English Garden Tour:transit and arrival. Day 1 in London.

Of all the big, truly bigsprawlingstinking, rightonthecusp of whoknowswhatnext cities of the world  we've been to,London is the most fun . Great people mover underground. Tiny jewel like stamp shops cheek to jowl with bold be-flagged tourist traps. A city on the edge: a vehicle incident, ripples pass through the system. Three jolts,and yer sitting, maybe in the dark.  It all works, mostly.  Great suits, bespoke or not.  Cheers.

July 3. Fuddruckers "restaurant" (booth, really) at Dulles has elk, ostrich (in season), and boar 'burgers. My elk was dry. Get "Premium Economy" seats on Virgin Atlantic. Six inches extra space is worth it. Decent swag. Much booze, little sleep. Entertaining this sheep w/ Isle of Man TT documentary. Hit Heathrow ground feet running.Turn on 'phone: it screeches WHEREAREYOU?ADJUSTTIME! and curls into a digital fetal ball. It is a.m.;can't check in 'til the p.m. Mill around mill until luggage catches up.London is packed, more than usual. London festival, Jubilee, Olympics coming up. We score tickets for  Buckingham Palace tour, including special jewelry.  Queen's paintings, GORGEOUS, could spend weeks gawping. Wee Rubens: works on a small scale, pleasant seasonal vignettes. Canalettos.  Jewel display was a mosh pit: Chinese have an entirely different sense of personal space than RR. Late lunch, dim sum at Grand Imperial. Spot of window shopping; we saw loads of Queen stuff, "Stay Calm" paraphenalia. I can see where we get the "Yay us" attitude. Must confess to buying a Clockwork Orange shirt, a walking copyright violation I'm sure. Dinner at the hotel: salmon; bangers and mash; lemon tart; Guiness draft. Drinks at the ReUnion bar: Bailey's for her, a French 75 for him. 

To bed.

The days were just packed

Missus and I were recently back in England. Linda saw an ad for a trip to visit English gardens, guided by a local garden expert. She is the avid gardener; I dig as directed. It is a savage hobby, uprooting perfectly happy plants that are not satisfactory, and replacing them . Any excuse to revisit GB will suffice for RR; so we went. I'll supply details in future posts; for today, I will concentrate on what for me was an all too brief high point.

When the trip had been booked, I contacted Lorenzo da Ponte, author of  the "Tone Deaf" blog, whom we met two years ago on a less hectic tour. E-mail serves and volleys commenced; for various reasons there was one opportunity to get together. Little is always better than none, so had to settle for little time.

We got to see LdaP and signora, got to see Hereford cathedral, and spend some quiet time before we had to bustle back to Cheltenham. Lorenzo and missus were very kind to us. I am a curious person, and enjoyed scoping out a portion of L da P's books, and once again was amazed at Mrs. LdaP's reading quantity. Even saw a title for future reference as we say in the library biz: a bio of Pepys which won the Whitbread Prize when it was called the Whitbread prize. Another instance of inspiration from L da P. I thank him and the missus for their hospitality and patience.