By this time y’all will have realized that I’m not still writing this on 3 June. It’s somewhere around the 7^th and I’ve been trying for 3 days to get this back up to date.

During our whole outlands trip we had been discussing the situation at Maura’s and how we were going to deal with it on our return. Maura is a wonderful woman and a good hostess, her room is palatial and the access to everything we need to do is good (if not outstanding), but the airplane noise is simply not to be believed. We spent six nights sleeping in other places only to discover that our sleep had been seriously and severely interfered with by being in the direct flight approach for Heathrow. We decided that what we really needed to do when we got back to Maura’s was to find somewhere with internet access, find another place to stay, preferably closer in to London, and move the heck out. We felt bad about this decision, but we really couldn’t have stayed there for another 8 days without going absolutely around the bend.

We got back to Maura’s, changed clothes and went out for birthday dinner at the Kew Gardens Hotel pub which, oddly for a Saturday night, was absolutely deserted. It was great! Quiet, smokeless, and wonderful food. Two chunks of cow, two pieces of apple tart and clotted cream later and we were ready to tell Maura we were moving out.

As it turns out she wasn’t terribly discommoded by this for which we were terribly grateful. As I said, we like her personally a good deal and we didn’t want to interfere with her income from this room, but she said she had people on a waiting list who would be happy to take over so it was all good. I hope they’re congenitally deaf. No kidding, I was woken up early Sunday morning (like about 5 a.m.) and because I was in that state where you’re desperate to get back to sleep and can’t, but are too wiped out to do anything constructive like go and get a book, I just lay there and counted airplanes. Or, to be more accurate, I counted the interval between airplanes. Between 0530 and 0645 there were approaching or departing airplanes going over that house every 9 to 15 , seconds. Yes seconds, not minutes. It was not a good morning.

We spent Sunday morning doing laundry and sitting at Starbucks trolling the net for somewhere that we could afford that was also likely to be quieter than Maura’s. Jackpot! Reservations for Monday 5^th June for the Radisson Edwardian Vanderbilt in Chelsea, complete with free in-room internet access and it only took us three freaking hours. Starbucks is not my favorite place to sit on a lovely Sunday morning while I’m on vacation and I’m not too proud to admit that I was tired, cranky, and falling apart because of the airplane noise. Sunday morning was not good at all.

We got lunch at the Kew Greenhouse, went to the Laundromat to pick up our clothes then went back to Maura’s to drop everything off and change. Our goal for the afternoon was Kew Gardens. This makes Margaret very much more happy.

For the record, and for future Great Britain travelers, the Great British Heritage pass is a waste of money. So much so that I’m going to issue a charge back on my Visa card when we get home because I paid an inordinate amount of money for these damn things and they have let us into exactly ONE British Heritage site. The Tower, nope. Jersey zoo? Never heard of them. Jersey War Tunnels? Unh-uh. The same response for Culloden Field, Eilean Donan Castle (the McRae seat), Castle Urquhart, and the bloody Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. For heaven’s sake, what could be more British Heritatage than gardens that were commissioned by Queen Victoria and that have been there for more than 100 years? Besides, the paperwork that the Heritage Pass people sent me, and their website claimed that not only would these passes let us in at the Tower, that they’d let us in at Culloden and Kew. In three weeks, (okay, two and a half) the only use these passes have been to us is to get us into Stonehenge. Enough ranting.

Kew was lovely. I could have spent days there. Beautiful old Victorian greenhouses stuffed to the bursting point with organically maintained lovingly coddled plant life. Creepers crawling up painted steel girders, wonderful arches full of palm leaves and acacia trees, and that’s just the inside! Kew Botanical Gardens is a large (I don’t know how many acres) patch of land with Victorian greenhouses, proper English gardens, all meticulous borders, hedge mazes, and cosseted rosebushes, as well as huge swathes of carefully non-maintained English woodlands. It’s stunning. The one greenhouse that we were both determined not to miss was the one with the giant water lilies. We took a lot of pictures. The next time we’re here we’re coming back to Kew to spend the day (or possibly more) so we can see the whole thing. Absolutely stunning! Pictures can be found here.

Dinner at Kew’s one fancy Chinese place. Again, great food if you stay away from the tourist joints. We had a set meal which I had honestly forgotten the benefit of in Chinese restaurants. We managed to get a taste or more of a lot of things off their menu that we wouldn’t have had a chance to eat all of if we’d ordered a la carte. I’d kind of fallen out of the habit in Chinese places at home, but I’ll have to remember that trick. And, as a very unusual change in my rather Catholic food preferences, I LOVED the duck.

