The the­atre, and the Continent!

Pre­pare your­selves for a long mes­sage from me today! Maybe read half, make your­self a cup of tea, and come back lat­er. So much has been hap­pen­ing here and there in our lives.

Last week­end we had the excite­ment of a day out across the riv­er, and an evening at the Nation­al The­atre. Since see­ing it in sev­er­al movies and tele­vi­sion shows, I was real­ly hot to cross the Mil­le­ni­um Bridge, a foot-traf­fic-only slim­line affair cross­ing just past the Black­fri­ars Bridge. So we col­lect­ed Avery from her sleep­over with Anna, and got our­selves bun­dled up to go out for our adven­ture. We took a long tube ride to the near­est spot on our side of the Thames to the bridge, and then walked toward it, being total­ly sur­prised to find our­selves face to face with the enor­mous spec­ta­cle of St. Paul’s Cathe­dral. Part of it is under refur­bish­ment, so in the typ­i­cal­ly clever Eng­lish way, they have paint­ed an exact archi­tec­tur­al repli­ca of the Cathe­dral on the can­vas sheet­ing cov­er­ing the scaf­fold­ing! Odd, real­ly, kind of sur­re­al. Avery was ter­ri­fied of the bridge, for some strange rea­son, although it does bear a sort of insub­stan­tial del­i­ca­cy. You can see for­ev­er from it, to Tow­er Bridge on one side and near­ly to the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment on the oth­er. We descend­ed final­ly, and I broke my vow of No Art and we all went to see the exquis­ite and mas­sive Rachel Whiteread instal­la­tion called “Unilever”, a series of piled up plas­tic casts (as she always casts the inside of a neg­a­tive space) reach­ing near­ly to the ceil­ing in places, of this for­mer pow­er sta­tion, known as the New Tate Mod­ern. Real­ly impres­sive and fun to chase each oth­er around the piles, some ran­dom, some very pre­cise and sym­met­ri­cal. It remind­ed me of the divine Tara Dono­van show of some years ago at Apex Art on Sev­enth Avenue in New York. Nev­er for­got her rooms full of tar paper, tiny pen­cil cities, and drink­ing straws. Loved it.

Then real­ly super piz­za and sal­ad at a warm, cozy spot called, with a sin­gu­lar lack of felic­i­ty, The Gourmet Piz­za Com­pa­ny, on the riv­er as well. We end­ed up at a book­sellers’ just clos­ing up and snapped up a copy of the his­to­ry of King’s Col­lege, Avery’s sis­ter senior school! Thence to the the­atre, for “Once in a Life­time,” the famed David Suchet vehi­cle I had been hear­ing so much about. Since we all love him as Agatha Christie’s “Poirot,” and John and I had fond mem­o­ries of see­ing him onstage in “Tim­on of Athens” our last life­time in Lon­don, it was real­ly some­thing to anci­ti­pate. The play itself, from the 30s by George Kauf­man, was over the top ridicu­lous with hilar­i­ous gags and extrav­a­gant cos­tumes, but Suchet was worth the whole price of admis­sion. Gone was Poirot’s pre­ci­sion and ele­gance, replaced with a sort of Antho­ny Trol­lope-ish wheel­ing and deal­ing busi­ness man, only set to music! Loved it.

Then a short cou­ple of days of vaca­tion, spent most­ly watch­ing the Olympics and one day­time adven­ture, a skat­ing trip at the out­door ring in Canary Wharf, the new devel­op­ment across the Thames where Reuters is based. It alter­nat­ed foxy bril­liant skies and rain­drops, but hey: we were ice skat­ing out­doors in Lon­don, so what could we expect? Amaz­ing­ly John was able to take out an hour of his busy day and join us, and after­ward for hands-down the worst lunch I have ever tried to eat: hot tuna and sweet­corn in some poi­so­nous bread. UURGH! Go there for the skat­ing, by all means, but skip the tuna panini!

Home to make microwave pop­corn (thank you Alyssa!) and watch the incom­pa­ra­ble Audrey Hep­burn in “Roman Hol­i­day,” in prepa­ra­tion for our trip! Avery loved the film as I knew she would.

So crack of dawn Wednes­day we were up in the dark to get to Liv­er­pool Sta­tion for the train to Stanst­ed air­port. Nev­er heard of it? Nei­ther had I, but it hous­es a lot of the new bud­get air­lines, one of which we were fly­ing, Ryanair. I was slight­ly dis­turbed to read big head­lines the day before where Ryanair refused to com­ment on under­cov­er inves­ti­ga­tions of their appalling treat­ment of staff and crew… but since I have so brave­ly got over my fear of fly­ing, I threw cau­tion to the winds. Well, we get to the sta­tion, huff and puff our way onto the express train, feel­ing quite smug, only to real­ize that we had no… pass­ports. Oh, John had his, the expe­ri­enced busi­ness trav­eller. But it nev­er occurred to me to fer­ret out Avery’s and mine! A last ves­tige of the baby wife, I sup­pose. Noth­ing for it than to go home, put them in our bag, and wait till the next flight, hop­ing we could get on it. Back out, on the train, and sure enough, with a lit­tle penal­ty we were OFF!

Can you imag­ine that in less time than it takes for my par­ents to fly from Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut to Indi­anapo­lis, Indi­ana, we were in ROME? I could­n’t believe it. A very racy ride from the lit­tle Ciampino air­port (where scary incom­pe­tent air­lines are forced to land, what fun), to our hotel in cen­tral Rome, in the via del Mascherone, just off the Cam­po dei Fiori. And there our adven­ture began. We are about to land right now (on our way home, com­plete­ly knack­ered!), so more tomor­row after a good night’s sleep in our own beds! Buona notte…