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Right now my blogging is strictly limited to a group blog at The Goddess Blogs, but I do occasionally guest blog as well as put up information here for readers, so check here often. This month, I’ve got my London Trip Diary up, complete with pictures.
London Trip Diary
Day One—Saturday (otherwise known as the Day of No Sleep):
 We flew overnight to London. I slept. Hubby didn’t. So until we could get into the hotel room and crash for a few hours, we weren’t good for much. But we woke up just in time to eat supper (we slept through lunch) and make a mad dash to the London Eye before the sun went down. The sun set just as we neared the top—how cool is that? There was a funny moment when some cute American kid in our “pod” (they hold 25 people, but we lucked out and ours had only 6 other people) spotted a radio tower and cried, “Look, it’s the Eiffel Tower!” To which we all responded, “Uh, no.” When he asked, “Are you sure?” it was all I could do not to laugh while his mom patiently explained that unless the French had recently given the Eiffel Tower to the English, it was still very definitely attached to Paris. Poor little guy was very disappointed.
New Things Learned about the English: They walk really, REALLY fast. We could not compete. The foot traffic parted around us as if we were the slow-moving truck, oops, lorry on a major thoroughfare.
Day Two—Sunday (otherwise known as the Day of Bath, and the day we got lucky with, well, pretty much everything):
The weather report said that Sunday would be lovely, but Monday through Friday, we’d have rain. So, since we really wanted to visit Bath, and we both woke up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am (I couldn’t even blame jet lag, since 4:30 am is 11:30 pm at home, when I’d normally be going to bed!), we got dressed, ate breakfast, took the bus to the train station, and got on a train for Bath.
1st stroke of luck: At the train station, we discovered that they have a weekend special that enables you to travel first class for only £10 more per person (as opposed to the normal £100 more per person). That turned out even better than expected, since it meant we had a car practically to ourselves instead of sharing one with the ten gajillion students on their way to and from Bath who crammed into every standard class car. Considering how little sleep we’d had the night before, that probably kept us from going postal on a few people.
2nd stroke of luck: It turned out that getting up and around early and out to Bath quickly was a brilliant idea. We arrived at 10:30 am after a wonderful train ride through the beautiful English countryside. Most things closed around 5 or 5:30. It took us every bit of that 7 hours to see the things I wanted to see in Bath (actually, we scooted into the fashion museum and assembly rooms mere minutes before they closed. The only thing we missed was having high tea in Bath, which I’d wanted to do. We just couldn’t fit it in. Instead, we did the following:
 1) Visited the Jane Austen Centre. That was our first stop, of course, since Will and Jane were clamoring to see it. We photographed a number of Regency costumes, both replica and original. We watched an interesting short film about Jane’s connection to Bath, where I learned several things I should have already known, for example, that Bath is on a hill and that the farther up the hill you live, the richer you are. I took several pics of Will and Jane, who seemed to enjoy the museum. Oddly enough, there were no Jane action figures in the Centre shop. But plenty of other items caught my eye—and leapt into my shopping bag of their volition. Hubby bore it all with amazing good spirits.
2) We had an Indian lunch in an absolutely gorgeous ballroom-sized restaurant in a Georgian-era building with fabulous domed ceilings. Then it was on to the Royal Crescent. Due to the tour bus driver telling us that the 1 Royal Crescent museum was no longer open (we took a local hop on-hop off tour to make sure we could get around Bath fast enough to see everything), we only saw the Crescent in passing the first time around. Plus, I forgot that the Fashion Museum and Assembly Rooms were at that stop. This is why we ended up rushing through Bath at 4 pm.
 3) Next were the Baths themselves. Unfortunately, to get inside I finished off my latte too quickly (you can’t do that after bypass surgery), so I didn’t feel particularly well during that tour. It didn’t help that on a warm spring day, the Roman Baths are, well, warm. I was soon peeling off my coat and sitting on a very cold stone bench in an effort to gain control of my nausea. We didn’t spend much time inside (I was too queasy for that), and we fairly ran through the Pump Room (I wasn’t about to risk adding Bath water to the concoction in my stomach that was making me feel ill, so I didn’t drink the water either). But by the time we got back on the bus to pick up the things we’d missed, I was feeling better.
