A Classic Is Still A Classic

Sunday afternoon in the British Museum:

Time and the River, Time and the Builder

When I originally wrote this, it was 8:46 PM NYC time:

It's going on for 2 AM in London.  We'd been awake since 8 AM London time.  We were in the air for over 7 hours.  Then forever to get off the plane, another forever to get baggage, more forever to get a taxi and then the other forever of getting back to home.

Then unpacking like mad people. El V's made pasta, but I'm not eating any.  I can't face the idea of eating.  I got cleared to start putting life back together today, and getting ready for New Orleans. After that particular NO visit, el V will be going back-and-forth between Haiti and New Orleans for a bit.

It's hard to comprehend that at this time last night (well, sort of, as time is different there -- see, time = cat) we were getting on the train to leave Liverpool. Where I saw a guy about 25 years old take out from its packaging his souvenir Beatles tea towel and ... kiss it.  Like a priest would kiss his surplice before mass.  I am not making this up.  Ourselves, we had gone to Liverpool to visit the Museum of the International Slave Trade – the African slave trade, from which an enormous amount of Liverpool’s wealth was built – which I could even rattle off in my sleep then helped down the line to create the Beatles.

Now it is 8:46 AM NYC time, and I blither responded to an Egyptologist friend's question about the condition of the sphinxes along the Thames:


I saw some of the Thames sphinxes, N.  The ones I saw, fairly close to Trafalgar Bridge, appeared smooth and sleek. London's public spaces and what is in them. received some serious spiffing in preparation for the Jubilee and the Olympics.

So your eyes are just wandering about, darting about -- and there are -- sphinxes!


Perhaps that is what provides London its underlying charm: it's a whimsical city?  Even some of the contemporary architecture makes you smile. There's a brand new Hilton, designed to provoke thoughts of Tudor era country manors -- you know, with all that criss-crossing pattern timber pattern and gables piled on?  Except, it's a skyscraper made from those currently so popular reflecting materials. However, there are 'gables,' higgly piggly, and you smile with surprised delight -- at least both el V and I did, and think. "Howl's Moving Castle," from the animated film.

There's so much, from so many eras, whether so intentioned back in the day, that provides a sense of lightness and fun to the contemporary viewer.

In bleak contrast, there are those gapes, from the Blitz bombing, filled with impoverished post-war practical, dark, clunky square ugliness. Which allows even those whose grandparents weren't born then, to remember and grieve  England's terrible losses and terrible prices paid. Yes, not everywhere is all history the past and done with*.

This is particularily so of places that have BBC, some might say ....  All week, I think it was on BBC 2, ran an endless documentary - recreation series -- British agriculture during the War.

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* These are the places, the cities, that I fall in love with -- or like New Orleans, in love and hate with.

Heart of Darkness

Liverpool after all, not Bristol, for our last day here.

Appropriately it's foggy, cold and rainy for this trip into the heart of darkness, i.e. the English slave trade. 

The Yoruba Leopard case in the Africa galleries of the British Museum.

Time Considered As Cat

When you vacation in a cornucopia such as London, with the additional pleasure of seeing people you know, and meeting new people, time contracts like a cat snugged into itself against the cold and, alternately, spilled out ever expansively, like a cat lounging away a hot summer day.

Yesterday, condensed:

