Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5
Land ho! Yes! At the end of our week at sea we spotted the first sighting of land off the coast of Ireland, then England came into view. Soon we saw other ships passing and by dawn we pulled into Southampton where buses were lined up ready to take us to our destinations. It was pouring rain. Welcome to England!
The great poets came to mind, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Yeats (half Irish), T.S. Eliot (born in America), Browning, and so many more, as I had watched the beloved land of my forefathers emerge as if born out of the sea. And the memory returned of Father who had saluted every Union Jack we came across while boating on the Great Lakes during my childhood. Our roots are important to us and we should never forget them, nor the reasons why our ancestors came to America.
Some of the passengers were doing the round trip on the Queen back to New York and departing at 5 p.m. But we were headed for a three-day visit to London with a stay at Conrad St. James Hotel, just two blocks from Buckingham Palace. How convenient if we wished to visit the king, however, we decided to skip seeing Charles on this trip.
We were tired and my legs felt rubbery from walking a third of a mile every time we left our stateroom. We had not realized when we signed up for the extension how exhausted we would be when we arrived in England but we were happy we didn’t have to face that long flight back to the States quite yet and could rest at our hotel.
The dream of fools! Our room wasn’t ready. It was 10 a.m. and this news hit us like a load of ice. We were directed to the lounge where we could wait until 3 p.m. when our room would be ready.
We headed for a sofa. “I’m so tired I feel like kicking off my shoes, stretching out and going to sleep,” I said to Chip who scowled immediate disapproval. I managed to sit upright until 3 p.m. when we were taken to our room and could crash into beds.
Later we walked to the Palace only to be overwhelmed on the streets with thousands of touring students bearing down on us and forcing us onto the streets. London is nowhere to visit in summer, I realized, as I watched students pass, mesmerized, as if they had each been hypnotized by their hand-held devices with which they clutched with the reverence and devotion of a religious icon.
We passed the Parliament building and heard “Big Ben” chime out the time which reminded us we were starved. We popped into an English pub for dinner — chicken and mushroom pie in a delicious pastry for me and beef-vegetable pie for Chip. He downed a pint of Irish ale, which he claimed erased all pain whereas I drank my usual chardonnay with no relief.
I had pre-purchased two outrageously expensive tickets to see the new British musical “Operation Mincemeat” to which the “New Yorker” magazine had given a good review. As we squeezed into two seats at the end of the row partially behind a pillar I saw the cast was dressed in drag. The play was filled with sexual innuendos and double entendres that set off the fellow sitting behind me in whoops of laughter in a sea of stark silence from surrounding seat mates. His reaction to the play soon became more amusing to me than the play.
At intermission, many theater goers left, including us. Drag is considered entertaining of late, but as Queen Victoria might have said, “We are not amused.”
Yet, to be fair, even a presentation of “Hamlet” could not have pleased me. I hurt. My legs and feet ached from having to walk so much and run up and down stairways. The Underground (subway) was particularly difficult as there were many flights of stairs I had to transit to use the system. I looked like an old lady as I managed the stairs one step at a time as others bounded past me. The trip of a lifetime might well be my last trip anywhere.
Our last day in London was fulfilling Chip’s goal — visiting Sir Winston Churchill’s home, estate and museum in Oxted, Kent. This meant an Underground trip to Victoria Station and transfer to the national train line that would take us south of London to Oxted. And many more stairs.
Some English ladies on our train offered to take us to Chartwell, a six-mile drive from Oxted. Just one of many examples of how well the English treat Americans.
Walking through the palatial house, magnificent gardens, museum and having lunch outside under a picnic umbrella were all exquisite pleasures. Kent is beautiful rural rolling land and Chartwell contains idyllic lakes, ponds and bubbling creeks with much wildlife and even black swan. It was thrilling to walk in the same steps that last century’s savior of western civilization had once walked. I believe Churchill to be the greatest leader of our time.
We also enjoyed viewing many of Churchill’s oil paintings, mostly landscapes, which he took pleasure in creating, especially at the end of his life.
We hopped on the 5 p.m. train back to London and endured more stairs before we arrived at our hotel. We had to immediately start packing for the morning’s departure for Heathrow Airport at 8 a.m. I did not look forward to that long flight home to Dulles and the five-hour time change to experience again. But trip of a lifetime or not, I was ready to go home.
(Conclusion next week.)
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