Monday morning we packed up, went and got some more cash so we could pay Maura and then hung out waiting for our taxi. The reason we didn’t take the tube is that we are perpetually encumbered by these 50 plus pound suitcases. If we only had one suitcase (and two backpacks and my waist pack) we might have made do with the tube, but under the circumstances, a taxi was well worth it. And air conditioned forbye so it was much more appealing. I hadn’t realized that there is, of course, no air conditioning in the tube so with temperatures in the mid to high 70s and 60 plus percent humidity, the tube has become a very uncomfortable place to perform much strenuous exercise. Doesn’t mean we don’t still enjoy the heck out of it though.

Early check in at, as Andrew puts it, Comfy Central. They couldn’t actually let us into our room at 1100 so they put our bags in their left luggage office and we went wandering around Chelsea.

Let me just say, for the permanent record, that I am not a city mouse. I like having a city available to me when I want things like theater and shopping, but I don’t really want to live in one. I find apartments claustrophobic, I hate constant traffic noise and having to battle in and out of vehicles (either as a pedestrian or as a driver) and I absolutely MUST have a piece of ground to mess around with and grow things in. That having been said, I love Chelsea. We’re in the heart of an international district that is heavily French which means that there are incredible patisseries around every single corner, there are cool little bookshops, sundries shops, and insanely wonderful restaurants everywhere you look….. actually, under the circumstances, cool is a bad descriptive. None, or extremely few, of these places are air conditioned and I find the humidity quite oppressive. Anyway, there are embassies everywhere you turn, the architecture is to die for and there are three different tube stations within walking distance so you can end up anywhere in London in minutes. If I were to have to live and work here I’m sure I’d find it considerably less appealing, but under the circumstances it’ll take a barnacle knife to pry me loose.

Another thing we both forgot to mention about Comfy Central. The street we’re on is Cromwell Street. If you walk far enough up the road it turns into Brompton Road which is the main thoroughfare through the shopping and high fashion district in London. It’s a very busy road. When we told Maura where we were going to be staying she said “Oh, that’s quite a busy street. I hope it’s quiet enough for you.”

We neglected to fill her in further on our opinions of what will and what will not be quiet enough for us.

So we got back in plenty of time for them to let us into our room. I’m not used to staying in hotels this snooty. People at curbside grabbing our luggage for us, people at the desk bending over backwards and getting us “a much more suitable room for a stay of this length”, it’s all Madame and Sir, it’s a little overwhelming. The room is a little overwhelming.

Refrigerated to a wonderful temperature, freakin’ KING size bed, refrigerator (okay, mini-bar, but there’s enough room for Andrew to keep his meds), a bathtub that’s too long for me to lie in, marble fixtures, a little light that turns on when you open the closet door…..and it’s QUIET. It’s not costing us a lot more than Maura’s was and we are much more comfortable. Besides, there’s free internet access and we can finally check e-mail and get blog entries done without having to sit at Starbucks. And there are three tube stations within walking distance so our commute has been cut to an absolute minimum and there are three different tube lines to take us here so if one is slowed or cut short, we can get another.

“Essential Engineering Works” have become extremely dirty words in our lexicon.

We checked into our room, reveled in the bed, the air conditioning and the quiet, then we hopped it for Harrods which is also within walking distance.

Joan may not want to read this next bit. Tony, however, I am sure will find it quite wonderful.

Harrods gave me the bends.

Okay, it’s an incredible spectacle and you can, literally, purchase anything, but that’s the main problem. You can purchase freakin’ ANY-THING! And everything. And the ground floors are chockablock with tourists and weird attractions like a large reproduction of a Tutankhamun statue in gold plate. The higher up you get the swankier it gets so that by the time we got to the third floor (books, pet shop, toys, and electronics) we were so far out of our depth that, well, I was getting the bends. The toy section is insane though. When so many toy stores in the US are basically attractive shells for Kenner or Mattel and so will only have toys of those manufacturers, to say nothing of having NOTHING that isn’t TV or film related, god forbid educational, it was enchanting to wander in and have the corporate toys in small amounts and books, and puzzles, and imaginative, creative, play related toys in great plenty.