Fleet Street, Drury Lane, Covent Garden and for me, back to the British Museum*, as el V had to protect his sinuses and throat from the wind that dries them out.  He had two hours plus to sing non-stop again last night.  He decided to rest in the Grange, while I caught The Horse From Arabia to Royal Ascot exhibit.  It was as packed as you might expect, as it was a splendid Saturday afternoon, it's free attendence, and today (Sunday) is its last day. (My personal opinion is this exhibit doesn't achieve even mediocrity, with the tiny exceptional bit of Arabic texts, including the Quaran's sections on the virtues of the horse, and caring for the horse, horsemanship and so on.)Then it was the Underground (encountering lads furious or exultant over what had happened with the Arsenal shortly before) and Overground three stations away out to Dalston, to the second venue the Serpentine Gallery had selected for the Las Vidas Perfectas performances, as well as tonight's presentation and performance by Bob Ashley, the composer of Las Vidas Perfectas and many other works. Dalston, a district of north-east London, located in the borough of Hackney, is not a tourist destination. There were over three hours of set-up and sound check to get through -- I was reminded all over again why I always do everything I can to avoid being present at this when possible -- followed by two hours plus of performance, intermission, performance, then the after parts, followed by breaking down.  Late in the night we rode back to the Grange on a double decker.  This provided a terrific view of the continuous Saturday night in London youth queued and gathered all along the way until the Holborn stop, right outside the Grange.  In the Grange's bar we had a drink with the wife and the composer of Las Vidas Perfectas, before heading to bed.

Each day contracts and stretches like this. With so many different and not necessarily related occurrences throughout the the waking hours it feels as  though I am currently living perfect lives. The only imperfection is that there's not enough time to live all the lives I want to live.

There isn't time for Liverpool, for instance.  It will have to be Bristol instead, tomorrow.  And then we go home.
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* All the members of the Company have dashed in-and-out of the British Museum every day, taking in a bit of this and that, when possible.  It's so convenient to our location.  And like so many of the museum in London, the admission is free.  In NYC, the museums that attract the largest number of visitors will charge these days around forty dollars admission.

An Egyptologist Friend In Mind

We moved to Bloomsbury (the Grange Holborn Hotel) the day before yesterday.
Ancient Egypt is a strong motif for Bloomsbury: even the motif of our hotel is supposed to be in the flavor of ancient Egypt. The British Museum provides the signature, with so much area given over to the matter, including an entire Museum Court shop. There is the Egyptian Archeology Museum, among many other institutions here that if not wholly concerned with ancient Egypt, include it among the subjects of their mission.

In the meantime, with us doing our personal explorations during the day, and then moving directly to join the Company, the reason we're here at all, and after the performance socializing over dinner with London friends, there's not been time to catch up on my notes*.

Today our personal explorations are going to concentrate on major tourism areas, Charing Cross and the Strand, wherein is located, among other famously, constantly referred sites in English literature and history, Covent Gardens. My call.

I really like London**.
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* Not that this matters, except to me -- but fortunately I'm really good at writing in that moleskine (will need a new one by the time we get home again, to be ready for New Orleans).

** This is the first vacation I've been on in years, so that might be why I like London so much -- except -- el V's also likes London very much, and he is not on vacation, but working constantly, except when taking a few hours to play with me.

Baker Street

Took these photos to show I was there, not as documentation of anything else.

I didn't take a photo of 221B Baker Street -- where the Sherlock Holmes Museum is supposedly located -- because it didn't exist when Doyle wrote the Holmes's stories.  Baker Street hadn't been extended up that far yet.  These locations are located on the pre-extension stretch of Baker Street.

What we were doing on Baker Street: changed dollars to pounds in a Baker Street post office.

The Wrong Turns Are The Right Turns - London 3

Because it was brilliant autumn sunshine and supposed to be 75 today we left early in the morning for Regent's Park again so Foxessa could visit Queen Mary's Gardens. Quickly ot turned overcast, the wind was persistently ungentle. Rain began as we entered the Inner Circle within which lies Queen Mary's Gardens. We took refuge in the Cafe, which caters to a clientele that ranges from tourists such as we, regulars, local schools' tennis and soccer teams tournaments and practices, local tennis players, to figures who seem to believe they are participants in the lifestyles presented by the Top Music Videos channel which plays relentlessly on the television. The Cafe provides various sports amenities and equipment for sale,  and changing rooms -- locker rooms for we USians -- presumably for a membership fee.

