Betty Birney’s Blog

  The second week flew by. On rainy Monday, we chose the British Museum, about a block from our hotel. I’m there with the Elgin Marbles - amazing the amount of treasures moved there … and well, should they give them back or not?

The rest of the week: I adored Westminster Abbey even more than I expected and got very sentimental at all the writers memorialized in Poet’s Corner. Frank was looking for a plaque memorializing his fifth-great-uncle George Walsh. We asked at the information desk and the docent looked it up, but no, it wasn’ t in the book. The docent apparently took a dim view of us Americans claiming to have a relative there, but she grudgingly said we could go to the library and research it there. (Frank remembered seeing the plaque years and years and years ago.) We were walking through the Cloisters on our way to the library when Frank looked up and it was there, larger than life, huge and very legible - dear old Great Uncle George. We also found Magdalena Walsh, said to be a relative, but I’m not sure how. Hey, I just married into the family. I did name my son “Walshe” - using the family spelling with the “e” which was supposedly added after Uncle George gave his life for his country as a kind of honor - or? A family castle would have been nice but the “e” is distinctive. By the way, we went back to tell the docent we found the plaque but I’m not sure she believed us. I hope she took a walk over there later - you could hardly miss it. (By the way a couple of years when Walshe was visiting there, he asked about the plaque and was told they’d show him - for a substantial fee. He didn’t take up the offer.)

We ALMOST got into Parliament but at the last minute, they had too many invited guests. So we took a long walk up past Downing Street - there was some kind of activity going on at #10 but hard to see. because of the amazing security, which I understand. And just steps away, we happened to arrive at exact moment of the Changing of the Horse Guards (this is different than the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace) - beautiful horses and they knew just what to do.

We spent a very windy and blustery few hours at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and thoroughly enjoyed it. The pomp and circumstance is a funny contrast to us human rabble gaping on the sidewalk and the horseriding Bobby and her white horse both thoroughly entertained us - she, with her dry wit and the horse, with his subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) ability to get people to move.

Wind howling, we made our way across Hyde Park to a pub recommended by our neighbors, Don and Mary, from when they lived nearby.  I hesitate to tell anyone about it because it could be ruined by tourists and it’s small and cozy and we sat and chatted with the proprietress, Cynthia, and ate an absolutely delicious lunch and lingered. There were people from Cape Cod there … one woman whose daughter goes to my son’s alma mater, Boston College … a cute dog … a roaring fire. There’s even a ghost. It’s supposedly in that book, 1001 Places You Should See Before You Die … at least I’ve hit one of them.

Okay, I’ll give you a link. http://www.pubs.com/pub_details.cfm?ID=193 From there we trekked to Harrods for shopping and viewing the food court and picked up nibblies to take home for dinner.

Our last day was just fabulous. We went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which most people either remember as being built by Sir Christopher Wren and/or where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married. From there we went to Sir John Soanes’ Museum - the very quirky home of a very quirky collector, highly recommended by my sister and everyone I asked in London and now, by me. From there, we walked to Covent Garden and were glad we did - great shops and restaurants and the best “buskers” ever. Amazing performers. We hated to leave but we had theater tickets! We walked down Charing Cross in the drizzle to the old Garrick Theater and saw Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular, starring Jane Horrocks (we loved her as Bubble in Absolutely Fabulous and as the Academy Award nominated star of Little Voice) and other familiar faces from BBC and Masterpiece Theater. Wonderful performance, very funny, Jane Horrocks was everything we could have expected. We were struck by the casualness of the somewhat shabby but historic theater. People with trays selling sweets and ice cream - sort of like in Shakespeare’s day. And people took crisps, bar drinks and candy to their seats and ate. Which is fine in a movie theater in the U.S. but never in the “legit” theater.

A wonderful end to a visit we didn’t want to end at all.

There so much I didn’t get to see but I will return. And the trick of enjoying the week was concentrating on seeing what we could see without obsessing over what we couldn’t fit in this time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under Book News, Friends and Family, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.