OK - one more post from England

Hello.
We are getting ready to go to the theatre this evening, and I just wanted to let you know about our day. We had planned on going to the National Gallery, but it was so crowded and so full of tourists! A little overwhelming...so we stayed on the doubledecker bus - yes, we were of course sitting up top in the front seats - all the way to Aldwych along the Strand to go to the Somerset House.

What a gem! In the middle of it all is a large courtyard that has one of the dancing water fountains, like the one on the Boulder Mall in front of the old Courthouse, but much, much larger. Children were playing and running around in it - you could tell that their "mums" had brought them down there for the specific purpose of playing in the water on a hot and sunny London day. Alea was bummed she didn't bring her bathing suit.

We chose to come here to go the Courtauld Gallery which has a very significant collection of Impressionist, post Impressionist and Expression works of art. I saw some of the Manet pieces that I had studied my senior year of college, some Monet's, and some of great pieces by Cezanne, Degas and Matisse. They even had Van Gogh's self portrait after he cut off his ear.

And to top it all off they had a sweet little cafe downstairs that we went to to eat a light lunch in the middle of our wanderings.

We loved it! It was quiet, beautiful, and accessible. By that I mean that we could leisurely walk around and quietly look at these masterpieces without feeling crowded or jostled which allowed us to really take it in and look at the art. It was a wonderful experience and a great way to complete our time here in England.

I will say that on our way home we stopped off at Oxford Street and found the antiques market where I also used to work. It is called Gray's Antiques Market and up until about 2 years ago, there was a little cafe back in one of the basment corners of the triangular shaped building. All the antique vendors still filled up the stalls with all of their porcelain, jewelry, and such, but unfortunately, the little cafe was no longer there. But it still was fun to go back in and see where I had spent so much of my time during the spring of 1982.

I had found the job there after I quit my more "professional" job on Curzon Street working for a small business. Quite honestly, I had been miserable there, and was delighted to find a fun and easy restaurant/cafe job that was Monday through Friday 9 to 5, so that I could still go traveling and cycling just about every weekend from London to explore England.

The benefits of being a British citizen - being able to work over here and to live here for a year when I had just graduated from college.

It has been so good to be back, and I am committed to coming back more frequently, every year or so, if not living here for a year or so with my family. So tomorrow I get to go home, and be reunited with my family! Michael doesn't get home from my sister's home in Philadelphia for another couple of weeks, but we will get to be with Steve and Gracie for sure, and Andrew when he gets off from work...

And I get to start creating and weaving the dream of living and being in England with my family! I wonder how it will all unfold!