While sharing a scone and drinking hot chocolate a vid showed up that was interesting in all kinds of ways: "Turn Me On" (2011). OK.  Queen Mary's roses, Jubilee Gates, i.e. Queen Elizabeth's big celebration this summer.  And ... this.  Scary, but elegantly imaginative. Makes the vids of  Ms. Crude Palmer, look the pathetically talentless attempts they are.

The sun returned. The Royal Academy of Music at York Gate, yes! and the exquisite attached three-floor museum, with research rooms and rehearsal halls.

Passed up the opportunity to stand in queue to see Bruce Willis and Marvel superheroes be wax at Madame Toussaint's.

However, because I wanted, we did move across to Baker Street.  Somehow it was appropriate that we changed my remaining $150 into pounds on Baker Street.

Getting confused by then we made the wrong turn and encountered a confab going on in front of the Angolan Embassy.  El V greets them in Portuguese, and  progressed from there.  He was thrilled.  Among other things, he learned today at the UN General Assembly UNESCO was meeting to finally create the church in M'banza Kongo an International Heritage Site. This provides him a hook for the article he needs to write about the M'banza Kongo part of the Angolan trip. The head fellow standing there is from M'banza Kongo, so this is more than excellent.

We've gotten turned around. Both of us are hurting like, well, we are.  I'm limping.  We stop at the Duke of York pub, where yes, from a cask pull, the Czech beer from yesterday is also available.  This time I got the name, Staropramen, which They Say Who Know is a middling beer according to Czech standards. Those standards are much higher than those in the U.S.  I hope the Czechs know how much more fortunate in their beer they are than we with those over-hopped, over perfumed, over ingrediented microbrews overhyped in every locality in the country now.  I'll take a Staropramen over a Brooklyn hop extremist micro brew any and every day.

We've had the greatest day! we blither at each other! We speculate which Duke of York the pub is named for -- el V pulling for Charles II's brother, who became King James II (1633–1685), the biggest royal slave trader ever! me for the Prince Frederick, House of Hanover (1784 - 1827), because this area was developed by John Nash in Frederick's lifetime -- the Regency, Regent's Park, etc., you know?*

We pour over the catalog we bought in the Royal Music Society's Museum, which dissects section-by-section John Perry's "A London Street Scene," -- and I complain I wrote all this down in my notebook, and if I'd known about the catalog before-hand, I could have saved myself all that work, yet I'm glad I did it, because I feel such a connection to its explosive energy, that is of that era, because I spent so much time looking at it blitherblitherblither. El V blithers about the pianos and their history as instruments and how splendid the Museum's collection is, and how Ellio, the piano player in Las Vidas Perfectas is going to envy him seeing these pianos -- and a virginal! -- and music and the musical theater U.S. and London connections in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the slave trade and Jim Crow in theatrical musical history and the history African Americans. We marvel how welcoming, helpful, knowledgable everyone at the museum was.  I rapture over the curators of the Dickens and London Music exhibit: so small, so dense, so informative, so coherent even in the manner of how Dickens would resolve a plot, so informative -- and the more you know about all these matters the more the exhibit speaks to you, and you learn things you didn't know! AND the museum has all these conveniently placed chairs  -- with backs and pillows -- on which to sit while taking notes. AND they never tell you not take pictures, they ask if they can make it easier for you.

We get lost again, but we read the helpful street maps and get back on track to home base.

The same thing happens in the second pub we stopped into for more than recuperation and rejuvenation. By now we've earned our dinner, and base camp is only about five more blocks away. Thank goodness. This time it was discussion around reviewing our digital photos that provoked the join-in. As well as el V speaking Portuguese with the new Brasilera bartender, who had been there for only a month.

Even though I can hardly move and the pain is off the charts, this was a Great Day. I can't help it. I really love being in London.

El V's got his first London rehearsal tomorrow.