4) We went to the Royal Crescent stop because it was also the stop for the Fashion Museum and the Assembly Rooms, and here is where we had our …
 3rd stroke of luck: I walked up to the Royal Crescent to take a better picture of it, noticed the open door at 1 Royal Crescent, and discovered that the museum was indeed open. After cursing the tour bus driver (I still don’t know why he insisted—after I asked him three times if he was sure—that none of the Royal Crescent properties were available to tour), I dashed inside while Hubby waited on the steps (having grown quite tired by now). That turned out to be one of the best parts of the visit. The lovely museum docents told anyone who entered one of the five period rooms an amusing assortment of info about how Regency people lived in those rooms.
When I asked what the screen in the corner of a dining room was for, the docent said it was for people to retire behind to use the chamber pot. Huh. Would never have guessed that, but it makes sense.
In the card room, I got to see an actual pot cupboard—a cupboard built into the wall with a door that matched the wall that hid the gentlemen’s chamber pot. The docent informed me that the reason the ladies and gentlemen split up after dinner, with the ladies going to the drawing room (originally the WITHdrawing room) and the gentlemen to their port was so both parties could do their business away from each other! Doesn’t that just make perfect sense? I wouldn’t want to spend all evening relieving myself behind a screen in the hearing of everyone either.
She also told me about the pipes that gentlemen shared in the card room. The host was expected to provide the pipes (very basic white wooden pipes), since pipes didn’t fit well in gentleman’s coats back then. After the gentlemen left, the tips would be cut off so the next user wouldn’t be smoking another gentleman’s spit. That’s why the pipes were of varying lengths.
In the drawing room, there was a portrait of a lady I’d never heard of, Mrs. Mary Delany. She was famous for doing paper mosaics of flowers, etc., one of the first of her kind. I thought that was pretty cool. Apparently, she managed to support herself doing it, which is not that typical in the Regency. Don’t be surprised if she ends up in a book one day!
In the bedchamber was a work table that had a fire screen attached to the back of it. I’ve never seen one of those before, but it does make sense. And tucked away in the corner of the wall was a door made to look just like the room—it led to the servant’s stairs, reminding me that the poor servants in the Regency were expected to be neither seen NOR heard. I could just picture the chambermaid slipping in to light the fire in the wee hours of the morning, then slipping out just as unobtrusively.
The next room was the kitchen, but by then I realized I’d never make the Fashion Museum and Assembly Rooms if I didn’t leave at once, so I was forced to dash through without really looking at anything. Ack! I did buy the museum guide, though, in hopes that it would tell me a little of what I’d missed.
5) On to the Assembly Rooms and the museum where we had our …
4th stroke of luck: We slipped in minutes before they closed the doors. In fact, they locked the doors behind us.
 And thank God we didn’t miss it, because it was fabulous. The ballroom was holding a ballroom dance competition. No, they were not wearing Regency gowns, and the music was more Strauss than Mozart, but it was still pretty cool. The tea room had an ornately gilded balcony overhead where the orchestra would have sat. And the Octagon was equally lovely. I kept expecting to see Jane Austen strolling through the rooms making biting comments about Bath society to sister Cassandra. I’ve never used Bath in a book, but now I’m dying to. Besides, I need an excuse to go back!
Meanwhile, the Fashion Museum featured all sorts of period costumes. It even had a section where you could try on crinolines and corsets. They weren’t as bad as you might imagine, although I don’t suppose you could do many calisthenics wearing a crinoline.
We left the Fashion Museum at a run to catch the last bus of the day that would head for the train station. On the way, I found a copy of the new Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang at a used bookstore for only £9, along with a cute little book about Mazes and Follies for £3. What can I say—I want to put a maze in a future book. So I bought it for research … um, yes … research. Absolutely.
Then we came back by train (and bus) and arrived in our room exhausted but happy. It was a lovely day.
New Things Learned about the English: They think nothing of climbing stairs, judging from the number of bathrooms located in basements. I don’t know how anyone disabled survives there. Hubby has knee problems, so every time we hit another stairway (in the train station, on the buses, in the subway), he groaned. Thank God for pain meds. I don’t think he’s climbed so many stairs in years!
Day Three—Monday: Hyde Park, Harrod’s, and a bit of Victoria and Albert.
No rain still! So we decided we’d do an outdoor outing again. I woke up early again so we headed out for Hyde Park to see Rotten Row. The park map showed it as this itty-bitty patch of brown on one end, which surprised me, given how long it was during the Regency. We walked forever to get to it, at which point I realized that the patch on the map was supposed to represent the entire path, which ran the length of the park. We’d been walking beside it (but out of sight of it) from the beginning! I felt like an idiot. But as if in reward for our perseverance, just as we reached it, four horsemen in uniform (no idea what uniform or why, although I believe they might have been cavalry or horse guards or something) came riding gloriously by. That made it all worth it! Plus, I got to see the Serpentine, and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that.