The best bit about Harrods was the food court. Four (five? I lost track) great enormous halls full of butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, what have you. The smells were wonderful, the sushi was ferociously expensive and (this is the best part) they’ve got a KRISPY KREME! While wandering around the food court we walked past the counter where you can order picnic baskets to go. Seated at that counter was a, in every sense of the word, gentleman. From the tips of his highly polished shoes to the graceful drape of his (I know this has to be true) valet tied cravat, this dude was old British aristocracy to the nines. He was talking with several of the Harrods staff, obviously a regular since he knew them by name. I didn’t think much more of it at the time than “hm! Old money!” and let it go at that, but after we left we took a seat on one of the benches outside to have a rest and hydration break, the same dude came out of the door we were sitting next to and started briskly walking towards the car park. In one hand a Harrods bag. In the other, a Krispy Kreme bag with a dozen donuts.

It was so perfect I could have wept.

Dinner at a Greek place called Leon which introduced me to the idea of vanilla and rhubarb smoothies. Sounds disturbing, looks like pink Slime (the children’s toy for those of you old enough to remember), but the taste is out of this world. Yummy. We both had (wait for it) lamb which was tasty if a bit tough. I don’t know how they managed that.

Tuesday morning, after a quiet, cool, and airplane free night, we hopped it for the tube to get to Waterloo for our train to Salisbury. The fates were making up for our kludge trip to and from Inverness.

The guy at the ticket booth at the tube station happily sold us two week long tube passes so we can take the tube anywhere within three zones (covering an enormous amount of real estate) at any time until 11:59 p.m. on the day we leave. Our tube train was in the station when we got down to the platform. We got to Waterloo and while looking around for the train to Salisbury completely neglected to notice the information booth and the proper timetable on the first pass by. Found it the second time around, the information booth dude pointed us to the correct train and told us we’d have to hurry. We got to the correct platform just as the train guard was raising her whistle to signal the train to leave and got on and seated before the train started to move. Timing was absolutely perfect for once.

The bus ride from the Salisbury train station to Stonehenge was something else altogether. I had forgotten how terrifying it is to be on the upper storey of those busses as they hurtle along tiny little ancient English village streets at insane speeds. Also the heat was on so it was stifling, but ye gods, the scenery! It was terrifying, but very worth it (although we did go a more conservative route on the way back to the station and sat on the lower level).

What can you say about Stonehenge? Well for starters, I, personally, can say that the weather was volumes better than it was when I was there 20 years ago and the company of half a hundred tourists who were all impressed or at the very least, interested, was a considerable improvement than what we got 20 years ago. To explain, at least in a small way, the preceding rant, I would like to say that when we went to Stonehenge in March of 1985 the only tourists there were ourselves (my parents, my sister, my brother, and I) and a pair of the ugliest of ugly American tourists. The weather was……mmm, how to describe it…..foul isn’t quite it. Nasty is closer the mark. It was cold, spitting rain, glowering clouds and a wind that hadn’t anything between it and the North Pole but a few reindeer. Tuesday it was sunny with a little haze, a lovely brisk breeze on top of the hill where the monument sits to keep you cool. Beautiful weather. And granted, while there were a BUNCH more tourists this time than 20 years ago, the Ugly Americans, as we started to call them, were so nasty as to constitute a whole crowd on their own. Bitching about the weather, bitching about the rain, bitching about the bus ride, bitching about how slow the train had been, and then, the topper, bitching about how un-inpressive Stonehenge was. I believe it was the bubble butt wife who commented on how she was going to get a postcard at the gift shop to send home with the single word “DISAPPOINTING” written across the back. It was embarrassing, and then they had the nerve to show up at the restaurant where we were eating dinner that evening. They recognized us and knew that we were Americans so they spent a good deal of the time that we were both there yapping out insulting things about Great Britain and expecting us to agree with them because we were Americans too.

This time was much better. Hoardes of Asian tourists (Japanese I think), an entire busload of Germans, half a tour bus full of French speakers of one brand or another, a very confusing American couple dragging a suitcase (never did figure out why they’d bring a suitcase to Stonehenge), and a good number of Brits. All gawking, all commenting on how cool the stones were, all avidly listening to their audio tour earphones, and all taking hundreds and hundreds of photos.

I was very interested in the bird life. There was some sort of insect bloom in the surrounding fields (June bugs I think) so there were thousands of starlings. Jackdaws were nesting in the monument itself, there were two nests that I could see (with my binoculars) in between the standing stones and the cap stones, and the fields for miles around were covered with ravens. Now for those of you who are saying: “Margaret, you went to Stonehenge, one of the most impressive examples of ancient stonework in the world and all you notice are the freakin’ birds!” please calm yourselves.

