A Week in London |
Terri Pokosh, Bruce Stiles and I couldn’t pass up the $418 non-stop Phoenix to London Gatwick fare on British Airways. We arrived London on Thursday October 26, just in time for the wettest week in England’s history. The flight leaves Phoenix at 9:35 p.m. and arrives 10 hours later at 3:35 p.m. next day.
Ben Kingsley (remember Ghandi) was waiting at the Gatwick Airport wandering
restlessly around chatting on his mobile phone. Terri wrestled Bruce away from
the obvious photo op while I made my routine damaged luggage report. We fought
the rush hour underground traffic to our B&B (Bed and Breakfast) at Ealing
Broadway in west London. We relaxed over a nice spicy meal at the local Indian
bistro.
Friday was spent walking, busing and undergrounding around London taking quick external views of Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, the Tower etc. We found twenty minutes to peek inside the National Gallery and a brief midday Bach recital at Saint Martin in the Fields (right at Trafalgar Square, it never was in the fields).
That evening we got ringside seats ($22), right behind the stage, to a great
play, Copenhagen, at the Duchess Theater, Covent Gardens. Copenhagen’s stage
set is minimalist - three chairs seating physicists Werner Heisenberg, Niels
Bohr and Bohr’s wife. They spend three hours ina flashback to a controversial
meeting they had had in 1941 when Heisenberg was working for the Nazis on the
nuclear bomb. The show intertwines morality and science in a fantastic interplay.
Saturday morning we taxied to and picked up our rental car and drove the hundred
miles west to my hometown, Bristol.
My cousin Captain David Davidge RN, ret, welcomed us for a quick visit to his
grand home - a very interesting home since it was once owned by William Penn
of Pennsylvania. Terri was especially interested, being from PA. David is a
caricature of the old-school Empire ruling class and was thoroughly entertaining.
We quickly toured Bristol’s main features: the Brunel Suspension Bridge, Bristol
University and the 150 foot Cabot Tower - dedicated to the alleged discoverer
of North America. John Cabot sailed from Bristol and discovered Newfoundland
in 1497.
We indulged in my favorite sport, racing around the ridiculously narrow back
lanes of the surrounding countryside with the occasional need to back up to
a passing spot. We visited Stanton Drew, the mini Stonehenge just 5 miles south
of Bristol. It’s broader and older than Stonehenge but the stones are smaller
and again TV coverage was minimal, although Stanton Drew was included in the
Cox Cable program on Stonehenge shown in Phoenix last month.
Saturday evening we stayed at my favorite English pub and B&B, The Carpenters Arms at Pensford, 8 miles south of Bristol. Local Mensan Bob Hutton and friend Su joined us over dinner for fine conversation. I met Bob in the eighties through the UK Mensa Motorcycle SIG and have visited him on several trips since.
Sunday we visited Wells Cathedral and passed Glastonbury on our 120-mile drive
to my brother Tony’s B&B in Cornwall, just west of Plymouth. We stayed there
the next three nights with Tony and wife Carol. We enjoyed day-tripping the
fine Cornwall scenery, albeit through intense rainstorms. We shared nice dinners
at pubs with a great final dinner prepared by Carol. We visited Port Isaac where
the movie Saving Grace was filmed.
We won the regular Monday night quiz at the pub on the ocean. Tony is a lapsed
closet Mensan and explained that it would be considered “poor form” to publicize
the affiliation. The penalty for winning is that the winners provide the 40
questions for the following week. Bruce sent most of them within days of our
return.
Wednesday we drove the 220 miles back to Heathrow via Windsor (just in time
to miss the tour of the Castle). One more night of B&B then an 11-hour flight
(against westerly winds) back to Phoenix.