Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Ancient Rocks.

 

 Stonehenge day! The last time I went to Stonehenge, in 2014, I had a few disasters along the way. I was only in London for two days with the Stonehenge tour the first day, and I missed the bus (the hotel concierge screwed me over in 2014). I was able to make it the second day, but it was upsetting. This time, I not only knew (basically) where Victoria Coach Station was - where the bus departed from - but I knew to set out early!

We took the Tube from Lancaster Gate to Victoria Station and walked to the coach station, down the block and across the street. We were early, but not too early. There were several tours leaving from the station and there were regular busses departing, too. When it was about time for us to board, a lady stepped through the doors and announced the train to Liverpool was boarding. Were we in the wrong place? Oh, no. Now we didn't have a lot of time if this was wrong. When no one jumped up to go to Liverpool, the lady realized she was at the wrong door. We were in the right place!

As we boarded the double-decker bus, most of the passengers went upstairs. Cynthia and I stayed downstairs. We sat down and delightfully the tour wasn't completely booked. We moved to double seats with a table between them and sat facing each other with empty seats beside us. I rode backwards.

 

 

(Some of the sights from the ride to Stonehenge.)

As the bus drove out of London, the tour guide, Steve, recounted a lot of the same information from the Misery Tour the day before. I brought my "real" camera this time, and took a few more pictures, but the problem with riding backward is that you don't really see the upcoming sights. You see the ones that have passed. There was a family at the other table and they appeared to be afflicted with an ailment. They were American, maybe from Tennessee? My eavesdropping wasn't up to full effect. The Dad person kept sneezing and taking Sudafed. He also talked about how they would need to go to Boots again soon. Just what you hope for in a confined space post-Covid - someone who is sneezing and taking decongestants.

The traffic to Stonehenge was terrible! I find the narrow roads to be harrowing. I felt like the bus was going to clip cars on the other lanes. At least riding backward, I had less to worry about because I didn't have a clear view of what was happening. The bus ride was supposed to be about 2.5 hours, but because of the traffic it took a lot longer. I used some of the time on the bus to check my security cameras at home. To my surprise/horror/shock, the camera on my front door had been blocked by something. It was the middle of the night back home, so I started to panic. I texted my gardener, but no reply. I couldn't think of any good reason for the camera to be blocked, day or night, so I was in a bit of a panic, worried that someone was breaking into my house. The back door camera was still working, so at least I knew the house hasn't burned down and it didn't look like anyone criminal was moving around in the yard. So throughout the day, I was checking the camera every 20 minutes or so, if possible. I emailed my friend who was feeding my cats to fix it when he went over, but that wouldn’t be for hours.

(What I should have seen.)

(What I saw for hours.)

We arrived at Stonehenge around 11 AM and disembarked. It was a brisk and blustery day, but sunny. The path around the stones had changed since last time I was there. Now you could get a bit closer up for pictures. We walked once around the path, into the gift shop, into the café for drinks, and back on the bus. I bought a bluestone bead bracelet last time and a sarsen stone bead bracelet this time. I've now seen Stonehenge twice and will probably never see it again.

 

 

(Stonehenge.)

(This guy lives at Stonehenge.)

Back on the bus, we now headed for Bath. Once in Bath, we got a quick walking tour/orientation by Steve and were told to rendezvous at the Roman Baths at 3. Cynthia and I went to lunch at Bill’s (on Cheap Street, lol), which served American friendly food. I had scones, tea and flatbread. We rendezvoused at 3 and went into the Roman Baths. 

(The tea at Bill's.)

The tour in the Roman Bath's was audio only and neither of us were interested in listening to it. We followed the arrows around, looked at things, drank the water, and went to the gift shop. I bought some gifts for friends and postcards. Neither of us heard the bus rendezvous time with certainty, nor did we hear the time for the second, more extensive walking tour. I abandoned Cynthia and walked around and around the Roman Baths looking for Steve, and getting in my steps. Cynthia ate gelato and listed to a busker in a square near the Roman Baths, so I knew where to find her, assuming I got the timetable information I was looking for. I did not find Steve or get that information.

