my spoon and I take a walk

This is the first of my recent trips in which I have been haunted by bad weather. Today was so cold and drizzly with a bitter wind, I was wearing all my layers, but the Brits were wearing almost nothing - impervious. I walked and walked - with my spoon. My British mother collected old British silver spoons, and her most valuable dates from 1661. My brother and I could not figure out what to do with a valuable old spoon so I offered to try to sell it in London. Today I found an antique market and went in, to find that all the silver vendors were closed today. So my spoon and I kept going.

A bit of advice - avoid Easter weekend in London. I have never seen so many people on the street as I did today - mind-boggling - everyone gawking and shopping, endless shopping. We are doomed as a species. However, for me, some pleasure - going back near here to Chilton Street, the specialty street for women with big feet, yes, it's true, a street for the big-footed woman. If only my poor big-footed mother were alive to see this. I, however, am in a strange quandary: I discovered today that my feet are too small for the big-footed stores, which don't stock quite as small as my feet. But yet mine are too big for ordinary stores, which do not quite go up to my size. Ah, the major dilemmas of life.

I had lunch in a place on Piccadilly that I'd lunched in before, very pleasant, our own Michel Bublé on the sound system. At the table next to me was a French family talking about their adventures in London; I remembered listening to an American family at the Gare du Nord, as I waited for the Eurostar, talking about being in Paris - getting lost! New kinds of food! The same for them all. My waiter was Rumanian, as are many waiters here - or Polish. There are a million kids from other countries in London trying to make good. I had a long talk with a young Israeli who wanted to sell me anti-aging creams and told me he wants to become a psychiatrist. Heard an American say, "Let's go back to Ly-sester Square." Asshole, I wanted to shout - can't you hear how it's pronounced?

I was making my way toward the Thames to see a matinee of "Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown" which I'd bought a ticket for in Toronto. And it was superb - one of my favourite musicals ever. It's based on the Almadovar film, but transformed - still very Spanish, but with wonderful actors and music, full of heart, making me cry. Loved every minute. Oh London.

Emerged at 5.30 into madness - Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly impassible, millions of people. Luckily found a bus that took me straight back to my friend's, and with a cheery bus driver too, who blew me a kiss when I got off, and I to him. It's a wonderful city. Better when the sun shines, which I've heard it occasionally does, and the entire planet isn't here too.

Got home to a note from my daughter, she's sick and wants her mama. If I could go to her, I would.