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* I'm right about which Duke of York the pub's named for. I didn't think to ask them because they must get asked tourist questions all the time -- imagine what it must have been like for them, with the Jubilee and the Olympics both in the same summer -- even though this isn't exactly Paddington Station, it's walking distance to Lord's Cricket Stadium / Ground -- we passed it twice, and people were taking photos. Also, in NYC quite often you ask someone who lives / works close to an historical marker and they never heard of the figure or the event. (This is the same Duke of York for which New York state and New York City is named, so I've  been interested in him since the fourth grade when we learned about that.)

The Tomb of the Unknown Urinator - London, Kensington Gardens

The Tomb of the Unknown Urinator, Kensington Gardens

Cognitive dissonance: here, the UK Guardian is here, there, now the New York Times is there. This reverse of here and there perception when in Europe has always brain-knocked me. Brain knocking kicked in again in the afternoon with the addition of chronology as viewed from here vs there -- i.e. from my own life history over there that was connected to here.
We gallivanted all afternoon in the chilly wind, ending up in Kensington Gardens. Ye condition was making my left leg hurt pretty badly, and we had a bit of a walk yet to reach home base. El V picked a place called Taylor Walker Pub in the  Paddington Station area to rest and recoup. Though without that horrid sport TV, it had other signatures of a franchise operation, so I was skeptical.  Yes, Taylor Walker's got about 116 operations, mostly in and around London. It's Paddington Station site, however, is located in a building that clearly has been in that location since at least the mid-1800's. They have really good beer; el V's choice for us both (I was knackered by then, lots of pain, stupid) was a draft from their "World Beer"
menu, out of the Czech Republic -- the name of which did not register. They also have at least one real sweetheart of a waitperson, named Sam, who tipped el V to his choice, based on what he said I liked. It  turns out that once upon a time Taylor Walker was a major brewery in England, and for a long time.

While I'm attempting to assimilate this information, I'm still thinking of turned around here - there.  Taylor Walker's choice of music is all English, hits from the 60's 70's 80's and probably the 90's too -- you will recognize all the cuts, no matter what your age. Sting's ode to stalkertude, "Every Breath You Take," played during our initial appraisal of the menus. Then "Sympathy for the Devil," and so on. It messed with my mind to be hearing such English music in such an English place, where these songs were probably  played when they were brand new, and Usians like me (well, maybe not -- hippies!) were eating sandwiches and drinking beer were listening because -- you know -- Paddington Station -- and even when it wasn't a Taylor Walker, it was still probably a place selling food and drink because -- it's by Paddington Station -- and before there were recordings, radios, juke boxes, PA's, whatever, there was probably music, made by the patrons, and probably a piano was on the premises, because -- right there, by Paddington Station, with people coming and going at all hours every day and night, and people working all over the place, day and night.

As well, the style of the building --  The more you travel the more you see wherever you go, at least when comes to European and U.S. style of building, that there are local flourishes and so on, but much of period public architecture is similar all through Europe and North America, and down in the South Americas, you see the continuance of both the Arab - Spanish styles and particularly the Spanish Imperial baroque everywhere.

This was comforting in a way, as I have on occasion bemoaned how river walks and ocean side piers, parks like the High Line and Hudson River Park and Battery Park, and so on look so much alike wherever you go.  The styles above and down to NYC's Battery Park are found along the river in Lisbon, which was the first time I noticed this  You also see the style on San Antonio's River Walk. So I see that the building in which this Taylor Walker pub is located could almost be found in Habana Vieja -- that winder stair to a second floor -- but in Havana -- or New Orleans -- it would be built around a courtyard, and have a balcony overlooking the courtyard.  Still, the bar in all three places would have the pressed tin ceilings, at least in the main bar, have interior fan windows and arches, with various separator - privacy partial partitions.  The Taylor Walker pub has an old enameled porcelain tile fireplace -- that you won't see in Havana, but you might (though the tiles would be different) in New Orleans because a fire in winter is most welcome. So it's OK, the period style trend for public spaces being the same all over during periods has been going on a long time. Duh.  It's in residences that you see more local style differences maybe?  Thinking of that Terraces and Places and Crescents ubiquity here -- though not in NYC, this style of residence is in Italian cities from that era, and in Paris too, but they're called by different words.