 

 

 

We knew we had at least until 5, but weren't sure if the bus was leaving at 5, 5:15 or 5:30. I was still anxious because my security camera was still compromised. On the brief tour into the village, we were shown a famous bakery museum. That's where we went next. Museum was a generous word. The display was a basement kitchen setting with a female mannequin in it, preparing buns, and a little shop. We bought the famous Sally Lunn’s Buns and I bought some tea and then…we fought/argued and went our separate ways for a bit. Sorry, I was having a bad day and frustrated.

 

I went to a fancy chocolate shop and bought some gifts. Then I went to an off-license (liquor store) and bought some drinks for the ride back. We met up at 5 where the bus had dropped us off, but the bus wasn't there and the tour wasn't there. I finally saw one woman from our tour at a restaurant patio with a view of the bus area, so went and talked to her. She also wasn’t sure when the bus was leaving, but her dad had seen it parked down the road. It hadn’t left. We sat around until 5:30, by which time the walking tour and bus returned. We piled back onto the bus and headed back to London. We weren't expected to get back to town until after 8 PM.

 

 

 

(Bath birds.)

Because the ride back was long and we had all had lunch and drinks, the driver and tour guide schedule a pitstop at a service station to use the toilets and get snacks. There were toilets on the bus, but there were also 77 people in the tour. A service station would be more comfortable for everyone. Tennessee plague family were raving about how the English really knew how to do gas stations -- before we got there. I chimed in they hadn’t been to Buc-ees. They said they had so I shut up.

Let me tell you, Buc-ees is a palace in comparison to where we stopped! The toilets at this place were half broken and all unflushed. There was a casino near the toilets, but I didn't have time to play one of the dozen or so slot machines.  I used the facilities and hurried back to the bus. English Krispy Kreme was tempting, but I didn’t want to eat garbage I could get in the US if I could avoid it.

I wrote several postcards on the ride back, but could address them because my phone was nearly dead from my obsessive camera checks, and my sister’s phone was nearly dead from checking for an update on her suitcase which still hadn't arrived.

We were dropped off at Gloucester Road, not back at Victoria Coach Station, and took the Tube back “home.” It was late again, so we knew restaurants and shops were going to be closing soon. We decided to go to a Waitrose (a grocery store) at a service station near the hotel and both bought pesto pasta. I also had Bon Mamam raspberry mousse, cheese and water. We ate back in the hotel and called it a night. We didn’t have to be anywhere until 11 AM the next day, but I set an alarm just in case we overslept.

(My friend removed the paper that was blocking my camera when he came to feed the cats. Everything looked fine at the house.)

Monday, April 29, 2024. Misery Tour.

 

I rarely get a good night’s sleep, but after not sleeping on the plane - being awake for 24 hours or something - I slept pretty good. I called Gail in the morning and we went over the plan for the day. They were free after eleven and would come and collect us at the hotel. Hooray! We didn't have to figure out how to get to their house!

I got dressed and went scrounging. My sister's suitcase hadn’t arrived so she needed some things from the drug store. I also knew she wanted to try some pastries while in London, so I walked to Queensway - a busy street of restaurant and shops - and searched for Boots (a drugstore) and bakeries. Boots was quite a way up the street and that was my first goal. I needed to get the supplies and would worry about food afterward.

We had gone into a Boots on the Kensington High Street on Sunday evening, but didn't realize that they had an actual normal pharmacy area downstairs. The one we went into looked like a high-end cosmetics store, like Sephora, so we didn't find what we needed. The one on Queensway was less fancy and the pharmacy was apparent as soon as I walked inside. I found what I think I needed (many stupid things have different names, so you can't be sure all the time) and checked out. Turns out, it was the right thing. Woo-hoo!

I went back down the road toward Bayswater, looking for food now. I found one place that served several kinds of croissants and got two pain au chocolat. I then found a place called Mr. Power which had a dessert display window. I asked for them to recommend the best item they made, but the woman working there didn’t really speak English. Her brother came over and pointed to a few things. I bought an Opera cake and a raspberry cheesecake slice and headed back to the hotel.

