wip wednesday

As mentioned, I am trying to knit 12 items in 12 months and only work from the stash.  I am about halfway through the first glove

which means I need to cut down on my naps and up my knitting time as there are only seven days left this month.

I know I already finished a pair of mitts for Tristan, but I’m not counting those because they weren’t planned.

I am using a Paton’s pattern called Lace Gloves – Super Fine and I am using Naturespun Yarn, which was purchased for Polska, but I don’t want to talk about it.

Brenna went to TNNA and brought me a present.  As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was and put it straight to use.

Apparently the lady makes a variety, including sheep and cats, but those got spoken for pretty fast.  The poor woman has had to quit her day job in so she can keep up with orders.

first fo of 2012

A week or so ago Tristan mentioned that his hands got really cold when he was working on the computer.  For Tristan’s taste simple is best.

So I trawled Ravelry and found some WWII “knit for the troops” patterns and made him S-107 which I consider very creatively named.  They also call them Trigger Gloves, but they are wrong.  Trigger Gloves leave only the trigger finger free.

Anyway, a few hours and my son has much warmer hands whilst working on his computer.

I am something of a yarn snob, but Tristan does not like wool and cotton is not always a reasonable alternative.  These are about 2/3 of a skein of Bernat Satin Solids in Plum Mist Heather.

and don’t let the door hit you on the way out

Here’s to a new and, hopefully, better year.

trepidation

I am glad 2012 is just around the corner, really, I am.  But I am also a bit worried.

My downward spiral probably actually began when my MIL was here during Bob’s illness as that brought a whole lot of emotions/memories/responses to the surface that I didn’t know were there.

Even though we got the all-clear on his Hodgkin’s in October, 2010, it wasn’t written in letters of fire across the sky, so I couldn’t be sure.  Plus, without realizing it, I was losing perspective and the filters were failing:  everything was personal, nothing was background noise, everything was an attack, and I was entering full defensive mode.

By May it was taking an enormous amount of effort to even pretend to hold it together.  I had a week’s leave then, but end-of-the-year obligations prevented me from prolonging it.  I had six weeks off over the summer, but I didn’t DO anything about the situation.  I just hoped rest would make it go away.

It didn’t.  By September I was sitting at my desk crying for no apparent reason while typing names into a database and, worst of all, I actually grabbed a freshman I was talking to in the library.  I am extremely lucky that all he said was, “You don’t have to touch me.”  I called in sick the next day and haven’t been back.

It is hard living on 75% of your salary when you are the primary wage-earner, but I really needed that time.  This time I was smart enough to get some help.  I see a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and after much experimentation and losing of balance and trains of thought, I think we have figured out the right mix of anti-anxiety and depression medication.

Of course, losing all my meds on the way to the UK and only getting them refilled the middle of last week means I am still a bit off balance, but I will get there.

I also see a psychologist which I hope will continue for a bit because I am terrified of going back to work.  I am trying so hard to shed some of the emotional garbage I carry around and being back there, well, I’m afraid I will slip back into old habits because it is the path of least resistance.  And I don’t want to do that.  I want to move forward, not slip back.

They say it takes nine to twelve months to recover from a “major depressive episode.”  They also tell me I have been depressed for a very long time — that I have been essentially dead inside.  These three months have been glorious, but I have to go back out into the world again.  Not just because I need the money, but because I need to be IN the world, not watching it go past.

The psychologist wants me to join some groups so that I can have “rich, rewarding relationships.”  I tried to explain about Beverly and Josie and Anne in New Mexico and Carrie in the East Bay, and Kate in England, and Bridget in Philadelphia and he just pursed his lips.

I know some people are prejudiced or distrustful of internet relationships, but those women are some of the best friends I have ever had.  I get into long email conversations with them, Carrie and Anne especially.  I have met Carrie and was going to see Anne this summer, but New Mexico caught on fire and driving toward a natural disaster seemed counterintuitive.  But I have every intention of meeting her and the horse boys.

Plus, I’m not a joiner.  I came along late in my family and we lived out in the country with no near neighbors.  I am socialable (although I usually feel awkward) but not social.  I am a loner and I am certainly not a joiner.  I used to go to Knit Night at Ancient Pathways, but the store closed and I am not comfortable in the other yarn shops in town.  They are peopled by The Ladies Who Lunch.  Knit Addiction in Clovis seems different, but Madera to Clovis is a long way to drive after a day’s work, not to mention the cost of gas.

