London

Paul picked us up at Heathrow and slung our duffle into his trunk with muscular grace, easy to see he’s a former athlete. The first thing I noticed after clearing Heathrow and the surrounding area and getting into Teddington was the fresh green scent of trees, shrubbery and lush grass. Paul and Carol have been gracious and hospitable and we’ve enjoyed their company a great deal, wonderful people. We’ve also enjoyed the chance to again see a tiny sliver of London.

London is still the vibrant city I’ve known for over forty years, a city made up of many villages that grew together over the centuries, with each village retaining its character along with local shops and pubs – a neighborhood social institution to which we have no parallel. We took the train to center London on Tuesday, visited the British Museum (free to all, as are ALL museums and many art exhibits) and wandered the streets still in jet lagged fog.

The flight was porca misere – Italian saying, means pig misery. We diverted to Winnipeg to take off a passenger who was ill. All seats were booked and ML and I had to sit separately, thirty hours in transit. We were fried when we arrived. But no complaints, most flights are like that today unless you’re flying first, which we no longer do.

Paul took us all, and his lovely daughter Rebecca, to lunch yesterday at a beautiful pub on the bank of the Thames, this was after touring a duke’s former country estate. We spent the afternoon talking and watching the boats passing and walkers and bicyclists along the river path. It was after six on a balmy sunlight evening when we decided to head home. The ladies drove and Paul and I walked, stopping in a small pub along the way for some refreshment after our arduous hike of a mile or so. There was a patio in the rear with a gathering of local folks, children with their parents and people of all ages, chatting with one another, the evening sunlight glowing with that thin northern quality of light until the sky turned indigo around ten o’clock.

The air is clear and clean, the daytime sky pale blue with wonderful fluffy clouds to the horizon. Parks are everywhere and there are so many trees that from the air London looks like a forest. Trains and the underground run on time and are clean. The buses seem to be running natural gas – at least I do not notice the smell of exhaust fumes. Traditional London taxies are everywhere and traffic is not jammed as it once was. There are few cars in the center of the city. Private cars are discouraged from coming into the city center by high fees.

Public transport goes everywhere and you never have to wait more then a few minutes for a train or bus. People are friendly and say hello on the street, most everyone smiling. It is now possible to get good food anywhere, unlike England of old, and there are a number of chains such as ‘Prêt a Manger’ that serve organic sandwiches, salads and the like at reasonable (for England) prices. The exchange rate renders our dollars pathetic. We leave for Malta out of Luten airport tomorrow at zero dark thirty, which means we’ll have to spend the night in an airport hotel to make the early flight, Ryan air is very cheap but not convenient.

Pauline sent us a chip for our EU phone and has arranged for a car to meet us at the Malta airport and bring us to the Gozo ferry, nice lady, easing the way for us. The flight to Malta is only three hours so we should be cleaving Mediterranean waves and crossing the wine dark sea by noon and then having lunch with Pauline in our new temporary, as all things are, home.

Ramses II surveying his subjects