Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Before I take you back to London, I have one thing to say.

VOTE

If you don’t vote, you are, in fact, voting. You’re voting for the other side – whatever that is to you.

I cannot imagine choosing not to vote. Since the moment I was eligible to vote, I have never taken this right for granted. I have never missed a vote – whether I was away at school, out of the country, in a new home in a new city – I have always made sure I was registered, had an absentee ballot, if necessary, and that I could vote. This doesn’t deserve a pat on the back. It’s my duty as a citizen of this country. It’s what everyone should be doing.

I remember reading several comments on this blog during the 2016 election that went something like this: “I don’t like either of them, so I’m not going to vote.” Are you kidding me? That’s the coward’s way out. And that, my friends, is a big part of why our democracy is fighting for its life at the moment.

So. Vote. If you don’t have transportation, Uber and Lyft are providing free rides to the polls. If it’s raining and storming as it is here, so what? Grab your umbrella and go. If you’re not sure of your polling place, visit this site on the web. Just go. It’s your right, a right many fought and died for. It’s your duty as a citizen of this country. You owe it your children, your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews, the Earth, the air we breathe, the animals on this planet, the children who have been stolen from their families and who are still being held in detention camps…I’ll stop there because the list is endless. Thank you.

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Our last day in London. We headed to Knightsbridge and landed here – at Harrods.

I wanted Don to see the famous Food Court because there’s nothing like it. And there’s no way to describe it. You have to see it.

He couldn’t believe it. I haven’t been there in about 20 years, so I was all agog myself. It’s simply stunning. And it goes on and on. The tile work is extraordinary.

Everything you can imagine is there – from the savory to the sweet. It’s almost too much to take in.

We bought some chocolate praline truffles that were incredible – we just finished them last week.

I headed upstairs to see if they still carried a vintage Harrods egg up that I’ve seen, but they didn’t. On the way, we ended up in an art gallery where they were selling original Picassos and Bob Dylan drawings. They have everything  there.

It was SO crowded – it was a Sunday – that soon we both felt the need to escape. But what a visit!

We headed down the road toward the Brompton Oratory – somehow I didn’t take a picture – and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V & A is my favorite museum in London, but it was late in the day and we didn’t have much time to spend there. Admission is free, so we went in so that Don could get a taste of this incredible place.

I was entranced by this tin-glazed sculpture by della Robbia.

In the entrance to the museum, a Dale Chihuly glass sculpture:

Just glorious.

Fingers crossed, we’ll get back there for a longer visit.

Then we headed toward Hyde Park and the Serpentine, which is the lake that winds its way through the park.

The Albert Memorial.

It was now early evening and the sky and gradually setting sun were so glorious that I’ll let the rest of the photos speak for themselves. Let’s just say that we were in the right place at the exact right time – something that happened to us throughout our journey.

We couldn’t have timed it better. And I can’t imagine anything more magical for our last evening in London.

Tomorrow, the trip to Edinburgh.

Some of you have asked questions about the trip and I know they’re sprinkled throughout this series of posts. If you could leave them again in the comments on this post, I’ll have them all in one place and I can address them in a separate post. Thanks so much!

Happy Tuesday.

Saturday morning. We stopped for a great breakfast at our favorite place, Peyton and Byrne, which was right around the corner from our hotel.

Great breakfast options, incredible baked goods and good coffee. And check out that herringbone floor. May I have one for my cottage, please?

We headed toward Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey. After standing in line for a while, we paid for our tickets and went inside.

I didn’t know until after I took this picture that you’re not supposed to take photos. (I’m glad I got one in.)

It’s glorious, isn’t it? It’s simply stunning. So many famous people are buried and/or memorialized there. I can’t list them all, but Queen Elizabeth I? Mary, Queen of Scots? Richard II? The two young princes who were murdered in the Tower of London? Not to mention all the actors and poets and political figures and, most recently, Stephen Hawking. Everywhere you turn, there’s a marker and a story and you realize the enormity of history that is a part of Westminster Abbey. We were easily there for well over two hours.

I had to pay homage to my ancestor, Sir Rowland Hill, who is buried there. Rowland is a family name and it was my father’s middle name. Arthur and Frederick are also family names – two of my uncles had those names, and those were the names of two of Sir Rowland’s brothers.

He was a social reformer; both in education and in the postal system. He invented the Penny Post. At that time, the postage for letters was based on distance and the number of sheets of paper used and the receiver had to pay the postage, not the sender. Often, the receiver couldn’t afford the postage charges, so the letter never got to them. Fraud was commonplace. The system itself was in need of change. Hill proposed a system based on weight, not distance, and changing to a uniform rate of postage of a penny per half ounce. He is responsible for the what we now call the modern postal service. The adhesive postal stamp was his creation. The first adhesive stamp – the Penny Black, with a portrait of Queen Victoria – came into being in May of 1840.

You can find out more here.

There is a bust of Sir Rowland in the Abbey and a marker.

I placed my hand on the bust of my ancestor to acknowledge him and, though I wasn’t supposed to, snuck a photo of his marker.

When I was in London in 1991, I went to the Postal Museum and bought packets of commemorative stamps that were issued in 1980 – one for me and for each of  my family members.

They are framed and hang in our upstairs hallway. I also bought a biography of Sir Rowland, which sits on my bookshelves in the den.

After our visit to the Abbey, we had lunch in one of the cafes there. Delicious.

As we emerged from the Abbey, we ran smack dab into a huge Brexit Protest Rally in Parliament Square. We knew there was going to be a rally, but had no idea just how big it would be. This was one of those moments in our trip where we just stopped and let the day evolve based on what we were encountering – in this case, the rally. Too important to ignore. Theresa May was in Brussels at the time, meeting with members of the European Union, so this march and rally was timed to coincide with that.

The protestors were asking for a second vote on Brexit. Many were carrying the flag of the European Union. All were peaceful.

This statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett is the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square. It was unveiled earlier this year.

As we walked against the direction of the marchers, we saw that they were coming from Trafalgar Square and beyond. We later learned there were anywhere from 500,000 to 750,000 marchers that day. Extraordinary.

We kept walking toward the Strand and eventually, we split off from the march. Don said it well: We spent the morning immersed in British history and emerged to see what will be significant political history happening in the now. Very powerful.

As the Strand became Fleet Street, evidence of its long association with the Press.

That night, dinner at a favorite restaurant, Caravan. It’s just down the street from our hotel – such delicious food with exotic flavors. Very inventive and such a fabulous interior!

A few shots from the next morning:

Can’t help thinking of The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

All encountered on our walk toward the Tube and our destination: South Kensington.

More tomorrow!

Happy Monday.