Paul and Bill

This about sums it up, friends:

After two weeks of bumming around the UK with and without our native tour guides, Jim and I have settled in. We catch trains. We ride the tube. We drink cappuccinos. We eat pies. We walk and walk. We shop at Sainsbury’s. We dodge pedestrians who are looking at their phones instead of the road ahead. We wait for the “walk” signal, because sheesh! (We are still alive.)

We tour monuments. We read plaques commemorating kings, queens, admirals, apostles, and poets. (Spent three hours in St. Paul’s Cathedral today; saw where many famous people were either memorialized or buried, or both — Admiral Nelson, Lord Wellington, John Donne…).

We gaze at strangely shaped buildings, bridges over a churning brown river, pomp before a palace, and groundlings beneath us. (Walked across the Millennial Bridge again to meet our people for Comedy of Errors at the Globe.  Oh, yeah.)

(Here stand the groundlings, who for a mere 5 pounds can enjoy the cheap seats by not sitting for two hours.  We looked down upon them from above.)

And then, after a pleasant day of traipsing, sitting, and riding the train back to Reading, we four saunter across the river to the mall, where restaurants crowded with lively folk line the riverbank.  We eat French.  We share dessert.  Now, we sleep.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, whence I am promised a trip to Portsmouth.