Betty Birney’s Blog

We spent a week in Caterham, Surrey with Wendy (sister of my good friend Nicky) and Roger in their guesthouse … and with their daughter Min (our friend for 20 years), who lives next door with her children, Jonny and Suzy and hamster, Smudge.

We had a glorious day in Bath Sunday, a sold out crowd for my event at the Guildhall, large signing of fantastic Humphrey fans, dinner at the famous Hole in the Wall restaurant, where we ate last year. Now it’s back to Surrey for one night and on, regrettably, to Heathrow and NY. The fun’s not over, though, as we’ll be in NY with family and friends (and best of all, our son) for a few days more!

If I don’t get on the internet tonight, farewell to the UK – I really do consider it my second home!

The Wish, where we stayed in Caterham, Surrey

Outside our guest apartment, horses still live next door and graze outside the stable every morning.

Greenwich Naval Academy as viewed from the Planetarium.

I’m massively behind with blogging which only means one thing: I’m having a fabulous time and enjoying every minute of it! So I’ll just be blogging behind the times for a while. It’s actually kind of fun to relive this week because so much happened the next week, I never had time to process it all!

The next day – Monday – I walked to The Ivy restaurant to meet Faber’s Managing Director, Stephen Page, for lunch. Nice stroll through Drury Lane and Covent Garden but at the last minute I got lost and hailed a cab for a very short ride – it was the only way to sort things out and get there on time. The Ivy’s a wonderful place and popular with the theater and publishing crowd. Conversation with Stephen was wide-ranging – though a hamster named Humphrey was brought up more than once. Frank spent the day visiting friends he knew in Zambia when he taught there too many years ago to mention!

After lunch, I returned to Faber and Laura Smythe and I headed out to sign books at the incomparable Harrod’s department store and the gigantic Waterstone’s in Piccadilly.

Signing books at Harrod's

That evening, Frank and I went to see Agatha Christie’s venerable play, The Mousetrap, which has been running continuously since 1952. It’s a bit creaky, as I expected, but we loved it anyway and also the St. Martin’s Theatre … which happens to be across the street from The Ivy!

After the theater, Frank and I decided to give it a try and actually got in. (Apparently this was unusual as my Faber friends later couldn’t believe I’d gone to lunch and dinner at The Ivy. Dumb luck or good looks?)

Buckingham Palace was our destination on Tuesday – the only day it really rained on our entire trip so far. We toured the art gallery first, then  the horses, carriages and cars, then the state rooms in the Palace itself. Everything is opulent, gilded and grand, of course, because it’s a palace!

The palace also has huge grounds and gardens which we had to walk through to exit – pouring rain and mud-puddly. Soaked to the skin, we managed to get a cab back to the hotel and dry out in time for the real highlight of London – champagne with the Faber children’s team – people I work with all the time but rarely talk to or see. A very attractive group, I’d say, and they turn out beautiful Humphrey books (and The Princess and the Peabodys).

Then some of us went on to a pub in Soho and dinner at a wonderful restaurant Arbutus, where we dined with booksellers including Sarah Walden, buyer for The Book People, John Newman of Newham Books and I also met Amanda Li, who devised all kinds of amazing activities for the UK Humphrey activity book Faber is putting out next year.

It was truly a whirlwind week in London and we were sad to leave so soon … but little did we know what pleasures awaited us in Caterham, Surrey! Wonderful people, parties, helicopter rides, an ancient church, a castle, a trip to Oxford, the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Brighton and FUN-FUN-FUN coming up soon!

It’s hard to believe we arrived in London last Wednesday (late night)… and are leaving again tomorrow – I feel as if I’ve been here five minutes! We’re staying at the Hotel Russell, overlooking Russell Square. Believe it or not, our room is ultra-modern – a 7th floor suite with a turret so we look down on the park and across to the Thames. We can see the London Eye from the window — and Sunday night, brilliant fireworks on the Thames! We also discovered that there’s a great cafe in Russell Square right across the street, where we’ve had fabulous, affordable breakfasts al fresco all week.

Parliament

On Thursday (husband Frank’s birthday) we had tickets to tour Parliament. Once a year, there are many public buildings which are normally closed that are open to the public at ticketed Open Days. We had pre-ordered our tickets. The tour was spectacular. I learned more about British government and history than in any course. I was suprised that the chambers for the House of Commons and House of Lords were quite small – next time I watch on TV I’ll have a different perspective.