 

Cynthia and I split the cakes/pastries, just to try them both. The Opera cake had coffee in it, so I thought it was disgusting. The raspberry cheesecake was ok, but not good enough to have again. The pain au chocolat was fine, but could have used a bit more chocolat.

Shortly after 11, Gail and Charles collected us in Charles’ convertible. Then they drove us all around town on the “misery tour.” It was a beautiful sunny day, but cool, so Gail brought a puffer vest for my sister to wear. She also supplied us with flatcaps. We both thought the caps were cute and decided we should buy some before leaving London.

  

 

 

  

(Some of the sights from the car tour.)

Charles' tour took us past all the sights, including the house on Avalon Road where Gail’s mom, Ruth (from singing Thursday) grew up. I think it was a council house (like a housing project) when Ruth lived there, but isn’t now. A house on that road is currently for sale for £2.1 million! Yikes! The Misery Tour took us over the bridge and we drove back toward Chelsea on the south side of the river.

 

(Avalon Road)

Back near Gail and Charles' house, we went to The Chelsea Arts Club for lunch. Gail is a member. She’s a portrait artist. Here's her website if you want to commission a painting. She does people and dogs! The Chelsea Arts Club has a strict "no camera" rule, so there are no pictures from the inside. For lunch, I had a cheese toasty with chips. Very nice. Cynthia had hummus which had pomegranate seeds in it. Gail took us for a little tour of the club and then we headed off to their house. While at the club, we did get in a conversation with a German woman, Elsa, and her American husband, mostly about how bad they think the US is. She made a particular mention of our homeless problems in the US, so my trip was colored by this for the rest of the time. I paid special attention, looking for homeless people and I have some thoughts now, maybe for a wrap up post.

Back at the house, we had a cup of tea and got to see Gail’s art studio. (https://gailgraham.co.uk/) Their house is cozy and inviting. It feels like people live there, not like a showroom, which is how a home should feel. While at their house, Gail supplied us with Oyster cards and gave us basic instructions on how they work, to make our subway trips easier.

Then we went to The Fox and Pheasant for drinks and snacks. This pub, which is walking distance to their home, is owned by James Blunt (You're Beautiful). It was packed! I asked for juice and was given large glasses of both cranberry and apple juice. Hooray! Large glasses and two of them! English people must be dehydrated, the drinks are so small.

(Me, Gail and Cynthia at The Fox & Pheasant.)

We ordered more chips (yes, please) and some cheese and mushroom bread. After the pub, Gail paid for a car to return us to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, there was still no suitcase. But at least things didn’t close at 6 on Monday…they closed at 8. We had some time to do some shopping for Tuesday. The hotel was about a mile from the end of a large, fancy shopping area, Oxford Street, so we walked down there to shop for clean clothes for Cynthia to wear to Stonehenge the next day. We went in a shop called Primark, which was open later than most, and Cynthia found some discount clothes. She said she looked like a retired ballerina in the outfit she put together.

By then it was dark and Cynthia was not comfortable walking back the mile or so to the hotel, so we took the Tube. It wasn’t crowded and a worker was able to help us figure out putting money on the Oyster cards. Marble Arch to Lancaster Gate and back “home.”

 

  

(There was a rat in the subway. It was licking the floor.)

We had to get to sleep because we had a coach (bus) to catch at 8:15 in the morning! That meant we had to be at the station at 7:15 and wake up by like, 6:15! I planned this…

Sunday, April 28, 2024. Unexpected shopping.

 

The plane landed. It was morning. 11-ish? Good to get up out of the seat and move around. My sister and I both decided to wear compression socks for the flight because we’re getting old and that is the kind of thing you take into consideration before long flights. Leg blood clots. Deep vein thrombosis. I knew one thing - I couldn't wait to take them off!

