration of 5 or maybe 6 paintings.

Christ Healing the Blind Man by Buoninsegna

We started out looking at some panels from an alter piece done by Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. 1255-1260 – c. 1318-1319), the most influential Italian artist of his time.

The first one we saw has Christ healing the blind man. 

It is fun to look at the conventions for telling story through image: here, you see the blind man both before and after being healed. 

The panel that goes beside this one has Christ appearing to the apostles.... when they are set along side each other, you can see that the "healed" blind man is looking up at the body of Christ in the panel along side. 

Fun.

We also learned that this was painted on wood, which was then covered with linen, and then covered with plaster to make a smooth surface to paint on. The paint was egg tempera, which would give you vibrant colours, albeit without tons of nuance: the paint would dry very fast, so you only had a short time where it could be pliably worked). 

Annunciation of Mary

In the afternoon session, we returned to Duccio, to look at another painting of the Annunciation (Mary getting informed by the angel that she was going to have a baby....). 

We listened to a nice discussion about the number of people who would have participated in making the painting.

Different artists in the studio would have done the people, and the buildings (would would have had painters specializing in buildings)

Then we moved up a hundred years, to spend time with the Spanish Bartolomé 

St. Michael Triumphs Over the Devil

Bermejo's 1468 painting "St Michael triumphs over the devil". This one is in oil, which explains the greater nuance and emotion captured in the paint. We also learned more about just how much gold leaf there was on the original. First there was a 'cartoon' of the painting... like a paper version laid over top of the prepared canvas. then someone would poke holes through it onto the prepared canvas below, so that the outline of the painting was transferred there. Then the gold specialist would be next, and would cover certain part of the painting with a red glue, over which was laid tiny pieces of gold flake. The gold would then be further pressed it into the wood with some kind of embossing tool, so that the painting would be even more luminescent when seen in the candlelight of the darkened church. Only after all the gold pieces were laid down would the artist come into to paint the figures and images in the scene. When you look at it now, there is not so much gold, and the background looks reddish... that is just the red glue stuff (which had some special name i have forgotten) showing through. If you click on this link, so will get the picture on the national gallery's website, and can zoom in to get a closeup of the monster! The feminist in me was so happy that the guide did eventually take us to a painting by a woman artist! Here were looked at a painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). This is a self-portrait of her, but she is also showing off her skills as a painter by making hers a version of a similar painting by Rubens, on the right of the gallery and which you can see beside her in this post. What she was doing here was making a 'calling card'.

Self Portrait of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

She is showing herself AS an artist, showing off all the skills she has, letting male viewers know that she can make their wives look this good but that they needn't worry about leaving their wife alone with her. I also like how she is holding her hand out, encouraging them to give her a commission! There was more, but I am getting tired. :-) which was just what happened to us too! So.... in between the two guided tours, we went for a "Talk and Draw" session. Here, they set up 40 chairs in front of one painting.

Artist: John Constable

In this case, the painting was John Constable's "Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Someone talks to you about the painting for 20 minutes, then they give you two drawing tasks, to practice some of the techniques that were used in the drawing. They hand out these nice big easels for you lap, boxes of pastels, pencils, conté, etc. So we had two tasks. First to draw a single tree from the painting by building up layers of colour (ie. start with black, go over with red, with brown, yellow, etc). Second task was to show perspective in the same way (ie. capture the darkening woods in the distance). I will confess, we both had to come to terms with some of our limits! hahaha. And yet, it was totally fun, so sit, listen, draw, and laugh. At the end, they had people set their drawings at the front to compare what people had produced. We also then had to head to the bathroom to wash the evidence of our crimes from our fingers (stained by the pastels). I felt very much like Lady MacBeth! We did bring our drawings home and showed them to Wyona at the end of the night. I will not be more specific re which of the drawings below belongs to Arta and which belongs to me... but I think Wyona was arguing that one of the paintings looks less like 'the woods', and more like a Judy Chicago plate! You can see that neither of those two women was taking my artist production very seriously.

Artists.