I would also very much like it if my foot would stop hurting.  We finally figured out that when Bob stepped on my foot while I was in mid-stride, it stretched my sural nerve.  Nerves apparently don’t like being stretched, but the fact that it’s a nerve explains why the boot, the shots, and the physical therapy haven’t worked and the MRI showed so much inflammation.

The doctor gave me one last shot way up my ankle and that has helped.  Although if I walk barefoot on cold (stone/tile) floors I get a wake-up call.  Easy solution:  don’t walk around barefoot.  Slippers, socks, anything.  There are even days where I walk normally!  It still has a vague ache, but I think it’s getting better.

As part of trying to get my perspective back and the filters back on and face the new year, I joined two new groups on Ravelry that I am hoping will help.  I am really hoping they will give me a focus other than the people at work.  Who are not my friends.  Harriet Lerner says there are five responses to anxiety:  underfunctioning, overfunctioning, distancing, gossip, and/or blaming..  Gossip is usually my co-workers’ first choice, followed by blaming, and then overfunctioning, as in sticking their noses into my decisions and my business.  I distance.  I basically run for cover.  I need to get that British poster:  Keep Calm and Carry On.  And I need to stop running.

One of the groups I joined is Surmount the Stash because I have been saying for several years I am going to knit my stash and then I go off and play video games instead.  The goal is to use only stash yarn over the course of the next year, which is not a problem.  I don’t have an enormous stash, but I have plenty.

The second group is 12 in 12 2012.  I looked at 12 Sweaters in 2012, and I have the yarn to do it, but I decided that I don’t need to ADD stress while destashing.  So I searched a little further and 12 in 12 2012 is about finished 12 projects, which means I can throw in gloves, hats, cowls, etc., which I have also been wanting to make and have need of.

I know this is not what the psychologist meant by joining some groups, but my treatment is about me, not him.  He’ll get over it.  He’s young.  I am hoping that  checking in with groups and talking to others about their progress or lack thereof will get me away from the video games and into the knitting (while listening to books on tape) always the better choice.

My twelve planned projects for 2012 are:

Colorblock Gloves by Nanette Blanchard  (I really tried on Polska because I adore the pattern, but I discovered that I don’t like stranded knitting.  I just need to buy the stoneware mug and be done with it.  Nanette, who blogs over at Knitting in Color clearly DOES love stranded knitting, but her Colorblock Gloves only have a wee bit of stranded knitting in the cuffs.  Mine will be red.

Solaris by the Berroco Design Team.  I loved this cardigan the minute I saw it.  My deepest regret is that they have discontinued the Suede yarn line because it would have been divine in that yarn.

Rivendell Smoke Ring by Susan Pandorf because it’s pretty.  I am going to use a Socks That Rock yarn which I traded for a pattern book.  I am hoping it will give me that graduated color thing.

Port Orford Pullover by Oat Couture.  I have liked this sort-of gansey since I first saw it.

February Baby Sweater by Elizabeth Zimmermann, not because I know any babies but because I have some baby yarn in my stash which I believe is approximately as old as my daughter.  Also, because I have never tried a Zimmermann pattern and she’s sort of famous from what I hear.  ;P

Pingouin Sleeveless Sweater by Pingouin.  This pattern is from an ancient BC (Before Children) pattern book that I have hung onto for a long time.  We’ll see how this works out.

Lace Saddle Tee by Lisa Rowe, probably in KnitPicks CotLin.  I have some lovely turquoise CotLin and I’ve never worked with linen.  The pattern is from Interweave Knits.

Cabaret Raglan by Norah Gaughan.  I have very mixed feelings about Norah Gaughan’s work.  Some of it is divine; some of it gets a bit too organic for my taste.  At any rate, Meg from Ancient Pathways made this and I have loved it ever since, although I intend full-length sleeves rather than the much-hated-by-me three-quarter length sleeves.  This is another Interweave pattern and I found the magazine on eBay because I didn’t need another knitting pattern book.

Bombadil Hat by Susan Pandorf.  I am reading the trilogy and what can I say?  It puts me in a mood.  I must admit the blue and yellow sock yarn I got from The Loopy Ewe is much more “sudden” than the colors Susan used.  I will be a beacon in the fog.