We then went to Fleet Street and toured St. Bride’s Church, (after refreshment at the Old Bell pub – directly in front of the church). I have been following Samuel Pepys’ diary at www.pepysdiary.com for several years and this is the church where he was baptized. The spire is also the model for the modern wedding cake. We also saw Samuel Johnson’s charming house but it was closed. (Alert- this is an English major going to London so literary sites are top priority.) We peeked in London’s oldest pub, The Olde Cheshire Cheese, then took a cab back to Charlotte Street, not too far from our hotel, and celebrated Frank’s birthday at an Italian restaurant.

Wedding cake spire of St. Bride's

Friday was a pleasurable business day. My wonderful UK publisher is the venerable Faber & Faber (where T.S. Eliot was an editor as well as one of its famed poets) is located about two blocks away, directly next to the British Museum. I had lunch at the museum with my editor, Julia Heydon-Wells, saw her assistant editor, Emily Hardy, and met the new children’s publicist, Laura Smythe. After lunch, Laura whisked me off to Leicester Square to record about 15 minutes of me reading Humphrey (they will be broadcast in installments over 3 weeks) for the kids’ radio show Fun4Kids. We stopped for a glass of wine to plan the rest of the week. While I was doing publishing business, Frank was off to the National Portrait Gallery where he found a painting he’d always wanted to see in person – his great-great grandfather James G. Birney, who ran for president on the Abolitionist ticket is one in a large group painting of a famous international meeting of abolitionists.

Seriously jet-lagged, we met back at the hotel and ate here.

With Sue Foster at the Golden Treasury

Saturday was a business day for me. While Frank was off to the Tate Modern, Laura took me to a signing at an independent children’s bookstore, The Golden Treasury.  Sue Foster and the staff rolled out the red carpet and there was a wonderful group of kids and parents there to greet me.  After the signing, we headed to another charming children’s bookstore, called Tales on Moon Lane, where I signed stock. I had a date for tea in Covent Garden but it was canceled due to illness. My afternoon was up for grabs so I explored the neighborhood around the hotel, visiting the Dickens House Museum on Doughty Street, where Dickens did some of his early writing, and saw other local highlights, including a park called Coram’s Fields, which adults cannot enter without a child in tow.  Still jet-lagged and a little weary, we ate in our room and enjoyed British telly, which I love.

We woke up Sunday wondering what on earth we should do and ended up taking the boat down the Thames to Greenwich which was a brilliant decision. In fact, I’d recommend a trip to Greenwich to all London visitors. It’s not that far, you get to be on the river and it’s a beautiful place, rich with history and science, and very different than London.

It’s the home of the imposing Royal Naval Academy – well worth seeing, as is the British Maritime Museum. Then we climbed a high hill through a beautiful park to the Royal Observatory – this is the home of Greenwich Mean Time which is the time the world sets its clock to. (We set our watches there, of course.) Packed with people, wonderful museums on space, chronography, astronomy and longitude, and the best views of London you’ll see.  We rounded out the day at a pub and headed back to the Hotel Russell, highly satisfied.

Coming soon: Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Faber dinner and Agatha Christie!

A fire truck caught in a sink hole near our neighborhood ….more fallout from the water main break back home – amazing video.  Our neighbor Mary called to give us an update but all is okay at our house – we’re just missing out on monumental traffic jams.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/That-Sinking-Feeling-2-57699417.html

We spent a great day in NY yesterday, seeing our son’s new apartment and touring really cool Long Island City, looking at the best view of Manhattan you’ll ever see, and kayakers, seaplanes, barges and sailboats on the river. Then dinner with friends Betty and Alex in town … a perfect day.

Today, celebrating the first day of school in Glenridge, NJ with 3rd grader Rita and kindergartener Josie.

Tomorrow: up at the crack o’ dawn for our trip to London!

Home sweet home. If the camera pointed the other direction, you’d be looking at our house.

It was such a lovely morning here in Glen Ridge, NJ … until we heard from our next door neighbor about the flood that was just houses away from our house on Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Studio City, CA. See video. A water main broke, blowing a hole in the street big enough to accommodate a couple of fire trucks and sending a flood of water into houses, picking up cars and causing damage (to some pretty high end restaurants and shops) in the neighborhood. Just about four houses down from our house.  So while we’re on our trip, we’re missing news crews and helicopters, hundreds of firefighters, our street being closed off for a while causing a major traffic mess. And yet, I almost wish I’d been there to see it.

Oddly enough, in 1993, before we moved there, a major main broke higher up on the street causing a similar flood.  People had to be evacuated by the Red Cross – including including the residents of our house and neighbors. Eventually the water department had to replace all the lawns and other water damage.  A coincidence? I doubt it. The pipe was laid in 1914.

Life in L.A. : droughts, fire, flood.