The Room Where It Happened: Churchill War Rooms

Before leaving for London, Michael and I canvassed friends and colleagues to see what their favorite recommendations were for the city. While there were a lot of answers we expected to hear, there was one attraction that we hadn’t given a second thought to but which multiple people raved about: the Churchill War Rooms. Willing to take their advice, we decided to seek out the room where it happened.

First, though, we stopped on the way to the tube station for some takeaway breakfast at Pret. I won’t go into detail here since they’re in many major cities all over, but we loved that their usual fruit & yogurt cups here were very passionfruit-forward.

Even though we arrived before mid-morning, there was already a queue forming outside the CWR. What’s more, we discovered on site that it’s one of the attractions that people can by online tickets for  a certain time, so despite having the London Pass, we cooled our heels in line for 45 minutes before we could enter. About halfway through the wait, though, an Australian couple in front of us struck up a conversation, and that made the time seem to pass much more quickly.

We don’t have a ton of photos from inside the CWR, despite photography being permitted.  It was fairly low light throughout much of it and it was also extremely crowded, neither of which is conducive to getting great pictures. We both enjoyed the experience but I would urge all visitors to book a specific timed ticket and not just show up hoping to get in right away.

An Enigma machine

After spending two hours wandering through the museum and the CWR, we decided to part company with the crowds.  The day was beautiful, so we wandered around the area and enjoyed the sunshine. Of course we had to take a photo of Michael with the Downing Street sign behind him. (We were surprised to learn that the street itself is closed off.)  I was sporting a t-shirt from my store to launch a new social media campaign showing off An Unlikely Story swag around the world.

Eventually we worked up an appetite so we stopped in for a late lunch at a traditional pub called The Red Lion. We had an upstairs table for two with a view out the window and were grateful to sit down for a while.  Service was prompt for taking our order, but once our food arrived, it was a ridiculously long time before we saw our server again.  The food itself okay but nothing special. Michael ordered two small plates of crispy squid and spicy Vietnamese chicken wings, which were heavy on the gelatinous goo, light on the spiciness. I had a more straightforward grilled ham & cheese sandwich with triple-cooked chips that were soggy. The beer was excellent, though, and the day was fine, so disappointing fare didn’t do anything to dampen our spirits.

After lunch we walked around a bit more before taking the tube back home around 4:00, hoping to avoid the worst of rush hour.  The day was still so beautiful when we emerged from Notting Hill Gate station that I suggested we treat ourselves at the local gelateria on our walk home.  Well, it was perfect and it completely redeemed lunch as far as I was concerned. Michael ordered hazelnut while I asked for a mix of coconut and salted caramel.  Positively decadent!

Yes, definitely one of my best ideas, getting gelato. Once we got home to the Pink House, we napped for a bit before changing into clothes for the play.  Yes, another one of my best ideas, getting tickets to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This was our second night, and since we already knew where we were going and didn’t have to queue at Will Call for tickets, we stopped in at the flagship Foyles, which is on the way to the theatre, to poke around. You know, busman’s holiday and all that.  That place was amazing - five floors, such incredible breadth of inventory.

Opening scene from Part I

Opening scene, Part II

The production values of the shows were simply incredible.  The boy who played Scorpius Malfoy absolutely stole the show, and the man who played Draco and the woman who played Hermione weren't far behind.  I absolutely loved seeing the shows and Michael was slightly less enthusiastic but still keen.  We took advantage of the intermission with some gin & tonics, which is a British tradition I am 100% in favor of.

It was a great day, seeing some of the best that London has to offer, and we can’t wait to see will be in store for tomorrow!

Unimagined Heights: St. Paul’s Cathedral

Our first up-close with the cathedral

For our second day in London, we activated our 6-day London Pass, a pay-once-for-multiple-attractions digital ticket, which we decided to buy because of the attractive 20% off rates we found before our departure. The morning was so beautiful that we decided to start with St. Paul’s Cathedral to make the most of the views. Our plan also had the compensating advantage of providing us a serious cardio workout before our fairly sedentary evening watching a play,

But first, breakfast.  We stopped in at a place called VQ, and perhaps in retrospect we would not have selected it if we’d known (a) it has multiple locations around London and (b) it’s open 24/7.  Trying to embrace the local food tradition I ordered bubble and squeak.  Color me unimpressed.  Michael had better luck ordering a simple breakfast sandwich.  At least it was quick and the espresso was delicious!