They are never appreciated while still alive...

Lend Me a Tenor & Million Dollar Quartet

Some sights are so visually out of the ordinary that they stay with me for a long time.  One was Rebecca standing on the floor but with her coffee mug raised to the ceiling, trying to catch the fine Stream of water that was pouring out of the fire alarm detecor, splashes of it landing on her haïr, her shoulders, the rug and the bed beside her.

"Call the front desk.  Just dial zero.  Tell them what is happening here."

"Hello.  Water is streaming out of the roof.  Would this be consisent with the history of this room?", I said.

“Run, get me another empty cup from the bathroom,” called Rebecca, at the same time the clerk saying “I will be up in five minutes”

“I don’t think she can stand there with her mug in the air catching the water that long,” I replied.

I hung up and at that moment the fire alarm went off – in our room only.  Rebecca’s arms holding the coffee mug came down and we both reached for the three things we would want most  if we had to leave our hotel bedroom and never come back.

The clerk was at the door by the time we had our shoes on and our passports and money collected.  “I will find you another room, he said as he opened the door to our room.  At that moment the fire alarm in the whole building went off.

People began streaming out of their rooms and walking down the stairs, all of them in the same condition as we – only half woken from sleep and marching in tune to the fire alarm.

Two hour later we had repacked our bags, moved to the lower floor, a bigger room and were again unpacking and remarking how nice it is to do that with a heightened level of adrenalin flow.

June 4, 2011

Yesterday, Rebecca had taken advantage of pre-booking her plane seat to the bulkhead, a place with plenty of leg-room.  I slipped out of my seat in the row behind her and by the time we had taken off and the plane leveled out, we were both scanning the choices of movies.  Rebecca mocked me – nothing trashy or light.  I was  interested in the Dutch biopic Goethe – knowing nothing more than how to spell his name and a few minutes into the film, charmed by the good acting and clever dialogue.  I do not know what Rebecca and I had been talking about at the airport, but she had said to me, “Don’t speak ill of the dead,” and then she laughed and said, “though I don’t know why not.”   

Don’t speak ill of the dead is a phrase straight from Goethe.  And speaking of the dead, dead tired is what I was.  I couldn't manage any more of the plane movies!

June 5, 2011

After telling me not to come to the Heathrow to pick her up, Wyona changed her mind, gave me consent. I travelled the Picadilly Line to fetch her at the airport, playing the part of all of those Brits who stand at the Airport Exit, either with signs or waving to whomever they are to help continue on their journey.  Every tube stop has its charm.  I am getting to know and love Earl’s Court, finally knowing where the lifts and ramps are for luggage.  Watching Rebecca lug suitcases up and down 83 stairs works to help me spot other alternatives.   When I am paired with Wyona and lift is broken, it is easier.  We look like two old characters our of a movie, struggling to get those suitcases up some stairs.    A true gentleman on the run must have had a few extra minutes to spare and he stopped to help us.

June 5, 2011

Wyona and I left for Central London to get tickets for tonight.  Rebecca got on the phone making appointments to have renting agents show her flats to let.  Our job was easier – since it is easy to find te ticket office for Legally Blonde and the Leister Sqare Ticket wicket marquee held promise of half price shows we have not seen.  All three of us were sitting in Lend me a Tenor by the eveing, Wyona set up with her drinks, her candies to kee her awake and an empty chair on the left side of her to accommodate her left arm. 

The show made me laugh until I cried.

Then tears spilled down my cheeks for a different reason -- over the sentiment of the show's message. 

Rebecca said the same thing happened to her. 

”Pure cheese,” she said, “but it feels so good.”  

The show was rich in stereotypes: the ingénue, the tempermental opera soprano and the fiery Italian wife on the one side and on the male side, the famous Italian tenor, the opera house manager and the yet-to-be-discovered singing sensation.  A comedy of manners – at one point three tenors are on stage, all pretending to be the same person.  The show satirically reference popular and high culture with the same intensity.  It was in the opera singer’s aria when she sings a bit of Butterfly, some of Die Walkerie, the soprano’s aria in the The Nightingale and  show stoppers in10 other operas that I was l

laughing so hard I was crying.  

