Dancing for Albert (and other tourist tales)
It is amazing how, in the middle of this large and populous city, the parks can be deserted. After dinner Friday evening the kids and I took our new football (a soccer ball, really, but we are trying to assimilate) to Regents Park, where we practically had the place to ourselves. We booted the ball great distances over the slick pitch (see? assimilating ...) and ended up in a grove of dense trees. The rain had stopped but the wind was now brisk, and every few minutes it rattled the branches and leaves overhead and caused a new downpour of large drops to splat upon us. The kids fashioned bats out of branches that had fallen from the trees, and soon we had invented the perfect hybrid game of basoc. Think baseball with a soccer ball. I am the pitcher, I bounce the ball in, and Will or Andie whacks it with a thick stick. It turns out that Will is the Willie Mays of basoc. Every pitch - pow! - sent me running out of the grove and across the pitch to retrieve the rolling soccer - oops, football - ball.
I soon tired of that fun game, so Will and Andie invented a new game which involved whacking the sticks and dancing. They actually got quite good at it, so the next day, as we marveled at the Prince Albert memorial on the southern end of Kensington Gardens, they performed it again in an impromptu moment. If you turn around 180 degrees from where I took this video, you will see the Royal Albert Hall, one of Britain's most esteemed venues for the performing arts. Perhaps with a bit of rehearsing Will and Andie can take their act across the street? A Dad can dream ...
For the rest of the weekend we were supreme tourists. We started at the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill, a famous and VERY crowded attraction. It bustled with street vendors and performers, but amongst the wailing guitarists it was the couple with the funny, headless costumes that garnered the most photographers, ourselves among them.
I say, I think we've lost our heads!
We grew weary of the market after only a couple of blocks, but the neighborhood was amazingly pleasant as soon as one left the teeming masses. We strolled through Notting Hill, and soon turned into the most chic boutique, replete with burnished wood sculptures and elegant recessed lighting shining ever so delicately down on the ... tomatoes and cheese. It was by far the nicest grocery store I have ever been in. This place makes Whole Foods look like a 7-Eleven. We bought some cheddar cheese that probably cost about 10 pounds, but was worth it for the care with which it was wrapped. We left the store proud in the knowledge that we too can overpay for dairy products when they are displayed atop wood floors and served by bright attractive young people with smart aprons and charming accents.
After a very nice lunch we strolled across the street to Kensington Gardens, where we soon approached the Diana memorial playground. There was a guard at the front gate - your child is your ticket to entry and I briefly thought about renting Will and Andie out for a few pounds. They could play for an hour, some strange adults would get to skulk about among the kids, and Ava and I could slip away and get those pints at the pub that are so tantalizingly close, and yet so far away. Alas, my good judgement got the better of me again and we entered the playground thirsty. It's an amazing place, sort of an cross between a playground and the Exploratorium, with nature walks, teepees, pirate ships, musical instruments, swings and slides, and many, many children. It turns out that whining in a British accent is much more charming than in an American accent. We watched the drama of lost children being reunited with desperate parents with the help of the police, and took our soft ice cream to go.
After entertaining Prince Albert and skirting his hall, we cruised through the Natural History Museum. As its American counterpart was a centerpiece of our vacation last year, we spent much time debating their relative merits. London has better fossils, more specimens, and an amazing building, but New York has those incredible dioramas and an Aunt only three blocks away. A happy tie. Oh, and I seem to resemble the extinct giant sloth.
Look at me! I'm a giant sloth!
Today we went to our local farmer's market (across the street) and then took the Tube to Trafalgar Square, where the kids posed for the requisite tourist photo on top of the lions (I have the same picture of me from my trip to Trafalgar Square in 1971!)
Then we went to the amazing Cabinet War Rooms and Winston Churchill museum underneath the government buildings. This is a warren of rooms beneath a 6 foot thick slab of steel and concrete (built during the war without anyone outside the project knowing) from which Churchill and his cabinet ran the war effort. The rooms have been faithfully restored, including offices, dorm rooms, and the amazing map room where the actual map with which they tracked the progress (and often the lack thereof) of convoys across the Atlantic still dominates a wall. It is full of thousands of pinholes. A fascinating walk back into history.
We walked in rain, drizzle, sunshine, and blusterous breezes through St. James and Green parks and back to our flat, gathered our things, and headed out to see the 6th Harry Potter movie. It starts with Death Eaters diving down upon Trafalgar Square and we smiled at each other, wondering if they stopped for a photo with the lions.