We’d planned to lunch at the Hard Rock Café (rock lover hubby’s wish), but we were so far down the park from it that we went to Harrod’s instead. Harrod’s was gorgeous, and the inside is done very extravagantly in Egyptian décor. You feel like you’re in a museum.
Unfortunately, everything costs about what stuff in a museum would. As much as I admired the £30,000 (about $45,000!!!) gilded peacock on the Home Decor floor, I settled for buying a couple of jars of jam for friends in the grocery there. Oh, and we had lattes. They even do that in a “posh” way—it was at a little French café in one corner of the store run by a Frenchman who turned up his nose at me when I asked if they had sugar-free vanilla lattes. “What are you thinking?” asked Hubby. “It’s Harrod’s.” At that moment, I would have preferred Starbucks (shh, don’t tell anybody that I’m not posh enough for Harrod’s). Hubby did enjoy the French pastry, however. He is posh enough for anywhere. It’s his Creole heritage.
With some time left in the day, we headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum, which was at the top of our list of places to visit. We figured we’d do a few hours while we were nearby. Hah! As if anybody can be satisfied with only a few hours in the V&A. We didn’t get beyond the first floor, and that was without fitting in the Fashion section.
That night we went to Rules Restaurant, the oldest restaurant in London, which has been in existence since 1798 (or thereabouts). Liz Carlyle recommended it (thank you, Liz!). The walls were covered with old English prints, antlers, Georgian art … amazing and wonderful things. And the traditional English food was spectacular. I’ve never had such delicious duck in a restaurant before (I love duck, but I always seem to be disappointed). Hubby thoroughly enjoyed his venison osso buco, too. That was our one “fancy” dinner out, and we were glad we had it there.
New Things Learned about the English: They let people take pictures in their museums. Extraordinary! Most of the museums are also free. I love London!
Day Four—Tuesday: Hard Rock Café, Mayfair, Grosvenor Square, and the Elgin Marbles
 No rain STILL, although it rained all night. We’d had enough sleepless nights, so we’d taken pills the night before and slept late. By the time we got ready, we decided we might as well head back toward Hyde Park for an early lunch at the Hard Rock Café. Hubby insisted on doing the tour of the “Crypt,” where the rock memorabilia is kept—it’s pretty small, but I did get to sit on Freddie Mercury’s couch. Since I’m a Queen fan, that was cool.
Then we headed off for Mayfair. We started out on Park Lane, which was disappointingly modern, so we moved deeper in and discovered a myriad of old houses. I tried to imagine walking those streets as an unmarried lady with my maid or a beaux on my arm. It was easy to do with Hubby on my arm. How romantic! Then we sat in Grosvenor Square to catch our breath and decide where to go next. Hard to believe that it’s been there for nearly 300 years! The park was filled with London plane trees (in America, we call them sycamores), which Hubby dubbed “spooky trees.” When bare of leaves, they look like something right out of a horror film, with twisted branches that threaten to strangle you. He made me take pictures. Of the trees!
 Next we headed off to the British Museum, since it was on that part of town. Neither Hubby nor I are very interested in Greek and Roman art, but I had to see the Elgin Marbles. Not only are they featured in Forbidden Lord, but the book is being reissued in September (ten years after its initial release), and I’ve never seen them. OR the British Museum (where the hero and heroine heat up a private room for a short while). I would have been giddy with delight if I hadn’t been so tired by that point.
You have no idea how amazing it was to see my metope in person. And to be able to take a picture of it, too! I was fairly drooling. I couldn’t help myself. And to top it off, they were selling copies of the Jane Austen Cookbook in the gift shop. Needless to say, I bought a few, one for myself and some for gifts.
New Things Learned about the English (after three days of reading The Guardian and the free newspapers handed out on every corner): They love their snark. The papers ooze snarky commentary that had me laughing out loud even while I cringed for whomever they were snarking about. I could easily get addicted to reading English papers, except that all the snark depresses me after a while. Maybe I’ll stick to romances.