How can so many operas make their way off the stage and into tunes we all know – either via elevator music or background tunes in cartoons?

Lend me a Tenor is still in its previews.

June 7, 2011

We tried to get day tickets to see Berlioz’s Faust but with standing room only and in a place where we couldn’t see the surtitles, we wasted our time in that line-up, though we did get one free performance out of it at the Collessium.  Wyona poked me when she heard a commotion at the box office and I listened in – a well-dressed Ruropean was complaining that he had been sold a ticket where he couldn’t see the stage – just what we had turned down.  He was wanting his money back.  Then he was demanding to see the manager.  “I am the manager,” said the clerk.  “I want a manager higher than you,” he shouted when he was told that the Collesium can’t honour ticket sales purchased from any other venue. 

Then out marched the man I had seen in a suit, hanging out by the programme stall and about who I had said to Wyona – wow!  The programme man is well dressed.  He was now playing the role of the bouncer, and bodily shoved the man to the door and then pushed him out the door forcefully, with no thought about damaging the beautiful wood or the brass handles on the door.  The man was right back in the door, shouting at the top of his voice, demanding respect and satisfaction.  I was moving to get my back against the marble pillars, this being the closest thing I have ever seen to a bar fight.  The rest of the Brits in the opera line-up seemed to keep theirs eyes on the books they were holding as they stood in the line-up as if they couldn’t see anything. happening.  The first bouncer was joined by a second one who helped shove  the opera patron through the door – a more brutal push than the first exit he had been given.  The man in the expensive leather jacket ending up on the street again, walking down toward the Thames, shouting more loudly than ever and waving is fists in the air. 

“That bouncer has no respect for the beautiful door that opens into this theatre, shoving a person through them like that,” I said to Wyona.

“All I can say is that was a performance at the Collesium we didn’t have to pay for,” Wyona said as we wandered off to the Noel Coward Theatre to get tickets for the Million Dollar Quartet for this evening. 

You might have seen reviews about the Million Dollar Quartet, a story built around the night in 1956 when Sun Records brought Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis together and recorded their evening jam.  People were swaying to the music as they entered the theatre and singing the words of the old tunes to each other as they passed each other in the isles:  Blue Suede Shoes, I Walk the Line, Hound Doug, and Great Balls of Fire. 

This is the short form of our theatre review.  Wyona said Greg and she tried to get tickets to this show when they were in New York earlier this year and it was sold out.  She was glad to see it here and hopes to bring Greg when they come back in the fall.  I hope future shows are sold out in London as well.  A night of music to be remembered and so interesting to get an overview of the history of early rock and roll this way and seeing some riveting musical performances from the past brought to life again.

The Pearl Fishers

Greg, Wyona and I went to Camden today, not for shopping, but for one last meal at the fast food fish and chip spot that overlooks the street where we think we see a slice of life of the real London we love. People walk by with their baby strollers, their hair spiked in spokes circumnavigating their head, their lugging their packages from shopping, and workers carrying their sandwich boards that advertize restaurants or body piercings.

We sat there making tributes to the times we have had in London with everyone at that restaurant, toasting those times with our soft drinks.

Bizet’s Pearl Fishers was on at the Coliseum tonight, so Wyona and I hopped the tube for Charing Cross to get in the line-up for concession tickets. We noticed at the door that one of the leads would not be doing his part tonight. An actor would be playing his part and a singer would be singing from the side of the stage. As well, the prima donna would not be there. But we are saying good-bye to London and didn’t need a perfect performance, but only a near perfect one.

And we did have a perfect second act.

On the way to the performance, Greg looked at our tickets and informed Wyona that the opera started at 6:30 pm and not at 7:30 pm, the timeline we were on. We arrived at the theatre doors just in time for the intermission, so we stood at the bar and watched the costuming of the theatre goers as they came out of the auditorium to enjoy their interval drinks.