We disembarked. It’s always annoying (to everyone) when a group of travelers know where to go automatically and another group, all lumped together on a plane, don’t. This whole trip, I’m in the second group. Don’t know where I’m going or how to get there. A bunch of us “lost” people stopped to read a sign that was near an escalator. My sister and I didn't stop to read the sign. We just took the escalator down - into a deserted tunnel. There was only one escalator and it went down, so if this was a mistake, I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to go back.

At the bottom of the escalator was a tunnel. An airport worker stopped us as soon as we got to the bottom to let us know that the tunnel walk would take at least 20 minutes. Hey, we’d just been sitting for 9+ hours, a 20-minute walk didn’t sound that bad. At least he didn't say it went to the wrong place. But even in this deserted tunnel walkway, people who wanted to go fast and get around us appeared. There were a few people movers/travelators to cut down on some of the walking, but mostly it was a not-insignificant walk to the customs area. At least spending that time walking would mean less time standing at a carousel waiting for our bags to arrive when we finally got to the carousels.

We had to go through customs first, which was surprisingly easy. You self checked out, placing your passport on a scanner and posing for a confirmation picture. Doors popped open and you walked through without encountering a human. They seemed to not care about people entering the country via the airport. Fine. Easy. Where is my suitcase?

The signs all indicated our bags would arrive on carousel 8. We just got there when there was an announcement over the PA system that my sister needed to report to a window to talk to a person. No big surprise, but her bag didn’t make the transfer from Dallas to London. While she filled out the lost-luggage paperwork (not accurately named since British Airways knew exactly where the bag was - in Dallas), I purchased a SIM card for my phone and waited for my bag to arrive. In hindsight, the SIM card I bought had way more data than I needed and didn't actually work in Amsterdam, but you live and learn. I purchased almost 99 times as much data as I ended up using for the week. Oops! Still cheaper than upgrading my plan on the US SIM. Anyway…

Person after person left carousel 8 until the same 5 bags kept going around and mine wasn’t one of them. I joined my sister at the counter and asked if that was the right carousel or if it had changed. Rude English Person #3 couldn’t tell me anything until I gave her my baggage claim  ticket. Like, she couldn’t even tell me what carousel the bags from our flight were coming from. I left my sister and searched through my carry-on for the claim check ticket and finally found it. Oh, yes, my bag was on carousel 11. Why haven’t I been able to find it? It should be here. As if the signs saying it should be on carousel 8 were known to be wrong. Argh! Anyway, I got my bag. They couldn't give my sister an accurate timeframe of when her bag would arrive, but someone at the next window from the same connection was told her bag might be delivered the next day, so we weren't too worried. Afterall, we already knew there were at least 2 flights from DFW to Heathrow each day. It shouldn't be hard to get my sister's bag on one of those flights.

 (Some of the view from the Heathrow Express.)

Then it was time to hop on the Heathrow Express, which gets you into town and lets you off at Paddington Station. Paddington Station was about ½ mile from our hotel, so not too bad of a walk. Our hotel was closest to Lancaster Gate Tube Station, but walking to Paddington, according to the map and not reality, took about 9 minutes.

It had just finished raining by the time we disembarked the train, but there was still a little drizzle. The streets were drenched, and by the time we got to the hotel, so were we. I was lucky enough to be able to change my clothes and wash my face when we got to our room at The Columbia Hotel. I also had a surprise waiting for me at reception - mail! Diana sent me a Harrods gift certificate that was waiting for me at check-in. I guess a trip to Harrods had to happen!

 

Our room was on the 3rd floor, room 319, which when translated to American means it was on the 4th floor. One of the elevators was broken, so it was either lots of stairs (the stories were massive with high ceilings) or the tiny lift. The lift said the capacity was 4, but that would be a stretch. Two people with luggage was a struggle. And the lift opened to a large step up. Hooray!

 

(Center staircase, The Columbia Hotel)

This is the same hotel I stayed at last time I was in London in 2014. And it is the same hotel we stayed at with our parents 30 or 40 years prior. Last time, I booked a single queen room and was given a double queen room. Huge! Lovely! Old, yest, and the floors make loud noises when you walk, but really comfortable for one person and probably still comfortable for two. This time I booked a twin double. Wow! It was small! It looked like they used an efficiency king room and just put in two twin beds where the king bed would fit. There was just enough room between the wall and foot of the bed to roll my suitcase over to the window. On the plus side, this time we had a view of Hyde Park from the window, so that counts for something.