I also noticed the stones. I noticed that their placement is exact, they’re big damn stones and I cannot for the life of me figure out how they got the cap stones in place, to say nothing of the feat of bringing the stones, which aren’t native, up to the top of this deserted hill hundreds of miles away from their quarries. It’s absolutely impressive. And mysterious, and lovely.

But the birds were pretty cool.

Okay, enough teasing.

Another train trip back into London. Another steamy, sweaty, sardine-ish tube trip from Waterloo back to Chelsea. And the inevitable, wonderful, glorious collapse on the bed in the refrigerated hotel room to be followed by gallons and gallons of water and a tepid shower. I love this hotel.

Dinner around the corner at the Med Kitchen, a trendy sort of fusion between Mediterranean and British food. One lamb burger with a parsley, red pepper, and cucumber salad, one salmon cake with tsatziki and some truly impressive house made chips. I did eat mine with a fork.

We had reservations for dinner at St. John restaurant for Wednesday evening and we wanted to be in plenty of time. If, for no other reason, than their reservation folks called us about three times between Monday and Wednesday morning to let us know when our reservations were. We started Wednesday a little late. Being able to sleep without being woken by the 545 to Tokyo is of great appeal. We fell into this café type joint up the street by the tube station for breakfast. A little grimy, a little run down in the furniture department, but they have these wonderful things called croques which make a stunning breakfast. A bacon, tomato, cheese, ham, and béchamel sandwich toasted to a crisp during the baking then heated to molten when ordered. They also have a juice bar where you can watch your juice being squoze. Orange and ginger juice is a great way to start the day.

We wanted to stay fairly local so we didn’t have to fight the tube to get back to the hotel and change before dinner so we just toddled up the street to the Natural History Museum. We’re also right next door to the Victoria and Albert Museum, but I’m not sure we’ll have a chance to get there.

The Natural History Museum is a joy. It’s an enormous imposing Victorian building with horrendous gargoyles and furbelows on the outside. The inside is tiled and bricked in natural history themes and the exhibits are delightful. The more modern ones are well put together and very educational, the older exhibits, a lot of them involving animal specimens that have to be close to 250 years old, are a little creepy and depressing, but impressive nonetheless. We only managed to take in the ground floor, there are four others which we may or may not get to. There were two big problems with the museum as it was on Wednesday. One, and this is true all days, not just Wednesday, it’s not air conditioned. I hate to keep harping on this lack, but it’s been pretty humid here and with minimal air flow through the building and literally 7000 children on school field trips running in and out, the building is pretty oppressive. The other problem, and this was unique to Wednesday, they were filming a children’s TV quiz show in the main lobby so the lights and all the extra equipment weren’t helping with the overall temperature.

I still want to go back though.

A little factoid regarding the British Natural History Museum: Gerald Durrell’s public memorial service was held in the main lobby. I think this is a very cool thing.

We got a taxi to take us to St. John. This was a good thing. It was very humid and in the low 80s yesterday afternoon and we were wearing some pretty decent fancy dress. The tube would have been oppressive.

For those who aren’t familiar with David Sederis and/or for those who aren’t hopeless Food Network addicts (there’s a show called “A Cook’s Tour” which featured St. John), St. John’s restaurant specializes in snout to tail cooking. Last night’s menu featured dishes like “Venison offal with mash” and the much touted “Warm Pig’s Head with Butterbeans”. They are right next door to the Smithfield General Market (kind of like Pike Place on steroids) and so they get the freshest ingredients available and they use everything. We stuck to pretty safe dishes however. I’m feeling adventuresome, but not so much so that I’m willing to try venison offal. I know, in general, what that term implies, but under the circumstances I wasn’t willing to find out what specifically they were going to offer. I was even willing to try the grilled pigeon heart appetizer that Andrew was considering ordering, but he got the roasted bone marrow instead which was lovely. I had peas. I was expecting cooked peas, what I got was fresh off the vine, raw peas in the pod. I haven’t eaten that many fresh peas since the last time I managed to grow them in Mom & Dad’s garden. The powdery mildew always seems to get the plants when I try to grow them in my garden.

Andrew had grilled eel which he said was tasty but oily, I had saddle of rabbit. Another culinary first for me. The rabbit was tasty, the beet relish that Andrew got with his eel was delightful, and the dandelion salad that I got with my rabbit tasted like dandelions. Not something that I’d pursue as a regular thing. Overall a wonderful experience and since we got there at 1800, far before the dinner rush, we were leaving just as the place started to busy up. Yet another thing that I would recommend for the discerning food nerd traveling through London.

Now I’m finally up to date.