I made this photo before realizing that photography
was not allowed.

We took the tube to the St. Paul’s stop and found that the station basically stands in the shadow of the cathedral.  Only a few people were lingering on the steps outside when we went in.  Unfortunately, photography isn’t allowed inside, so I only made one picture of the side of the nave before seeing the sign.  The space is large and impressive and that early in the morning there were fewer tourists inside.

View from the Stone Gallery

I’d heard about the Whispering Gallery, so I was disappointed to discover that it was closed the day we were there (I’ve since been horrified to learn that it closed a month before our visit because somebody had died), but the Stone Gallery and the Golden Gallery were both open.  At 257 and 376 steps up, respectively, the galleries can only be reached by visitors via spiral staircases. Girding my loins, we began the slow ascent and I’m happy to report that the views at the top were absolutely worth the risk of cardiac arrest.

Millennium Bridge 

The round white building in the foreground
is Shakespeare’s Globe theatre

The views from the Golden Gallery weren’t substantially better, and the sense of vertigo I got from looking over the parapet was palpable, but I still felt a real sense of accomplishment for climbing all that way.  At one point, there’s a small circle in the floor near the top of the stairs positioned exactly in the middle above the dome where you can look down into the cathedral, spying the chairs assembled far below.

Those brown specks are chairs in the nave. (Michael’s photo, not mine)

  

After getting our fill of fresh air and views, we began our descent to ground level. By the time we reached the nave, it had filled up quite a bit more with tourists so we were glad to have arrived as early as we had.  We took a seat o rest our jelly-legs from our vertical exertions as much as to take in the grandeur of the dome from the inside.  It was here, I’m somewhat ashamed to say, that I made a few surreptitious photos. 

See that tiny speck of light in the lower part of the innermost circle?
That’s the “peephole” we looked down from on our climb to the Golden Gallery

After a brief detour down to the crypts, we went back upstairs for the 12:30 service that was starting. We both agreed that it was especially fitting to be in that space to experience the purpose it was created for. It was a spoken service, not a musical one, which made me wish we could be there one day for a proper mass. The service over, we checked out the gift shop and purchased some sodas to fortify ourselves before heading out to explore more of London. It was also astonishing for us to see, as we walked towards the Millennium Bridge, just how far up we had been.

Even more refreshing than a turn about the room

Until next time, St. Paul’s...

See where those tiny people are? That’s where we were!

Yup, for comparison purposes so you can see the
Golden Gallery vis a vis the rest of the dome

Once we’d crossed the river Thames, it was time to consider lunch. We originally had made reservations for afternoon tea at the intriguing-looking Momo, but it wasn’t anywhere near where we were and we were getting hungry.  Borrowing some free wifi from the Starbucks, we canceled the reservation and instead walked into The Swan, adjacent to Shakespeare’s Globe, for afternoon tea instead.

This delighted me to no end, since I had been longing to do their Midsummer Night’s Dream-themed afternoon tea in conjunction with our tickets to see the matinee of Henry V, but the timing simply didn’t work out.  It hadn’t occurred to me before the trip that we could manage to get to the Globe on a different day from seeing the play! Michael had never before experienced afternoon tea, and I myself had only had it one time prior in Ireland, and this one lived up to all of the anticipation.

For a few additional pounds, you could enjoy a special gin, blackberry, & prosecco cocktail, so obviously I took advantage of that.  Because gin.  The Swan also offers two types of tea: a traditional one and a “gentleman” one, so we ordered one of each and shared everything.  The gentleman’s tea is heartier and frankly I would not have been able to finish one by myself, but I’m glad that it gave me the opportunity to try yet another traditional food, the Scotch egg. It also had the best grilled ham & cheese I’ve ever had, but they call it by the fancier name of Berkshire ham croque monsieur.

The bespoke china used for tea at the Swan

Gentleman’s tea 

Traditional tea

Our server was kind enough to bring us two more scones and extra clotted cream because they were so yummy that I wanted to eat both of them and this way we each got two. My Moroccan mint tea and Michael’s white pear & ginger tea both resulted in two very happy customers.