Day Five—Tower of London
We’ve decided that the tales about how it rains all the time in London are just hooey. Every night, the news makes dire predictions of rain. Every day, we wake up to overcast skies that become gloriously blue in about two hours, with occasionally cloudy moments. Today, there weren’t even any clouds. Clear blue from the beginning. The perfect day to go to the Tower of London.Okay, don’t laugh at me, but I didn’t realize the Tower was so vast. We actually thought we’d knock it out in one morning. Hahahaha. In my head, I knew it had to be big to have held prisoners and a menagerie and a mint and the crown jewels, but I didn’t envision it that way.
We spent the better part of the day there. LOTS of stairs. Hubby had to bail out of the armoury part when his knees had been taxed beyond endurance. I toured the Medieval Palace in St. Thomas’s Tower alone while Hubby sat at the bottom, although he did happen to be right by where the Coldstream Guards (the guys with the tall fuzzy hats) marched past for the changing of their guard at 3 pm, so he was happy. We both enjoyed the Crown Jewels.
The only bad part was the crowds. It seemed like everyone in England decided to visit the Tower on such a glorious day. The lines were long, the rooms were packed, and we were a bit overwhelmed. But Hubby got more of his wonderful French pastries at a lovely French refreshment stand, and I took some fabulous pictures, along with buying great gifts in the gift shop.
New Things Learned about the English: They love their French pastries. Hubby was in heaven. We haven’t seen pastries like that since we moved away from New Orleans. It seemed like every other block in London had a patisserie. Not surprising that all those English lords hired French chefs.
Day Six—Syon House, Sir John Soane’s House, Charing Cross Road
The rain tried to come—we had a few sprinkles. But by the end of the day, it was sunny again. I don’t know how England got its reputation for constant dreary weather, I swear.
 This was the only day Hubby and I went our separate ways for a while. He went to the Imperial War Museum (ugh!), and I headed off to Brentford near Richmond to see Syon Park. I would have loved to visit Kew Palace and the Richmond area, especially given how big a part it plays in the Heiress books, but we couldn’t fit in everything, and I could never have done that in one morning.
As it was, I didn’t arrive back in London until 2 pm. Syon Park was amazing. If you ever saw Gosford Park, then you saw parts of the house. It belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, one of the few great houses in England that are still under private ownership. It was redone spectacularly by Robert Adams in the 18th century, but parts of it are a lovely mix of the old and the new (like the present duke’s study, which has modern lamps, an old manual typewriter, an antique desk, and Georgian architecture).
After I got back to London, Hubby and I trotted over to Sir John Soane’s Museum. The Regency-era architect collected miniatures, paintings … a sarcophagus (among other things), crammed it all into his 3-story town house, and left a will saying that he wanted it preserved as is for posterity. Which, crazy as it sounds, his heirs did. Now it’s a fabulous museum of … well, everything. You never know what interesting little collection you might stumble across in some tiny room. I particularly enjoyed the “picture room” with the originals of Hogarth’s series, “The Rake’s Progress,” mounted on one wall while the other walls proved to be multiple giant panels that each contained several framed pictures. Very cool.
Then we walked to Charing Cross Road where we stopped in at the Borders so I could sign my books (if you’re in London and looking for a Sabrina Jeffries book, try the Borders on Charing Cross Road). After strolling the street for a while, we finished off our night with a pub meal—fish and chips!
New Things Learned about the English: They like their plants. Syon Park has a conservatory that is nearly as big as the house itself. And that’s in addition to its extensive gardens. I enjoy the occasional garden myself, but unlike the English, I would never travel miles to see one.
Day Seven—Victoria & Albert Museum
What can I say—the V&A is the most wonderful museum ever. Even the “snack room” is gorgeous! And where else can you find 18th century corsets alongside Edwardian fox hunting costumes? Or an entire section of the glass drawing room of the now torn-down Northumberland House in London, along with a model of the room itself? Or the bed that belonged to David Garrick, the famous Georgian actor? We spent the day there, needless to say. Then we rode the bus back to pack.
 That was the only day we encountered a massive traffic jam (sat 45 minutes at Trafalgar Square before we got off the bus and walked). Our last dinner was at a pub. The evening was a delicious slice of England. We walked the rest of the way to the hotel along the Strand, arm in arm, enjoying London.
New Things Learned about the English: The pub is the center of English social life, even now, even in London. In the evenings, every pub was packed, and not just with single men and women looking to meet up, but with middle-aged and elderly couples having a pint. It felt so … English.
Once it was over, I hated to see it end, but I was glad to go home, too. I missed my son, and I missed sleeping in my own bed. Still, it’s a trip I will never forget. And with any luck, Hubby and I will get to repeat it one day!
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