Then over the speakers came the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" with Stevie Winwood, lead vocal. My brain then collapsed into mush. Host had a great deal to do with introducing Stevie Winwood to the U.S. music scene. absolute mush.  Here there, Now then, it's all the same. Arrrrrrrrggh!

It's impossble, you know, not to be aware of history with every footstep you take in London.  Even what is totally contemporary in thought, action and material expression has history.  And I KNOW an enormous amount of this history  generally, though obviously not down to the granular levels.  We entered Kensington Gardens through the Marlborough Gate. I crowed to el V,  "I know who the Duke of Marlborough is -- he was the guy who married Susan Hampshire!"*  Queen Anne, whose residence Kensington Palace was, was very close to the Duke of Marlborough's wife, Sarah, from the time of their girlhood. When Anne assumed the throne in her own right she showered the Churchills with benefits and honors,  titles and money (though eventually she fell out with the strong-willed and very interfering busy Sarah -- Sarah's own daughter even fell out with her.) To be fair though, the Duke of Marlborough spent much of Queen Anne's reign abroad, fighting valiantly in the the War of the Spanish Succession.  He was so successful that Queen Anne made him her Captain-General.

Whew -- and that was just at the entrance into Kensington Gardens. You see what I mean?  We hadn't even stepped through yet. The church for which the part we're staying in until Thursday is named, St. Mary's Church (though not the same building), was where John Donne preached his FIRST sermon.  Sarah Siddons is buried in the cemetery. This means something to me, it really does, so much so I'm overwhelmed.

It also means a lot to me that all around where we are living is filled with women wearing headscarves.  I know who the might be, and how and why they got here, and are, some English citizens, some maybe on the road to becoming citizens, some maybe not, by their own choice even, all raising their families. They are as much a part of the history of this city now as Sarah Churchill. If they themselves did not, they surely have relatives who do live in other cities whose history is as deep, layered and complicated as London's.  So, there are those connections too, going east this time, not west as with me - that Here and that There, that Now and that Then.

The Serpentine Gallery, where Las Vidas Perfectas will be performed Friday at 6 PM is in the Kensington Gardens too. So we stopped by to say hi to the staff.  That was a big hit of contemporary air.

Though I wasn't interested in the Peter Pan statue, I did want to see Princess Diana's Memorial.  El V indulged me. The Fountain is very pretty.  And looked at from some perspectives, contours of the fountain look as though they are in the pattern of a heart.

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* This is a joke.  The only time the Duke of Marlborough married Susan Hampshire was in the BBC series, The Churchills. Though if John Churchill had met Susan Hampshire instead of Sarah Jennings, he may well have married her instead -- there is no one more delightful than Susan Hampshire.

Guess Where We Are

Hint: it's pissing rain. And cold.

The classic London weather for which it is famed: cold, grey, raining.  (Yesterday though, it was brilliant: sunny, clear and bright, though still, yes, cold, because it is England and England is always cold, except when it has experienced these climate change spells of overheat in recent years.)

Nevertheless, it's a lovely view from where I've set up camp in Host's library*.  The end of the room has the tall three-windowed bay, so common in architecture of this era.  Here, on the second floor the bay windows provide an expansive view into the gardens and courtyards of the semi-detached villa mansions and multiple residency terraces.  Many varieties of trees (leaves beginning the turn -- branches here and there fountaining gold and red) and flowers, as well as birds. The host has a bird feeder outside one of the windows. Not bird watcher, only as bird enjoyer, I've only been able to identify pigeons, ubiquitous to urban air space, and a wax wing. This is where Regent's Park is, as well as Regent's Canal (thus Little Venice), so water birds abound, as well as garden variety birds. There are many bird watching clubs here, and many of them are specialized -- such as only water birds sighted in Regent's Park. Climate change is a boon to these clubs.