And since this seems like quite enough to be getting on with, I’ll conclude Wednesday’s report here and simply add my thoughts about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to Thursday. 

Best Books of 2017

via GIPHY

I read so much good stuff in 2017.  SO MUCH. I wouldn’t say that my reading mojo is completely back from my pre-divorce days-- I’m not going to hit 100 books read for the year, after all.  But I’ll probably finish somewhere in the 80s, and that’s not shabby.

To say that I haven’t blogged much this year would be to indulge in careless understatement. It hasn’t seemed as urgent to me, what with the political scene and human rights fiascos everywhere I turn. (It’s been much easier to lose myself in watching The Office, or The Crown, or The Wire.)

The thing is, though, most of my favorite books this year speak to the horrifying things that have left me feeling, if not precisely hopeless, then at least hopeless-adjacent; yet each book made me feel a little bit better after finishing it. Thus I’m summoning up what energy I have on a Saturday in December to pay tribute to these books, and if you have ever worked retail during the holidays, then you will know how much this is a labor of love.

First, the stats: I completed 79 books this year. Here’s how they break down. Numbers may add up a bit wonkily because many books qualify for multiple categories.

Fiction: 67
Nonfiction: 12
Female authors: 59
Male authors: 20
Audio: 8
Re-Reads: 13
Books for Young Readers: 19
Diversity challenge: 22
Books in translation: 3
Fan fiction: 4
Short story collections: 2

Curiously, three writers count for almost half of the reading I did by male authors this year: David Sedaris, Bill Bryson, and Frederick Backmann (who incidentally was the author of all three books I read in translation). I had rather more re-reads in 2017, as I often turn to my lifetime favorites of Harry Potter or any of the various Anne of Green Gables novels when in need of a comfort read, and I will not include any of those for my top ten list.

Thus, my top books of the year, in chronological order of my reading them, are:

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Definitely the most important novel published this fall, possibly the most important novel published this year.  I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this in the spring and ever since then I’ve been telling everybody who will listen to read it.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid would be the other novel published this year that could vie for most important of 2017.  Where Jesmyn Ward’s prose is searing, Mohsin Hamid’s is taut. They’re both nearly perfect. I remain disappointed that this book did not win the Booker prize this year.

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire lured me in with descriptions of the part of Massachusetts I currently called home, only to quickly take on greater import on a more global scale. She is compassionate and generous with her characters, who grapple with politics, family, immigration, and fundamentalism.

Local writer Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince is one of only two YA books on my list this year. I pick up Holly’s books to read when I want an escape, since her world building is utterly immersive, but then I remember how sharp an eye she has for politics that transcend the human realm and how much reading her books can inform my current world.

Wiley Cash is one the most gracious authors I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, and The Last Ballad brings all of his storytelling powers to bear. Here he plays with the intersection of workers right with the racism and sexism of the era, bringing the story of real-life Ella Mae Wiggins to modern readers.

The author of the Orange-prize winning Song of Achilles returns to the classics with Circe, spanning the centuries-long life of the eponymous witch-goddess who was not content to play by the laws of the Olympians. I debated including it here simply because it will not publish until April 2018, but I liked it too much to exclude it.

Angie Thomas’s debut novel is the other YA book on my list, and it’s probably the most important book published in the world of young adult literature for 2017.  Powerful and emotional, and likely more effective in putting a human face on the Black Lives Matter movement than any work of nonfiction could be. 

Technically it was not published this year, but I was slow to pick up Amor Towles’ towering work of humanism because I had not been enamored of his previous novel, Rules of Civility. More the fool, me. It did flag for me around the 3/4 mark, but overall this meaty novel was immensely satisfying.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is probably the most important voice on the topic of race today, and in this collection of essays, one written for each year president Obama was in office, he probes the political underbelly in the US in clear and persuasive prose.

Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir is the second piece of nonfiction to make my list this year, despite its technical pub date for spring of 2018.  Each of her seventeen brushes with death is the jumping off point for an essay that examines life. Her writing is luminous and soul-searching, whether she’s recounting her childhood or reflecting on adulthood.