Weekend Cardigan by Ivette Tecedor.  I haven’t worked in chunky yarn in a long time and someone gave me a divine glass button which would look very nice with the lavender yarn I plan to use.

Honeycomb by Sarah Castor (a Knitty pattern) because I love sweater vests and don’t have enough.

The Block Sweater by Elise Duvekot from the book Knit One Below.  I fell in love with this sweater the minute I saw it.  The one time I have taken classes at STITCHES West, I signed up for her class because I could tell the technique was not one I could read about and replicate.

That’s my list of 12 projects for 2012.  I am hoping for a productive, focused, stable new year.

good yule

randominity

Every morning in the UK and the one time I took a hot bath after the day at Stonehenge and Bath, I thought of this video.  We were lucky in that the high-end hotels used mixed taps.  The little B&B in Brighton, however, did not.

I admit I grew up without mixed taps, which means that warm water is impossible unless you plug the sink and mix the hot and cold water.  Mixed taps do it for you.  One of Brenna’s friends says you cannot claim to be a First-World Nation if you don’t have mixed taps.

The shower/baths have a control that looks like this.

Pretty, is it not?  On the right-hand side is a temperature gauge.  It has temperatures marked on it.  In Celsius.  Which was no help to me at all.  I know that 0 is freezing and 100 is boiling and everything else is in between.

Hm, let’s try 38.  Then you turn the knob on the left and the water comes out.  I invariably got it too hot and had to tinker.  I know there is a mathematical equation to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, but a) math is not my strong suit and b) early in the morning?  mathematical calculations to bathe?  I think not.

It is a very odd oh-oh sensation when you have bent down and twiddled your fingers in the water flowing into the main bath in Bath and as you stand up, you look directly at a sign that says, “Please do not touch the water.”

You can get lemonade made with the warm mineral water at The Pump House.  Why?

I left the National Picture Gallery off of my list of museums the other day.  That’s where I saw the painting the their Royal Highnesses, Prince William and Prince Henry.  I wonder if anyone remembers that Harry is a nickname for Henry?  Probably not.  They have a wonderful picture of Dame Judi Dench.  I only saw the Actresses room, but it is a wonderful place.

Upon leaving the hotel the last morning, I encountered a London policeman and did a very touristy thing.

I adore their helmets.  He was very gracious and said this was his second picture of the day.  It apparently happens all the time.

Speaking of the police, their cars only use blue lights, whereas ours use blue and red.  I had absolutely no idea how retina-piercing, straight into the brain blue lights are until the warmth of the red was removed.

Oddly, this was NOT who I expected to see upon emerging from Westminster Abbey.

 

Still, it’s nice to know we’ve produced at least one thing of which they approve and I must say, they have excellent taste.  He was a great man.  (Only decent Republican, as well.)

Whilst in The Jewel House I had a conversation with one of the Yeoman Warders about the succession.  He said Charles would NOT be Charles III.  He was christened Charles Phillip Arthur George, so he has several names to choose from, but generally, a monarch makes the decision of which name to use during the period of mourning between ascension to the crown and coronation.

So, I said, “Oh!  He’s decided already.”  The Yeoman Warder said, “Oh, no.  The Queen made the decision.  She’s decided the Charles’ were bad luck.  Look at Charles I and Charles II.”  They really don’t seem The Prince of Wales’ sort, do they?  Wrong sort entirely.  ”Which of his other names will he rule under, then?”  ”He’s going to be George VII.”  ”Ahhhhh,” said I, “her father was George VI and she loved him dearly.  She was devastated when he died.”

He said, “Well, she wasn’t here, now, was she?  She was in South Africa when he died.  Never got to say good-bye.”

If she lives as long as her mum, Charles probably won’t get a shot at all.  My companion  seemed to think this was a good idea.  I asked why.  He said that “Charles is a good sort, but it’s the expense.”  ”Expense?”  Everything has to change — the currency, the stamps, our uniforms . . .” he pointed to the prominent EIIR on his uniform.  ”Why change it all for Charles and then again a few years later for William?  Very expensive.”

You learn something new every day.

Even though I was all over London and went all the way to Greenwich, I have absolutely no idea where I was relatively.  Ever.  I went everywhere on the Underground and only came up at the designated spots to see the sought-after sights.  As a result, I couldn’t get from Westminster to the Tower and back to the hotel above ground if I had to.