We're doing fairly well, as we should, considering how well we're situated.  Despite all our long and short range planning and preparation, despite going for a British Airways upgrade, despite the very nice and helpful people before, during and after the flight, the journey from home to St. Mary's Mansions was brutal. Traffic to JFK was backed up worse than I've ever seen it, which is saying something. The Brooklyn Bridge is undergoing repairs, which futher backs up things as it is an alternate route to the airport. This backup is thanks to the General Assembly of the UN, has been in place for at least three days already, and will be for another week -- legations coming in with all their people from all the planet.

When we finally got here both of us were hurting badly, neither of us had gotten more than 4-5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours and neither of us possessed the intelligence of a 3 month old blood hound pup.

Even so, (though dimly, as physically miserable as I was, and not with a window seat) I felt a thrill of recognition that only people who love literature in the English language and who have been studying the development of the United States and have lived in those early English colonies that are Virginia and Maryland probably will feel (these are the regions that contributed so much population, at least ruling class population, to those colonies). Once the plane was over England, on the route to Heathrow, we crossed all that English countryside that is between Oxford and London, the topography of BBC television series like Midsomer Murders, one of my favorite series, set within hedgerows and walls that mark the boundaries of properties here, signatures of southwest England.  Anyone who is pleased by prospects of well-cultivated, rich rural fields and pastures, amply watered, with fat, contented livestock and poultry, old family estates and farms, trees and flowers, very gently rolling meadows and hills, will know what I mean. Some parts of our drive in Minnesota on the way to Ottertail Lake (by way of Fox Home) when we were kids, had that look of rural care and prosperity, which imprinted “Ultimate Good Life” on my soul.  Of course in the upper Midwest we didn't have those boundary markers. At one point I thought, thinking of Ned’s videos from his Angolan flights, “Now England has far more trees than Angola does (at least those regions of Angola)!”

We took a short nap in the afternoon, went for a walk or two, got British money, got some groceries, had a classic English pub meal in a classic English pub. This included a stout, Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Bitter, for el V, which, el V announced, had restored him to the Faith. "I realize this summer I suffered a crisis of faith in beer. Just one wretched excuse for beer from these over-rated perfumeries that call themselves micro breweries. But at this moment I've entered beer heaven." From up in Yorkshire, Sam Smith's is much superior to Guiness, at least the Guiness we get in NYC, even on tap in an Irish bar. Not my kind of stuff, but Ned was in heaven. Recall he's been off beer since the end of June. At home we worked for while, him on the Angola epic and me on a part of The American Slave Coast in the colonial Virginia section.

We went down for good at 10 or 22, depending on how you track time.  We wouldn't have slept last night except for adding another duvet to the bed.  Between those and snugged into each other, we slept well. Don't know if the melatonin contributed or not (it didn't do us any good for sleeping during the flight), but despite waking often, we went right back to sleep, getting up at 8:45 A.M, to rain and the cold. I bet we'd gotten up earlier though, if it had been sunny.

We are going to have to get some warmer clothes. It was like going to Cuba in February, but in reverse.  Your brain tells you hot and humid, but in NYC, wh.ere 45 is warm, you just can't conceptualize what it means. You deplane in the Havana airport and break out into a sweat, grab your sunglasses, madly doff layer after layer, rip off your boots and unpack your sandals, which at the last minute you shoved into your carry on because you remembered that part -- all before getting to immigration.  So England -- where in NYC it's 80 today, we couldn't conceptualize c-o-l-d.  And it is. Cold. At least to us.  For the English probably this is blessed normality. We did find Host's stash of space heaters, so it's cozy now.

El V, a/k/a Grocery Warrior, armed with Host's umbrella, has returned with more groceries, for this weather is to hold through tomorrow.  In Scotland it's gusting up to 60 mph, with flooding in some places and trees and lines down.

