Paula and Jayme moved into a
different B&B last night and Jenna and I stayed put. They finally got the better deal as they stayed in a
detached cabin in the back yard of a home in Wilmcote. Lined entirely with pine, it came with a full kitchen, big bed, and a hot breakfast delivered to the door.
Today we leave the countryside and return to London. We were advised on a sensible route back to Oxford - through the country, avoiding triple lane roundabouts and high speed. Another death and dismemberment-free ride interrupted only by a stop at
a stone circle in Rollright -
Stonehenge on a smaller, much more private scale. Stunning to think people made the arrangement 5000 years ago and imbued it with spiritual importance.
No problems dropping off the rental car (YES!), Paula and Jenna arranged for the train tickets,
we jumped on the next train for London and, poof!, back in the city full of hustle and bustle. We stay in Tavistock Square at the Tavistock Hotel, sited on Virginia Woolf's former home and sharing the square with the British Medical Association. Russell Square is the closest tube station and is a
lovely example of tube tile work.
Paula et al relaxed in the hotel while I went off to the London Library. Plan: become a member
for the day - a few hours actually - and call as my colleagues and fellow library members Woolf, George Eliot, TS Eliot, Charles Dickens, Aldous Huxley and other English literary luminaries. After a bit of a song and dance to get the day pass (a call to to the hotel, request made for an email confirming my residency), in I went and commenced a sublime experience! I browsed and scanned architecture books in the beautifully renovated, two story art room, used the bathroom tiled by noted artist whose name I forget, sat in the Lightwell Reading Room and read
Origins of Architectural Pleasure, and wandered in the various wings and 6 levels of stacks housing over 1 million books. The LL does not weed their collection and acquires about 8000 volumes per year. The focus is literature and art, lighter on social sciences and very tangentially on science. They have a created their own classification system, which arranges by very broad subject (e.g., architecture) and, within that, by author or editor. It makes for completely haphazard browsing but fascinating serendipity. A few hours of elegant quiet in the hurly-burly of busy London: what a deep pleasure.
Ran off to Harrods for an entirely different experience - crass consumerism and status mongering. Bought chocolates for some special folks back home and for Paula and Jayme's colleagues and friends.
After a walk in Regent Park (another big and beautiful park!), we watched Merlin - Jenna's call and, after 2 weeks of Jenna gamely doing anything imposed upon her, we were only too thrilled to watch it. Had supper downstairs and off to bed.
