I've been enjoying those blue plaques on buildings that indicate where someone famous lived, the most notable one so far being Dylan Thomas. I'm also loving the outside of the pubs. They are all so beautiful and the hanging flowers and/or flower boxes add to their charm. I don't remember their beauty so much the last time but that might be because it was winter and the flowers were absent. I also didn't realize that London has plane trees, I only think of Paris having them. I also like the fact that restaurants are now smoke-free. I remember it being such an issue with my daughters when we would eat out here in 1996--they hated it.

I don't like the fact that there is a three-day strike on many of the subway lines and they are planning another one next week--especially since we purchased month-long passes that were not inexpensive.

I mentioned previously about having a cell phone, or I should say mobile phone. I'm on this international plan where calls to the U.S. are 5p (10cents) per minute. Interestingly, it costs 15p a minute to call Gord on his cell phone in London and 7p per text message, still more expensive than calling home! Consequently we communicate by text message but I think I need a lesson in how to do it efficiently because it takes me forever (where are you Annie when I need you?). It tries to anticipate what I'm trying to type in and it's usually wrong. I'd like to turn that function off and just type in what I want, but the directions that came with the phone are very minimal.

Speaking of directions, someone actually asked me for directions yesterday and, more surprisingly, I could tell them! I almost felt like a Londoner--well, not really, but it did feel good.

Yesterday, I did one of the walks in our Walking London book by Andrew Duncan. It was the Marylebone one--I chose it because it's the neighbourhood (ooh, notice the British spelling there!) where we are living for the next several days. (My daughters will be happy that they were not there with me as I walked along, stopping regularly to read from my book--it would bring back memories from trips we've taken together--they can probably still be embarrassed from 3500 miles away though! But don't worry I wasn't reading aloud.) Now I only have twenty-nine more walks in that book, another thirteen or so in his Secret London book, and another four in my Rick Steves' guide book. I'm running out of time and I've only just begun! I feel like Julie in Julie and Julia, a book my sister Carole gave me about this woman who spent a year cooking every recipe in Julia Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Although I think my project will be easier. So another reason I chose the Marylebone walk was because halfway through it passes by the Wallace Collection, one of my favorite museums in London. So the 1-1/2 hour walk turned into 4 because of course I had to stop and visit. I arrived just in time for a docent tour. Fragonard's The Swing is still there and the man is still hiding in the shrubbery and looking up the skirts of his lover while she is being swung by her unwitting husband. Other favorites include Frans Hals's The Laughing Cavalier, Rembrandt's painting of his son Titus, and Jan Steen's Celebrating the Birth (another interesting story there), and many, many Bouchers and Sevres porcelain. They also had two versions of Fragonard's Fountain of Love, displayed side by side, so that you could examine them together. One was their own and the other was on loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Docent tours can be interesting and certainly educational, but they take time away from looking at everything else. I need to go back and take a better look.

Gord came back from Oxford in time for dinner and we had a nice walk to an Italian restaurant in St. Christopher's Place, a street that used to be a slum but is now full of expensive stores and nice restaurants. It was warm enough to eat outside. One of the stores sells only amber jewelry and looked very nice from the outside. I must say that I am not tempted to do any shopping, however, because it is just too expensive. Maybe it will get easier. . . .