I usually plan our trips well in advance and research all the possible places to stay and things to do weeks and weeks ahead of our travel. But I was not sure until about two weeks before we actually left if we were really going to go or would have to postpone our trip. So I had not been willing to make any hotel commitments in London until I was sure we were actually going to be there.
About three days ago, I decided I had to find something. And I was quite excited when I discovered a studio apartment for rent just off Leicester Square. I immediately reserved it. But as soon as the confirmation email came, my heart sank. "The flats are located over three floors of the building," it read. "There is no lift." I wanted to immediately wanted to cancel it because John has difficulty with stairs. But there were no refunds.
And indeed, once we had arrived, I figured out that our unit was indeed on what the British call the third floor and what we Americans would call the fourth floor. It is set back a bit above the roofline here so you cannot even see it from the street.
John was apprehensive. He thought the neighborhood was perfect and the building was charming, but he had no idea if he could manage all those stairs.
As it turns out, he has recovered a great deal of strength since his heart surgery and he managed to get up the stairs without too much difficulty.
This morning I left our apartment early to take some clothes over to the nearest place I could find offering wash-and-fold service. It had the wonderful name of the Boswell Laundrette. I had images of people sipping tea and reading Life of Johnson as they awaited the end of the spin cycle. As it turned out, the reality was far more prosaic.
The laundry was near Russell Square, about a mile from where we were staying, so it took me about an hour to drop the laundry off and walk back. When I was almost there, I called John. He told me that he had walked around the block to the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. I joined him there.
I had been to this museum a number of times, so I just visited some old friends like this one by Monet
and this one by Turner.
John likes pictures that tell stories. He wondered how long you can keep an expression on your face after you head has been cut off.
Leaving the museum, he wanted to stop in at Saint Martin in the Fields. To our surprise, there something that was a cross between a concert and a service going on. The music, drawn from various composers, were all settings of the eucharistic hymns of Thomas Aquinas. The singers were brilliant. We had to endure some commentary by Sam Wells, the vicar, formerly of Duke Divinity School, who clearly could not grasp Catholic theology.
Before he went to the museum, John had bought some theater tickets at the TKTS booth. In the afternoon, we went to see Life of Pi, an adaptation of the best-selling book. I was not rude enough, or maybe courageous enough, to take my own pictures during the play, so this is a publicity picture I found on Google. This is a scene at the beginning where Pi is exploring different religions.
The big attraction of the play is the use of full-size puppets for the various animals, particularly the tiger. This really was quite well done.
I was not a big fan of the book, and in the end I was not moved by the play, either. Still, the staging was fantastic. It was exactly the sort of thing that you can only do in London or New York with theaters specially adapted for this specific play.
In the evening, we went to see The Mousetrap. This play has been on stage in London since 1952. We have been too sophisticated to go see if for forty years, but we decided that we should finally just check it off the list. As it turned out, it was a fun evening.
It was a busy day for two old guys, but a really happy one.