The driver of the one taxi we took had a fellow come up on a motorbike and tell him his rear-view light was out.  After a few minutes’ silence he turned and told us, “That’s the fourth time that same bloke has given me that same message!  Exact same words each time.  All over London.”  Ooooh.  Spooky.  This began a very warm, interesting conversation which we very much enjoyed.

But, still, it makes you wonder.

In the old days of air travel you had room to move.  The planes were lovely long silver tubes with two seats each side of a middle aisle.  The airlines wanted you to be happy and comfortable.

Now, they have these ginormous wide-body things and everyone is crammed in cheek-by-jowl with barely any space at all.  Seriously, if I leaned forward as far as I could in my seat, my head would hit the seat ahead of me when my torso was at a 45-degree angle — less if the person had their seat tipped back.

And they tell you to look around your seating area for any items you may have left.  How?  Especially if you’re in the middle section, which we were on the ride home.  You can’t even stand up straight to go and use the lavatory.  You have to sort of lean to get to the end of the row.  This involves discomfiting your fellow passengers and a lot of apology.

They say we have two more inches than the people we kidnapped from Africa and put on slave ships.  It’s just not right.

No wonder Bob hates air travel.  I was uncomfortable at 5’2″.  He must be miserable at 6’1″!

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II can, in fact, trace her lineage all the way back to Alfred the Great.  It is circuitous, but it’s there!  I was gobsmacked.  He is her 32nd great grandfather.

Now that’s continuity.

hold the presses

Most advice is worth what you pay for it.  If you have the time and the inclination, go here:  http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/

Immediately.

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

I’m just kidding.  Someone who grew up with Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows knows that Greenwich, England, is the site of the Prime Meridian.  And why, you ask, is the Prime Meridian in England?  Well, because an Englishman, Mr. John Harrison, a self-educated clock-maker was the one who created the marine chronometer, thereby allowing ships at sea to determine longitude.  Until he figured it out a ship could be 20 miles from land and everyone would die because sextants only give you your north-south location.  And you might have noticed there are no signposts in the massive expanse of water that is this planet.

That, and everyone knows God got it right in England first.

But first we went to Westminster Abbey to look at the graves of interesting dead people.  You come out of the Tube Station and there are the Houses of Parliament.

And Big Ben.  One mustn’t forget Big Ben.

It’s all very lovely and gothic-y and it would not bother me one bit to go to work in those buildings every day.

You shift slightly to your right and there is the Abbey.

We like to be consistent chez Barks, so there was, of course,

scaffolding!  Thank you very much.  We aim to please.

You cannot take pictures inside the Abbey, but lordy is this building old.  I mean William the Bastard Conquerer had his coronation here in 1066.  And that, my friend, was a l-o-n-g time ago.

There are so many tombs in Westminster that I am verily amazed that the soon-to-be Duchess of Cambridge had an aisle to walk down.  It is sort of like a disorganized attic.  For example, the Chapel of St. Michael.

Now, when I think of a chapel, I think of a small intimate space with a little altar and pews for contemplation and small services.  Not the Chapel of St. Michael in Westminster.  Nothing but tombs.  Shoved in everywhere.  I was squeezing past one knight and his lady while trying to read the Latin inscription on another tomb so I would know whose effigy I was viewing.  (He was a Lord Chamberlain to someone or the other.  He was a dead guy in a really fancy box.  What can I say?)

St. Edward the Confessor’s shrine you can only get a peek at if you do a sort of wiggle dance around Henry III’s tomb.  We found Sir Isaac Newton’s tomb and, while they are nice digs, they don’t look nearly as impressive as they did in The DaVinci Code where they must have used interesting camera angles to make it look so imposing.

In the floor not far from Sir Isaac is Charles Darwin.  Brenna commented that it wasn’t fair that Sir Isaac Newton had the fancy tomb and poor Charles Darwin only had a plain black stone.  I responded that, considering what he discovered, he’s actually lucky to be in the Abbey at all.

There was one grave we could photograph because it was in The Cloisters.  There was a Benedictine monastery founded on the “great and terrible island of Westminster” by Edward the Confessor.  And they must have loved their plumber or found his services extraordinarily helpful.

Next we headed over to The Tower.  Again, we had constricted our agenda to The Crown Jewels (be still my heart) and the armoury.

The White Tower is, almost the oldest part of The Tower of London, having been built by William I.  But the remains of the wall encircling Londinium are older.