 

(View from the room.)

The room's toilet felt like it was going to fall over each time you sat down. It even had bolts attached to hold it to the floor. But nevertheless, it was wobbly. And I could not once get it to flush on the first try. Most of the time, it would flush on the second try. But there were a few times when I must have flushed it 12 times before it finally took. This is what 45 is always complaining about! What a waste of time and water.

  

 

(Yes, I took pictures of the gross plumbing in the hotel room.)

We were going to see some friends of mine the next day, so I called Gail and Charles to let them know we made it, and confirm that we’d see them on Monday. I also asked where we should go for my sister to get some emergency clothes and supplies. I wanted to go to TK Maxx while I was in London - because I'm addicted to TJ Maxx - so it worked out that the go-to shop, Marks & Spencer, was on the Kensington High Street near TK Maxx. Well, that worked out for me if not for Cynthia.

In clean clothes and dry shoes (for me), we set off walking. We hadn’t figured out the Tube system yet, so we walked through Hyde Park to the south side where the shops were located. TK Maxx was so crowded it drove both of us crazy. Oh, and did I mention? My sister broke her toe a few weeks before the trip, so she wasn’t thrilled about walking and even less thrilled about stairs. The women’s clothes were downstairs and we didn’t see an immediate lift, so we left and looked for Marks & Spencer. It was next door to an H&M, which saved me, along with Zara, when my bags didn’t arrive in Barcelona in 2014, but my sister didn’t want to go somewhere she could go in the US. Gail had told us that M&S (Marks & Spencer) was where everyone got their knickers / underpants / panties, so in we went. Knickers and pajamas purchased, we went off in search of dinner.

 

(Chestnut tree in bloom in the park and other little flowers.)

We also wanted to get some supplies for the room - like water, Coke, toothpaste and toiletries -so we found a Sainsbury's Local and bought a few things. I bout some granola bars in case dinner didn’t work out. I was still feeling pretty sick from the flight, so wasn't sure if I'd be able to eat dinner or not.

Surprise! Everything closes at 6PM on Sunday! Even most of the restaurants. We still didn’t want to take the Tube, so we walked around the park, through Notting Hill, and back to the hotel. We dropped off our groceries and supplies. From the room, we researched restaurants near the hotel that would stay open past 6, since it was now past 6. We went to an Italian restaurant, Bizzaro. I had pizza and Cynthia had a tricolore salad - a caprese with avocado added. They need to start making this salad in the US.

 

By then we were exhausted, so we went back to the hotel and I think we both fell asleep before 8PM. Luckily, we didn't have to be up early on Monday. Gail and Charles wouldn't be available until after 11AM and we didn't really plan on getting up early for breakfast. We played games on our iPads until we couldn't keep our eyes open and that was the end of our first day in London.

Saturday, April 27, 2024. Off we go.

 

The last time I traveled overseas was in 2014. That’s ten years ago now. When I planned that trip, I had just turned 40 and needed surgery. I had to have a breast tumor removed. I didn’t know what the biopsy results would be, so I thought I should plan a big trip in case my life was about to change for the worse. The tumor turned out to be benign, so that worked out. You can read all about that trip on my blog elsewhere. This should be the first entry, if you want to revisit that vacation:

(https://www.camillesharon.com/2014/11/trip-to-europe-november-2014.html)

I have been planning the current trip since around February 2019. I thought I’d be spending my birthday in April 2020 traveling to Amsterdam, London and Paris. And then we all know what happened. At least I hadn’t booked anything when the world looked like it was going to shut down and then did shut down in 2020. I had another surgery in late 2020, so it was just as well that I didn’t go on a big vacation that year. Can't wait to find out what surgery I'm going to need in another 10 years or so!

I originally planned to be on vacation for my actual birthday in 2024 - 50 this time. But that was the weekend of the London Marathon. So here I am, on a plane the week after my birthday. 

