The Queen can often be seen riding her horse in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoons

He is a spirited but kind beast.

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This England

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This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle The parks. The beautiful trees, the sound they make in the wind and when it rains, the shade they provide. The farmers' market across the street every Sunday. Meat pies. This Earth of majesty, this seat of Mars English ice cream: Scoop. The Cow and Bean. The British Museum. Very big, didn't see everything in six visits, the Greek and Egyptian relics. The Tower. Nothing to fear, just a man in a mask with an axe. La Fromagerie: our shop of sacred cheese. This other Eden, demi-paradise Walking to work through our neighborhood, across Oxford Street, down the finest shopping sreet, through a park and past a palace. Books, Will on #19, Andie on #9. Our local library, big with great books and nice librarians who asked us questions about the books, which kept us from spending too much money at ... Daunt Books. This fortress built by Nature for herself, against infection and the hand of war Castles. The many and varied birds of St. ...
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Dancing for Albert (and other tourist tales)

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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 - oo...
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Thoughts while walking

I walk back and forth to work, two miles each way through some of London's nicer neighborhoods. This gives me ample time to think deep thoughts: The BBC is not NPR. Some people might think that's a good thing. But when I brought my radio on my walk one morning this week and tuned in, expecting to find news headlines, I heard instead an in depth analysis of a man who kept putting off important surgery. Apparently this happens sometimes, people postponing surgery because they are scared. Apparently this is a bad thing to do. Apparently the man's wife was quite upset with him. Apparently, a panel of psychologists, psychiatrists, surgeons, and BBC moderators can spend a good chunk of time discussing it. I changed channels. London has stupid drive-time radio DJs just like we do at home. But they talk so fast in their fancy accents that I have a hard time understanding them. I resolve to give up on the radio and go back to the iPod. There are many gorgeous women in Lon...
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