We went in and looked at manly armor.  You could see that Henry VIII got noticeably larger as time went by.

And you can tell what his most treasured possession was, can’t you?

Vanity may be woman’s name, but subtlety isn’t man’s!  I mean, really!  How tacky is that. Look what I have!  A penis.  Yes, dear.  Have a cookie.

There is a wonderful portrait in The National Portrait Gallery of Prince Charles’ two sons.  I like it a lot.  You can tell those boys get on famously together.

You can also tell that no force on earth is going tame Harry’s hair.

They are wearing the formal dress uniform of the Household Cavalry Blues and Royals and there is a mock-up of the portrait by Nicky Phillips as you leave the armoury with some of the modern uniforms.

We headed over to The Jewel House and for some reason the entrance reminded me of Henry VIII.

I had a wonderful chat with one of Yeoman Warders and we headed off to the train station, having purchased All-Zone Passes that morning, and the trip to Greenwich.

Brenna had recently finished a book on Mr. Harrison and she was determined to see those clocks.  We had dinner at a pub, The Spanish Galleon, which opened during William IV’s reign.

While at the museum, we also saw the uniform Lord Admiral Nelson was wearing when he was shot during the Battle of Trafalgar.

When we were in Trafalgar Square I asked Brenna why Nelson was up high on a column and Wellington was w-a-y down below on a horse, and she said, “Wellington lived.”

She has a point.

 

museums, museums, museums

First I wish to officially complain about how much my foot hurts from all the stairs I have been forced to climb in and out of Tube stations and just get it out of the way.  I knew there were different lines:  Picadilly, Victoria, Jubilee, etc.  What I did NOT know is that they are stacked one atop the other so that if you ARE lucky enough to get a lift, you are pressing buttons like -2 or -3.  They hide the lifts, by the way.  Of this, I am certain.  Also, no single lift services all levels.  I am sure there is a reason for this, but I cannot determine what it is.  (Other than the fact that the English are congenitally perverse.)

Admission to museums is free in the U.K. unless your are seeing one of the special exhibits, which was the case at Kensington Palace where we went to see “The Enchanted Palace.”  This was probably the most fun we had while we were in London.  The “Enchanted Palace” takes you through several rooms where there are hidden hints about 10 princesses and you have to figure out which princess is associated with which room.

The day we were there a woman was overseeing a herd of little girls of approximately eight years of age and they were delighted with the whole process.  I passed her going through a door at one point and said, “I see you brought your own princesses,” and she laughed out loud.

Kensington was started by William of Orange so I suppose it was only appropriate that on what was once the grounds of the Palace is The Orangery, which now serves breakfast and lunch.

And where they still (sort of) grow oranges.

Brenna was intrigued by the insousciance of how my orange juice was served.

After Kensington, we went the the V&A (Victoria and Albert) museum where Brenna showed me several of the garments she had cited in her Master’s dissertation.  I had seen the color plates, of course, but the real thing was much better.  There was one dress that I found extraordinary, all softness and light and covered with . . . I practically pressed my nose up against the glass and realized that the “embroidery” on the dress was miles and miles of teeny tiny single crochet which had then been appliqued onto the dress.

I stood there for the longest time and wondered how long it had taken someone to do that, at a time when the muslin fabric was more expensive than the labor involved in creating the garment.

After that, we went across the street to the Science Museum to see the first batch of mauve fabric created by Sir William Henry Perkins.  He was a chemist and was trying to make artificial quinine and noticed the color (which is pronounced to rhyme with “stove,” btw) by-product.  He ended up creating the world’s first analine (or chemically created) dye.  Since  it was used to dye TB slides (as well as fabric), we were in the medical section of the Science Museum.

We never did find the mauve, but we were horribly entertained by the history of medicine.  I am beyond delighted that I live in the 21st century and am comforted to know that future generations will look back at our methods as barbaric just as we are horrified looking at past practice.

You obviously cannot take pictures inside palaces and museums, so we took pictures of the architecture of London as we walked past.  London is undergoing a major facelift, I assume in anticipation of the coming 2012 Olympics.  There is a lot of scaffolding (either that or they knew Brenna was coming), and digging up of walkways and drains.  I never found a single smooth concrete walkway in any of the cities I visited.

You can normally cut across Leicester Square, but now you have to skirt it because the middle is being repaired or renovated or re-somethinged.