No trip would be complete without a few little panics along the way. The first little panic of the trip was when my friend who was giving me a ride to the airport (I insisted she do it, she didn’t really want to) was exposed to COVID on her vacation the week before. No ride from her. She’s at home sick with COVID right now. My producing partner on The Lola LaRue Variety Show, Diana, agreed to give me a ride, so that crisis was averted pretty quickly. Since I wasn't sure if the COVID panic would have passed by the time I needed a ride home from the airport, I asked another friend to pick me up.

I have been walking 10,000 steps a day for 43 weeks now, but didn’t have time in the morning before my flight what with all of the packing and last-minute cleaning (LOL, you couldn't tell), so while waiting to board my flight, I walked up and down the terminal at the Burbank Airport. It is about 400 steps each way for anyone playing along at home. I was able to get to 6,000 steps done before my flight. I got an email notification that my sister's flight from San Antonio to Dallas, where we were connecting for the London flight, was delayed. Another little panic, but the delay, so far, was not bad enough to cause any real problems. We were sort of talking about getting something to eat during the layover, so I would just be on my own if I wanted to eat.

 I booked window seats for all four legs of my flight on this trip. On the leg from Burbank to Dallas, I shared the row with a gay couple. The man seated in the center seat had lifted the armrest before I got there. After I sat down, he left the armrest lifted. Weird! Since the Jim Jeffries rules of flying mean the center seat gets two armrests, I didn’t touch it. If he wanted it up, it was his anyway. The aisle man was watching Curb Your Enthusiasm on his phone with subtitles on for the whole flight, and the center man watched it over his shoulder. Weird again! The flight didn’t have view screens on the seats, but the airline offered movies and TV shows over wi-fi on your own device. I watched Ted Lasso Season 3 episode 1. Not impressed enough to watch the second episode, and without enough time remaining to start a movie, I just sat. I was surprised the men in my row weren’t more chatty. I’m always willing to chat with people on the plane.

 We landed in Dallas and I had to change to the International Terminal. According to the Internet, my sister’s flight, which was delayed again, was now leaving any minute from San Antonio - after I had already arrived in Dallas. Our flights were supposed to arrive in Dallas 1 or 2 minutes apart. There was still time for her to make the flight, maybe? Even though my flight landed early, we sat on the plane waiting for a gate for a long time and by the time I got to the International Terminal I only had about 30 minutes to kill before boarding started. I didn’t realize it was going to take 45 minutes to board the flight. Lots of seats to fill on a double-decker plane. My sister's chances of making the flight were looking worse by the minute.

 Everyone coming from a connecting flight had to go to the desk and get a new boarding pass and have their passport looked at one more time. I asked the man at the desk if he had any insider information, what with working at an airport, about what might happen when a flight with several people making a connection is running so late. He bluntly said that my sister will miss the flight. They close the gate at 7:00 (for a 7:30 departure) and she would either make it or she wouldn’t. He was rude. Not a great start to my trip to England to encounter a rude English man while still on American soil.

(This is me in the art installation, walking.)

 I wanted to get a higher step count for the day, but not wander too far away, so I hung out around the gate area walking in a circle around an art installation while checking my phone for updates on my sister’s flight. I was too nervous to scrounge for food. I saw that another flight to London, on a different airline, was departing in about 2 hours. Should I try to rebook onto that flight in case she doesn’t make it to this one and gets on that one? Should I just not get on this flight and pretend I missed it, too? They knew I had checked in, so maybe they would hold the door for me if I didn't get on the plane on time. What if I rebook and she does make it and then I’m stuck on a later flight. Not making a decision is the same as making a decision. I paced.

