London and Normandy

Yes, we're slackers!!  Obviously we're having a wonderful time in London.  Both Paul and I had a first (hard to believe at our age, eh?) in that we had a daytime trans-Atlantic flight.  We left Paul's Mom's house at 5am to arrive at JFK by 6 (of course we anticipated heavy traffic and there was none--we made it in 25 minutes) and left the ground at 8.  We flew for six hours and watched movies the whole time.  Great fun and we weren't trashed and navigating passport control at 2 in the morning body time.  Overall we loved this course of travel.  It did mean we arrived at 11pm at my aunt's house where she and my cousin's wife had a delicious meal waiting for us despite the hour.  I think we have neglected our blog duties because we have been so well taken care of and pampered while here.  I have a strong connection and affinity to my aunt's house and London in general as this is where I vacationed as a child every other year or so.  Staying at my aunt's house is like coming home--drinking coffee (or wine depending on the hour) while philosophizing around the kitchen table is as comfortable as my softest jammies.

My aunt's house in situated near the largest park in London, Hampstead Heath.  Happily, we played here often as we adjusted to London time.  We also enjoyed several dinner parties with family and friends during the first several days here.  My family here is filled with foodies who produce the most delicious meals with equal parts aestheticism and flavor--it reminds me of many friends back home (you know who you are.)

My only three cousins grew up in London.  Two are still living here, but my youngest cousin now lives in Normandy, near Caen, France with his wife.  With my aunt and her friend, we trained to Portsmouth Harbor and boarded a ferry to cross the English Channel to Caen.  It was a completely enjoyable trip and my cousin, Jake, met us at the other end.  It's a 45 minute drive to their country house in a very hilly, rural village consisting only of several houses.  They have done up an old barn into a charming house and work studio for them.  What was once overgrown grasses and weeds has been transformed into a beautiful garden of grass, flowers, hedges, trees, and flower and vegetable gardens with hammocks, swings, and a wonderful outdoor patio by which to enjoy the view and the out-of-doors.  A stunning outdoor shower surrounded by a privacy wall of bamboo was a great hit.  We exercised so we had an excuse to use the shower.

The company was wonderful, the meals fresh and fabulous, and we had lots of rousing games of Bananagrams.  Our last day Jake drove us all to a large market in Caen (how I wish we had markets like that in the US) and then to Omaha Beach.  The weather had been dodgy so we hadn't packed our swim suits, but that didn't stop the boys--in they went.  I had a rather bizarre, indescribable sensation as I watched the crowd of people enjoying the beach and playing on the dunes behind the beach while thinking about what happened at this very site on June 6, 1944.  It's a wide beach and quite exposed--hard to imagine the Americans made any progress here against the Germans who were organized and protected by trenches and bunkers as the American ships sent troops of men running onto shore with no cover.  We found the monuments and tributes to that day's events fascinating.

It was bittersweet leaving France--we loved being with Jake and Lin and will miss them, but there was much yet to see in London.  Unfortunately, Aidan picked up a stomach bug the night before we left for France and he suffered a bit all week.  The rest of us got the bug when we left France and were completely out of commission for days once back in London.  Paul and Aidan did manage to get to the British Museum (they got to see the actual Rosetta Stone!!!) and Cleopatra's Needle one day and then we all visited the wonderful science museum.  Cleopatra's Needle is an ancient Egyptian obelisk and the twin of the one we saw in Central Park in NY.  There is a third obelisk which sits in Paris...not on the itinerary for this trip.  Its twin is still in Egypt.

Another of my cousins lives in Greenwich, a southern London village.  We had the pleasure of an afternoon and evening with my cousin, her husband, and two of their three children.  Greenwich is famous for the Royal Observatory and the Maritime museum, among other things.  We were not there after dark so we didn't get to see it, but there's a green laser light which is shone from the observatory and marks the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT.)  The Maritime museum had a wonderful art installation called Arctic Illusion, which through stories and light displays conveyed the impending crisis of global glacial ice melt.  Chilling seems like the right word, but I'm not trying to make light of the illusion or the content.  It was quite well-done and moving.

We'll work on updating pictures soon and will describe our next adventure soon--I promise.