Jessica, welcome back. Your trip to London and sojourn to the south sound like such a refreshing change. Yes, of course, I'm envious.
I like Bath, but it's for the Regency architecture. (Which is doubtless why I moved into an NY-area Anglophiliac red-brick and white-columned apartment complex built in the 1920s that tries to simulate the look and feel of a Georgian square, right down to the plane trees.)
You should know this about me, which you probably would have guessed already from my posts: I am an addict for visiting stately homes. I can go day after day visiting three or more each day. And if the guide is good and the tour group is very small, I will ask questions about particular pieces of furniture or objects in the rooms we're shown, and make the tour take twice as long as scheduled. I just collect American stuff, but I like learning about English and French period interiors and furniture.
And yeah, I could use about a week in London.
At the top of my list would be a trip to Liberty's. I lost two gorgeous silk twill scarves in the flood, one in the Hera peacock feather pattern and one in an intricate pattern called Tree of Life. I wore them quite a lot, tied up inside the neck of my coat and also to fill in the front of my trenchcoat. Unfortunately, when my scarf drawer marinated in floodwater for 24 hours, a cheaper silk scarf beside it in my scarf drawer bled red dye all through them.
Over there, I eat the cooked steel-cut oatmeal or Scottish oats or whatever they call it for breakfast whenever possible. I discovered that I don't like pub food and would prefer Indian takeaway.
Where I really have to watch myself is when they bring around a cheese board. I really like Stilton. Also, at tea time, there is the lemon curd and the clotted cream ... oh, dear, this thread is rapidly turning pornographic.
And it's making me miss Birchie. I wonder where she is, and how she is faring?
ETA: Oh, and English toffee. Particularly if it comes in a tin, to keep it from going stale. (More porn.) And I would smuggle home in my luggage a candy bar called Cadbury Flake, which I don't eat or understand the mystique of, but which some of my coworkers regularly beg from our colleagues in Egham. Even though if they had any initiative, they could get it from Myers of Keswick in the West Village.
Of course she can! And can do so while staying upright and classy, and certainly not throwing her hat askew as I did when I was a young girl in my sparkly Easter dress and hat.
Her Majesty might well be shopping for a blazer and a cap. She will be on the lead barge of a huge flotilla that will wend its way down the Thames. I am not really a "royals" watcher (DH despises the English monarchy - he is part Irish and Scottish and English) but I do like to sneak a peek at all the pomp and circumstance.
My Her Majesty is calling - the litter box must be scooped. SIGH. I am sitting my guys and haven't really spoken to DH since I left for the dog's house on Saturday. Will his crazy hours at this new job ever end?
The good news is that I'm getting a ton of reading done at the dog sit. I haven't turned the TV all week (will make an exception tonite for the "Top Model" finale - yes that's my weird little watch) and worked my way through John Irving's latest "In One Person" and am tackling Jane Jacobs tomorrow night. The dog is a sweetie indoors - she comes and asks to go to bed promptly at 9:30. I go up with her and continue to read in bed while she cuddles up on her dog bed with one of ther many stuffed toys. She stays there until we get up @ 5:30 a.m. GOOD GIRL!
Gorgeous, Gary! I love how you knocked out the walls. Perhaps a little less storage, but it makes it seem so much larger! When can we visit?
And I have one of those half-moon shelves for the blind corner--it's AMAZING! We have a different kind in the bathroom, which is equally as nice, but sometimes gets stuck.