“Oh, it looks like you got here for the second act,” said the theatre patrons to the left of my seat who had parked their purses and coats where I was to sit. “Do you know the bad news? The very bad news.”

“Yes, I heard about the substitutions for tonight’s performance,” I replied.

“Very bad news,” he said again.

How bad can the news be?”, I thought. 

I looked at the box seats full of people eating their crustless cucumber sandwiches and drinking their wine. 

Out of a niche near the top of the ceiling I looked at the 3 golden lions pulling a chariot and that seemed to be leaping through the wall and into the auditorium. The orchestra was warming up and I could hear the drum being tuned and an oboe doing scales going up and then coming down.

Greg and Wyona burst into laughter in the rotunda as he had opened a bottle of sparkling water for her. Sparkling means the liquid bubbles come out of the bottle as though a cork had been popped on champagne on every occasion that he opens one of those bottles for us. They were both wet.

The "bad news" of being at the opera wasn't feeling all that bad to me.

If you pay half price for your tickets, but you only see half of the opera, no loss.

We stopped at Waitrose for some fig boursin, some caprice de dieu, some gouda, some brie and ate in in Parisian style when we got home. 

A lovely second to the last day in London.

To be really truthful, a few things have gone wrong. I took a picture of my new fushia hat, my camera sizzled, the flash did not go off and I could smell burning. Neither of the toilets work in the apartment. One is being fixed professionally, which in London means that it takes men from 3 or 4 unions to coordinate getting all of the parts and then doing the service on it. The other toilet needs a full time service agent to flush it 10 times between each use. So ... missing the first half of the opera doesn't seem like all that much going wrong. 

Wyona says that we can dissolve our troubles by getting some money out of the bank and going to shop at Petticoat Lane tomorrow.

Arta

BritRail - On the Train With Greg

Greg has had to listen to nightly summations from our train rides. There has never been a night when we haven't said, "Oh, I wouldn't have missed this day for anything." Or perhaps we have said, "The best day ever!"  Or alternately, "What were we thinking of the day we decided we should cancel our trip and get our money back?"

Once on the train that map I described, the one made of 8 sheets of paper and that is two feet high and one foot wide, the map that shows the places that the 20 different railroads travel -- that is the map that was spread out on the table. Time to show Greg where the day was going to take us, which was along the perimeter of the bottom coast of England, all the way to Penzance.

Wyona thought the sixteen day trip should end as it began, with home-made chicken salad sandwiches, pickles, cheese, grapes, oranges, apples -- all packed in her picnic box and ready for the day's adventure. What could be sweeter? A good lunch, wonderful scenery rolling by the windows, guidebooks in hand to tell us what we were seeing.

All of that fun and then Wyona and Greg had to throw in a little hand holding as well.

This was the day that we had 888 images on the camera, Wyona taking the major part of them so her hands could not always have been holding his.

Oh, when Greg fell asleep we did take some pictures of him on his holiday, each time with a scene that was passing by the window, something he was missing -- ie, the sheep, the bridges, the sea coast, the castle ruins. We got them all, with his face tucked into a pillow, lying against the window.

We only made one mistake with the camera. 

The window of the train was so dirty. We knew we were not getting really good pictures.

We grabbed the wipes that we use to clean up the tables so that we can eat on them, and ran out to give the window panes a good cleaning before the train left the station.

When I was out there, scrubbing alone, the conductor walked by and paused. He paused too long, watching me. I thought about union rules and wondered if I were taking away someone else's job. 

I turned to him and said, "I will bet you have never seen this before."

"No, I haven't," he agreed, and walked on.

Wyona joined me and we scrubbed the window together (there was a lot of dirt on it).

She said, "You know, I think it might not have been a good idea to have left the camera in the train with Greg while we are out cleaning the train windows."

"We are going to be O.K.", I replied. "He hasn't shown one bit of interest in the camera today."

Here I am, pausing for a minute along the sea side boardwalk in Penzance.

I have been trying to get to the bottom of the question, "Are you having as much fun as it seems you are?"

You be the judge.

Love,

Arta