8/25-26/2011 (Thurs -- our last day in London & trip home)

Our last day. Rain in the AM, and we went to the Tate Britain in Pimlico. I liked the old stuff best, of course, the Cholmodeley Ladies (born on the same day, married on the same day & gave birth to sons on the same day), a Geo Stubbs of reapers, the Constables & the early Turners.

Then we split -- S to stay another hour in the Tate & return to the Transport Museum, I to go to Liberty of London to buy stuff, then to the National Portrait Gallery. Ate lunch in the restaurant -- which had an incredible view over Trafalgar square & London's rooftops. I should have taken a picture.

I liked the Tudor era portraits best, of course -- my attention faded after that, except that I needed to see Ms. Austen before I left. The only confirmed portrait of her is a tiny little thing, maybe 5"square? a sketch by her sister Cassandra with a funny ambiguous quote by her niece. 'there is a look which I recognise as hers', her niece wrote, 'though the general resemblance is not strong, yet as it represents a pleasing countenance it is so far a truth.'

Lovely, clear weather by the time I emerged -- a more ambitious soul would have walked back instead of taking the tube.

We're headed back to the Thai we ate at the first night -- its prices don't seem as horrendous now to S.

More from the transportation Mus - the lines after the Circle Line were deep because Brunel (pic in the national portrait gallery) had figured out how to tunnel -- the clays under London lent themselves to deep tunnelling, the elevator & electric motor had been invented by roughly 1980, so it was feasible to get people down that deep. Nonetheless, it took US financing to complete the first tunnels.

Then we (heatedly) discussed how we'd communicate if/when he was in Berlin. I keep thinking a normal phone (that he carried & left turned on) would be easier to deal with than the Estonian service he has, i.e. when he calls, my bberry on a normal phone, shouldn't I be able to reply?

Anyway, we got to the airport v. early the next day (crowds had been forecast) -- I finished David Starkey's Henry: Virtuous Prince (a bio of the early life of Henry VIII), and then read an Agatha Raisin (a mystery featuring a dumpy 50-0dd yr old who settles in the Cotswolds) and the newest Dona Leon, & also watched 27 dresses (a chick-flick whose heroine accumulates 27 bridesmaids dresses), and now we're home.

The sump pump is acting up, our water heater's got a crack, my Prius won't get out of park (so I had to walk my groceries home from the coop), but it was still a lovely, lovely trip.