 The boarding started. My sister wasn’t there yet. Group after group was called. I was in group 8, so nearly the last group to board. My sister texted. She had landed and was on the tram between terminals. I had timed the tram while riding on it, and it took 13 minutes. Boarding was scheduled to close in 10 minutes. I didn’t get in line when my group came up and instead went back to the counter to let them know my sister, Cynthia, was a few minutes away. I walked up and said, “I have a question.” “Give me your boarding pass,” the woman behind the counter answered. “I just wanted to ask a question.” She snapped back, “I won’t answer anything without your boarding pass.” I gave her my boarding pass. She ignored me then, tapping away at the computer, until, “You're checked in. Please go through.” “But I wanted to ask a question.” “What?” “My sister is like 2 minutes away. Her flight was late. Will she be able to board?” “Not if she is a minute late. Now get on the plane!” Second rude English person, still not out of the USA.

 I reached the plane. My seat was on the starboard side of the plane and we boarded on the port side. The flight attendant tells me to “go through when I can.” I walk past the first galley walkway, where another flight attendant is working, blocking the passage, and the first flight attendant acts like I’m an idiot, pulling me back to that walkway. Language barrier! When "I can go through" to me means that I’m to continue through the plane until I come to an empty passage. Apparently, it meant to wait for the flight attendant to finish whatever she was doing and go through there. All right, first flight attendant, I know you think I’m an idiot. I’m never seeing you again anyway.

 I found my seat and before I sat down, a woman on the aisle of the center seat sections asked if I wanted to change seats with her, to have an aisle. I tell her as politely as possible that I paid extra for the window seat, so…no. I settled in. The flight isn’t full. The middle seat on my row remained empty. I didn't know if my sister would make it. I considered telling the woman hoping for a window seat that the seat in front of me, my sister’s seat, might be empty. I wondered what I’ll do when I arrive in London alone. How will I get the Heathrow Express ticket to my sister for when she lands the next day, or later in the same day, depending on what happens if she can’t get on the flight? But then, a miracle, she’s standing in the aisle on the flight!

 My sister went up to the same rude people I had encountered and was pleading with them to get on the plane. She finally said something to the effect of, “But my sister’s on the plane!” and they let her through. Oh, yes, they remembered me bugging them. They let her board. Relief! I didn’t have to worry about how we were going to connect up in London. The middle seat in her row was also empty for the whole flight. At least the flight would be a little bit more comfortable than it otherwise might have been with empty seats beside us.

 Each seat back had a screen with something like 140 film options and a few dozen TV show episodes available. I watched Anyone But You - an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing with bad acting and bad writing that still wasn't too bad - and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One - hey, it was long if nothing else - and maybe that was it? I started Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, but had to focus on not vomiting and didn't watch the whole thing. I don't remember if I tried to watch anything else. It was a redeye flight, but I am not great about sleeping on planes. I am great at sitting and doing nothing, though.

 I pre-ordered vegetarian meals, which apparently meant vegan on this leg of my trip. Oops! Of the two entrees they served for regular dinner and breakfast service, one was always just vegetarian, and probably would have tasted better. I was surprised that all of the English-owned travel I did on this trip where a meal was involved, there was always one vegetarian option. Horray! And better than the US is with this. Dinner was soggy and hot zucchini, squash, eggplant and red peppers, frozen bread, water, and a coconut mystery dessert with something yellow in the middle of it. It wasn’t very good. Breakfast was even worse. A breakfast burrito filled with red peppers, cauliflower and spinach. I was incredibly airsick by then, and just the smell of it made me want to vomit. Well done, British Airways, for making disgusting food!

 I tried for about an hour to sleep, but no joy. Because it is spring and we fly toward the north, the window screens were all closed for most of the flight to keep the cabin incredibly dark. But we made it to London.

Fancy That! FauxEver Flowers

 We don't have another episode of The Lola LaRue Variety Show ready yet, but here's a new episode of Fancy That! where the Fancy Lady makes a beautiful faux flower arrangement.

Fancy That! Holiday Inconveniences (2023 special)

 And one more - Fancy That! The Fancy Lady takes calls and helps people work through some of the last-minute inconveniences that pop up so they don't turn into last-minute disasters.

The Lola LaRue Variety Show - Christmas Special 2023

 It was a lot of fun to figure out how to play all of these songs on piano. (Sh. Don't tell Lola she isn't the one playing them.) Just a little holiday cheer.