This post is out of order, but it’s so dry that I wasn’t going to include it, but for posterity’s sake, here it is.

Saturday morning in London seems like Saturday morning in New York when those unfortunate city dwellers without country connections slip into beach/pool wear and take public transportation to the water. In sympathy for our baking American friends, we dragged out the bathing suits that have not been worn since the last swim meet and headed out from South London all the way across the city to Hampstead Heath. Because the normal train stop was closed for repairs it took almost three hours on a combination of train, subway, bus and foot to get to the edge of the park.

The bus dropped us off at the edge of Hampstead Heath, an ancient 800-acre park with three swimming areas, and instead of proceeding through the big archway marking the park entrance, we tromped through a grassy field in the opposite direction. It was a lovely walk through a forest, which was actually a part of the park, but just not the part we planned on visiting. One area we passed was Gay Man’s Mating Field where single men leaned back on elbows looking attentively, yet non-interestedly at their neighbors.

Hitting upon a playground, I knew we were in the right place with fallow deer and a mule grazing nearby. Stretching out on the soft blanket-like grass I mentally prepared to wallow in the luxury of uncommitted time…until the children said, “Let’s go swimming.” Packing up, we consulted a map and realized that the mile we walked was the wrong way and that not only did we need to backtrack, there was another couple of miles after that.

Back to the starting point, we head out again. Again we go the wrong direction. All the walking is extremely pleasant and we’re having a delightful time, but with each step the children think they are about to get into the water.

Finally, for the third time we reach our starting point, but this time, we enter the park. Twenty minutes or so we reached the “mixed bathing area” and the children rip their shoes off and head to the water. “Ah, but I’m sorry the wee lad isn’t old enough to swim in this area.” Oh, the tears.

Tromping along to the lido where young children can swim, my stylie sandals with their one-eighth inch sole and ultra thin go-between-the-toe strap have begun to burn the bottoms of my feet as they chew my skin. No matter, as the walk is still wonderful with it’s lovely scenery and people watching.

Five hours after we started we reached the playground that immediately preceded the lido. Not that we knew this information, but the lido and playground was going to close in an hour. More pressing was the enormous black cloud leaking fat raindrops on my head. In a flash the hundreds of people dotting the grass and climbing on the playscape grabbed their children and raced away. Because we had invested so much effort in getting there, we rationalized that the rain would pass.

Not rushing like all the others, my little family waltzed off the playground and meandered in the rain to another play area even better than the first. However, the rain started pounding and we slipped into the children’s activity center with a group of ten-year olds. Playing ping-pong the sky fully opened and pelted the ground with hail. My children were mighty sad. However, the gaggle of ten-year old girls and boys brought back great childhood memories so being shut inside a game room/craft area didn’t bother me a bit.

At six o’clock, even though lightning crashed and thunder roared, the workers turned us out into the storm. Stunned, we raced from the park and jumped onto the first bus we saw. (Smelly with wet passengers.) We started the multi-hour journey home having never swum in the lido.

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=Splayed across a white Scandinavian bed reading Moose by Austinite Stephaniel Kein I try to remain as still as possible in an effort not to aggravate the heat. The white curtains join the fight against the hotness as they attempt a billow in the slight nighttime London breeze, but the orange streetlight negates the impact of the negligible waft and also ruins any help that darkness may offer in the war against the heat. Though daytime temperatures haven’t yet made it to 90 degrees, the English are using the newspapers to whine about the heat wave while my poor Texas friends endure 110-degree temperatures. The difference is that my fellow Americans sleep with their air-conditioners set at 68 degrees.

I’m exhausted and dirty. The usual purpose of my sandaled feet and painted toes is to accessorize a sundress, but for the past three weeks my feet have been used for transportation and their soft heels have turned to stone. Spending time in a tiny bathtub is chore not a luxury, and as a result, my body has not been steeped in lavender salt, exfoliated with lemongrass or shaved with baby fresh foam.

My EQ and IQ have also been overworked. At every historical site and museum, my tiny brain subtracts centuries, conjures war dates, ponders bloodlines and converts currency, all the while I exhibit acts love and attempts at engagement with my children and husband. For all these weeks, there has not been a day that I have remained ensconced in my bed reading the New York Times followed by a nap, followed by lunch in bed, followed by a Lifetime Television for Women movie, followed by a Housewives of Somewhere marathon, followed by rerun political shows.