As requested he brought back some less expensive wine. Host has massive amounts of Finest Liquor of every kind. Host particularly has wine. Full wine racks, other bottles elsewhere.  We're not about to open any of that.

We can go out for short runs at the park and various other landmarks here, despite the rain. There's a huge amount to explore all around us. Notting Hill, is part of this area that we can walk to.  It was where the English West Indies immigrants landed, in the deserted by the rich  multi-residence terraces (some built by John Nash, though exactly which ones other than those with Ionic columns, I still hazy on), when invited in back in 1950's to take London service jobs.  Thus this is where England's first race riot took place. By now most of the Jamaicans and other West Indians have given place to immigrants from Pakistan and other Muslim countries -- which if you like that kind of eating is terrific (and we do like it). These sections still retain some flavor of that West Indian predominance era if you look. Immediately where we are though is all veddy up market, whoever you are.  That's about what we can manage for today, due to the weather.

We're both still tired, and I'm still in a lot of pain. Though we are recovering very well, an enforced stay-in is probably good for us both.

It's clear: from whatever angle we look at it, we are very well, and very happy.  Surely it's time for wine?

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* Host's entire home is a library -- a very fine one in content too.  Built-in floor to ceiling bookshelves are in every room except the bathrooms. Yes, in the laundry room and kitchen** too.  And music, of every kind.  Interesting that around here, looking through the windows from the street and from Host's windows, everyone's home is filled with floor to ceiling bookshelves, all packed with books.

** Some of the earliest digital technology ever!  To see what I mean, look up how piano rolls were made.

*** Why did granite counter tops become the must-have kitchen installation?  They are impossible to make dry when water slops on them. Mopping the water just spreads it around. Air drying leaves behind municipal water supply chemicals, bleaching the black. Needless to add that cleaning them is a royal pain. Edited to Add: Host's stove!  I'm in love.  I could do anything with his burners and oven.  And I think Host does do anything, from baking, roasting, simmering et al.

Gone Fishin'

Tix Acquired + Heritage Tomatoes

Flying to Heathrow 9/21.

Interesting. The first field to fill out when buying tickets online for British Airways is "Choose Your Title." There are many titles ranging from Duchess to Rabbi.

El V wanted to choose Vicount and Vicountess. But he feared him impersonating Vics was probably a crime, so did not do that.

May I admit to great excitement.  How not? London, and then Liverpool and Bristol, the two centers of the slave trade industry, besides London, to do some mini research!  Fantastic!  I really am thrilled to have this opportunity.  So lucky.

Yesterday one of our local merchants gifted me with his home grown heritage tomatoes.  Because, when you are fortunate enough to achieve home grown tomatoes you have so many you don't know what to do with them.  This person has found the perfect solution for disposing of his vast overstock.  City apartment dwellers sans any teeny bit of turf to grow tomatoes, zuchs, peppers and basil will greedily beg him -- if they know.  What he did was discreetly pull out small brown  bag with the tomatoes in them and drop them into the purchase bag, saying, "Today a little extra something."

Then last night having dinner with one of el V's colleagues in the Angola programs the restaurant give us a "little extra something" as well.  It does make the neighborhood feel more neighborhoody, to have a little extra relationship something with the people who make their living here.  So I really appreciate these gestures.

I also have some perfectly ripe avocados.

I just put the finishing touches on a pot of posole.  Tomatoes and avocados and posole for dinner.  That will do, whether we have a thunderstorm or not. The humidity these days is so thick any movement makes one as wet as if rained upon.  I've never experienced this kind of humidity here before -- and we're mid-Atlantic coast, so summer humidity is the rule.  But this, this could be New Orleans or even Santiago de Cuba on the hottest of the heat wave days.

At least, thanks to the faithful a/c we've managed to stay productive through it all.  Lucky us!  And we are lucky, and don't I know it!