Saturday, April 14, 2018

last day in London

For the first time, we have a sunny day, with temperatures flirting with 60 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a Saturday, so the streets are crowded with weekend wanderers. Over breakfast, Joyce and I discussed spending the morning packing (flight tomorrow at 10am, we leave the hotel at 6:45am, we have dinner at another very fancy restaurant, this time with the director of the play we'll see tonight, so preparing now is pretty much unavoidable). After that, we were going to ride a bus over to the parks near Buckingham Palace to spend some time people watching.

But alas! it was not to be. Joyce, despite her cane and years, is absolutely fearless and full of energy. I, on the other hand, am a wuss. The pace and variety of London mostly makes me feel overwhelmed and lost. I canceled on our park outing, crawled back into bed, and pulled the covers over my head, which had exactly zero effect on how overwhelmed and frightened I felt.

Finally, maternal guilt dragged me out. I promised Lizz, the older of my two daughters, that I would bring her back refrigerator magnets.

One of the reliable delights of this trip has been Ed, the concierge. We tell him what we want, and he guides us to the best way to do it. Today, I needed low-budget tourist traps, and Ed sent me off three or four blocks to the vicinity of Leicester Square, where I found just what I needed. Mirabile dictu, I even found my way back. Usually my sense of direction is great, and my internal navigation gets me from here to there and back again almost without a thought. Not in this neighborhood, where streets do not meet in right angles if they can avoid it.

Plus I've had no stamina whatsoever walking around, with the exhaustion inflicting itself suddenly causing a torrent of sweat along with the weariness. It's probably something I should discuss with my doctor when I get back, but meanwhile it has given me a great excuse to take black cabs everywhere. When I'm not succumbing to London overwhelm, that is.

2 comments:

  1. Being able to find the refrigerator magnets easily sounds like an achievement to me! I wonder if the news coming from the US contributes to your sense of being overwhelmed and lost. I'm sometimes reminded of the title of a musical I haven't seen but it's title is memorable: "Stop the World--I Want to Get Off"?

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  2. Your activities have left me exhausted from afar. Good for you for having done all that you did!

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