In vacation world, it’s morning, it’s night, it’s morning, it’s night. The Husband has taken to eating like a lord every night with long, sumptuous meals, and while it’s lovely my desire is to forego the bottle of wine, eat a bowl of cereal, crank down the a/c and go to bed early. Oh, but there is no ac and no pantry full of Costco grocery goods to upon which to gorge and set off the food coma. In fact, all of Europe must be filled with anorexics because there just isnt’ enough bulk food to keep a bulimic in business.

I fan my hair across the pillow to keep my neck free of fur. I doze, but can hear The Husband, who is busy changing the laundry and getting ready for the next day’s outing. Each nighttime only offers me one chance to fall asleep. If The Husband wakes me up, my hope for sleeping is gone.

Shake. Shake. The Husband is unfurling my wet top to dry in the window. Yes, it is nice that he has washed the clothes, but now I’m awake. My one chance to sleep has passed. It’s over. The Husband fits his long body in bed and turns off the lamp. He thinks I’m asleep.

A car engine rumbles down the street, birds somehow don’t know how to put themselves to sleep, a car alarm sounds. The feather bed bunches in my back from all my tossing and turning. “It’s eight o’clock,” announces the monotone voice from my computer. Add six European hours and that means it’s two in the morning. Tick tock. I work up a slow panic that I’m going to be exhausted for tomorrow’s tour of the Globe Theater, Southwark Cathereral and the Tate Modern. Maybe I could fake sick and stay home to watch the Farrah memorial show on the English equivalent of E! Television.

Pimms in England is like a Mint Julep in Kentucky, just right. Ordering a Pimms in Texas gets you a glass of fire water that might burn your throat, but London uses nice fruit and the right proportions so that ordering a pitcher seems prudent. Pimms hasn’t tasted this good since I was 19 years old and sharing the trunk of a car with three other people on the way to Jack Kemp Cook’s house after a horse race. I think he wasn’t at home but we ate from his refrigerator.

So many nice things about Europe, but the lack of over-sized bathtubs and soap that creates a towering mound of bubbles is something that needs to be fixed.

Too much activity – the little family has been dragged to one too many museums and eaten a bit too much unfamiliar food. With the news of Michael’s death, which was clearly a product of too much activity and stress, it was decided that the family would take a holiday from our holiday. We packed peanut butter sandwiches and cookies and headed to the park for a day of reading books on the grass and making friends on the playscape.

Pressing the belly button of my walking history guide, I learned that the park in our ‘burb was developed back in the 1850’s to house Crystal Palace, the big glass building built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 to showcase all Britain’s triumphs in the Industrial Revolution. After three years or so, the Palace was moved with much controversy to Syndenham Hill. The bad news is that the Palace burned down in 1936 in a massive fire that could be seen all the way Brighton.

The park needs a major restoration, but compared to American parks, it’s a wonderland. Our great fortune was to happen upon a group of middle school students participating in a track and field race. There is nothing quite like watching a chubby red-headed kid curl his body in a heap at the starting line and fight his way out as he takes on the run of his life. When he doesn’t win, or even come close, the disappointment is mighty, but the consolation, in the form of a hair tussle and a push in the shoulder, alleviates some of the sadness.

If Hyde Park just had its hair blown-out, Crystal Palace hasn’t had its hair washed all week. This neighborhood is teaming with life in the form of women pushing pink plastic baby carriages while smoking long cigarettes and hanging around the corner stores holding giant beers mixed with Go Green spit-spot mothers who constantly engage their children to the point of the ridiculous. These women share the street with white guys walking pit bulls and pimped out black guys driving fancy convertibles playing rap music. All the while newly converted Muslim women don the burka but have a hard time seeing through the peephole to get on the bus.

This trendy Muslim conversion has the old school black women in an uproar. Dropping by the hair salon I got an earful about how the black guys have changed religions and have taken to covering up their women in burkas. Lest they be beaten, the girls comply, and this makes the women with whom I chatted furious. “How can they (the girls) be so stupid to think they need to put up with that shit to keep a man?”

The woman telling the story goes on to describe a scene where the bus line is down the street because some woman can’t see through her burka to locate the bus step. The storyteller says, “Take that mask off so you can see.” Apparently, the polite English gasped at her straightforwardness. “They wanted someone to say it and were relieved when I told her to take that damn thing off. Then I see it’s a damned black fool under there. Made me so mad.” At this point in the story I was confused and not clued into the fact that in London there has been a rash of male Muslim converts and as a result the women change religions as well. Apparently, this erosion of women’s humanity and identity does not sit well with the regular community. Who knew?