 We were in Leicester Square because even though Brenna and I were clamoring for pub food (or traditional English fare), the friend from Edinburgh’s paramour wanted to go to this “wonderful” little diner he knew about.

We will not speak here of the self-absorbtion of people who take Americans to nifty little diners where they can purchase such nifty items as hamburgers, milkshakes, and fries.  When Brenna met up with them the night before they took her for something exotic:  burritos.

*sigh*

After leaving these folks we headed off to The British Museum.  You could spend a week in that building and not see anything twice.  Unfortunately, we got there 30 minutes before closing.  Fortunately, we had determined that we were only going to see two things:  the Elgin marbles since Brenna had interned at Lord and Lady Elgin’s house cataloguing and organizing their collection of architectural drawings, and the items from the Sutton Hoo burial since I taught Beowulf for many, many years and pictures of the pieces were scattered throughout the anthology.

When we came out it dark and cold and my foot really hurt.  So we got a ride in a a real black London taxi back to the hotel.  Double-decker buses in Brighton and black London taxis.  Plus, I have seen Stonehenge.

My life is complete.

finally!

I was introduced to British Rail and the Underground all within two hours’ time.  We left Brighton and headed for the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London which was quite the change from the teeny tiny hotel in Brighton.

We got up at 5:30 (groan) so we could be at the pickup point for our Coach Tour to Stonehenge and Bath.  I have waited most of my life to see Stonehenge and, of course, Bath figures prominently in Miss Austen’s writings, although I understand the lady herself did not care for her stay there.

I was trying very hard not to get overenthusiastic lest I be disappointed.  We dressed in multiple layers of clothing because it is windy and cold on Salisbury Plain.  Watch the Beatles’ movie Help! Sometime if you don’t believe me.

I didn’t bother with the audio tour at Stonehenge because Brenna had been a year ago last September and she told me I already knew everything they were going to say.

It doesn’t feel New Age to me at all.  It seems very serene.  Like it’s exactly where it’s supposed to be.  They got it exactly right.

There is a barrow there and I asked the ladies in the gift shop why it hadn’t been excavated (Brenna’s and my guess was that it’s pretty hard to get funding for anything  educational, people preferring the Kardashians to culture) and they said there are more than 500 barrows surrounding Stonehenge.  Well, that would certainly take some time now, wouldn’t it?

We headed off to Bath where all the buildings are built of a stone found only in that area.  It’s a very Georgian city and it’s all the same color!

It sits on the River Avon (short “a,” folks, who knew?) and it’s two biggest attractions are the Abbey and the Roman Baths.

The Great Bath once had a roof over it and the water was clear.  But the roof went away a long time ago (so much so that when Henry III “discovered” the spring, he had no idea the Roman baths were there and built The King’s Bath) and the water is exposed to sunlight and, as every pool owner knows, that means algae.

The complex originally had several buildings, saunas, massage rooms, more private smaller baths off to the side, cold baths to plunge into after the warm bath and a temple to the patron goddess of the springs.

The baths and the abbey are right next to each other so we headed into the abbey.  It’s ceiling is wonderful

and the building has to be composed entirely of graves and/or memorials.

I’ve never seen so many in all my life.

We stopped in The Pump Room and “took the waters,” which were not nearly as bad as I had expected from something filled with iron oxide.  My sister once had me drink from a small mineral spring on the way to Sequoia National Park and it was vile.  Maybe the fact that they filter the water in Bath helps, because it just tastes a little off.

We headed off to the Assembly Rooms which figure prominently in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.  Then we went back to wait for the coach.  With my foot hurting more and more with each and every step.

As we left, with Young Phil, our bus driver, fighting the traffic from the rugby match*, Brenna said, “Well, what did you think?”  My reply was that it was one of the most beautiful cities I had ever seen.  On the way back I finished Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.   I had read Coraline when I was still teaching freshmen, but his novels for grown-ups are better.  Brenna had wanted me to read it so that I would “get” the joke and everyone looked at us funny as we collapsed in giggles at the Knightsbridge station.  If you want to know what I’m talking about, you will need to read the book.

*I would just like to say I am not particularly fond of sports fans.  The origin of the word is “fanatic” and sports bars in Fresno have been destroyed by Raiders fans.  When our train came into London, there was a large group of men marching and shouting and there was a substantial police presence.  I had no idea what was going on.  Turns out they were football fans.  I have no idea if their team won or lost.  Either way, it was frightening.