Speaking of burkas, yesterday we were in Hyde Park letting the children run about and I couldn’t stop watching two burka-clad women minding their children. They went to the snack center and I wondered how the clerk could hear them place an order through the black cloth covering their mouths. A man was with them (overseeing them, I’m sure) so maybe he placed the order. Then I see one of the women holding an ice cream cone. How can she eat the ice cream cone with the burka mask covering her piehole? The group walked away and I never got to see her face or see how she ate. I guess at home the women take off their burkas and rest in peace. I hope so.

I heard that it was 106 in Texas today. True? So sorry if that is real. Someone sent me this email:

You Know You Are In Texas In July When:

The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

The trees are whistling for the dogs.

The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

Hot water now comes out of both taps.

You can make sun tea instantly.

You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.

You discover that in July it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.

You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.

You actually burn your hand opening the car door.

You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.

Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, “What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?”

You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.

Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.

The cows are giving evaporated milk.

Maybe the children had been to too many museums, but the National Portrait Gallery didn’t work too well for us. My plan was to pace myself until I got to the Tudors and then eat it up like a whipped creme sundae, but instead, I carried a six-year old and tried to point out interesting bits of history and it just didn’t work. It was 12:45 pm when I got to Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. The little people were starved and I could give Elizabeth no more than a cursory wave. Sad, but true.

The children have been begging for Subway, and after a couple of weeks of odd meats and potatoes their dream came true. Turkey subs for everyone with ….oozing mayonaise? beans? Not right. We ditched the beans, wiped off the globs of mayonnaise (why so much in everything?) and threw in a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Lovely feast for the small people.

(photo is of me writing to you!!!)

Like the real historical figures aren’t interesting enough, The London Tower has embarked upon a sexy marketing effort with campaigns like “Henry VIII – Dressed to Kill” and modern style tabloids featuring “The Wedding of the Century” starring Henry and Anne.

Even though The Husband is currently writing about some aspect of Scotland’s history, it is British history that is his specialty and what a treat is to take him along on museum visits. It’s like having a lovable interactive encyclopedia with you. I turn to him and ask any question about a historical luminary, war, culture and get a detailed answer tailored exactly to my style of understanding and appreciation. He always makes certain to include the woman’s perspective. Makes me want to knock him to the ground and kiss him.

I do love an interactive museum, and with the Winston Churchill Experience a person gets to hunker down in a shelter and have their ears blasted with an auditory simulation of what it was like to be underground during a WWII blitz. The children (well, the parents, too) get to try on gas masks, helmets and various camaflouge clothing items. If that isn’t enough, museum visitors are afforded an opportunity to walk through a recreated bombed street.

The museum is a good idea, and The Husband, an authority on all things WWII, especially Churchill, gave the museum high marks. Me, the person who needs reminding which countries made up each team in the war, thought the museum needed to be revamped. I wanted the floor to vibrate when I walked on the fake street; the extra cool posters should have been displayed in a more engaging way (and reproduced for sale); the shelter needed audio from typical people who would have been in the bunker, and the fashion and media of the time needed to be dusted-off and repositioned. The museum is a great idea, but needs a small reinvestment and reorganization. ‘Cause I’m an expert and know how to fix a museum…but I really do.

Where else but the London Dungeon would one receive helpful advice to bathe in urine or suck the puss from a loved one to escape the plague? Though the entrance cost seemed hefty – we bought four combo Dungeon and London Eye ticket packages for almost $200 – watching a mannequin vomit was well worth the price.

All sorts of tricks can be learned at the London Dungeon, like how to let blood, how to use a hook to extract entrails, what happens when you boil a live person and most helpful how it feels to be hanged. Of course, the hanging experience is not recommended for young children, which is exactly why we subjected our six-year old to it. Strapped into a row of chairs that rise toward the ceiling we had no idea what was about to happen. The adults got the message when the ride reached the top and a set of judges showed us the nooses. No sooner had a guilty pronouncement been made than the ride plummeted to the floor. Three out of four of the family members loved it, but the youngest one tried valiantly, yet unsuccessfully, to suppress a bout of weeping.

Some might find the London Dungeon a bit hokey, and those people should stick to the National Portrait Gallery. For the rest, enjoy your history with the added touch of fake blood running down the wall.