Quips from Kay

 This is the last I am going to write about this trip. On Sept. 10th we took a taxi to Gare Du Nord, the same train station where we had arrived on the Eurostar. Bear in mind that the French, especially Parisians, are not particularly helpful to travelers but with clever guesswork we did manage to buy tickets to the Charles de Gaulle Airport. I am leaving out many details about this trip to the airport but it did involve a lot of clever guesswork on our part in order to find the correct train. The return flight to the U.S. was fairly good except that the woman next to me, although nice, was rather large and her hip and buttocks lapped over into my space...sort of like being a Siamese twin. Upon arriving in Dallas I realized that I had "community acquired pneumonia" and that was causing me to be absolutely miserable. We landed about 30 minutes late which caused all sorts of delays along the route. My 5:30 p.m. flight was cancelled and I was booked to leave at 10:30 so I spent ...

 On Sept.8th, we left Waterloo Station on the Eurostar train to Paris. This involved traveling through the "Chunnel" under the English Channel which I expected to be rather terrifying...but it wasn't. If you don't dwell on the fact that you are traveling in a heavy piece of machinery under tons of ocean water, it won't bother you. It was fast and comfortable and we arrived at the Paris train station with no problems. My son had a friend who had an apartment near the Eiffel Tower and that was where we had planned to stay. However, it was on the third floor and the building had no elevator and ol' ma' can't climb stairs so we found a hotel information kiosk and the lady there found one "fairly near" the opera. As mentioned before "near" can be anywhere from three blocks to a mile. She found a room for us at the Monterosa, a small, unpretentious little place with a tiny but comfortable room and nice bathroom. At least we wouldn't h...

 On September 7th, 2007 we left for Hampton Court, the palace Henry VIII stole from Cardinal Wolsey when he saw how nice it was. It is an amazing place...huge is the best way to describe it. This is where he was when he decided to get rid of Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. The king's chambers are on one side of the castle and the queen's on the other. For me the most fascinating part of the castle was the kitchens. Each type of food has its own large room and , of course, they each have a fireplace for cooking. There were quite a number of people for whom the cooks had to prepare meals each day. This is a mural which runs along a staircase going to living quarters. We wandered all around the upstairs and found out later that we weren't supposed to be there. Glad no one noticed because I would hate to be locked up in one of their dungeons. Just had to show you the public toilets even though these are not at Hampton Court. Beats the hell out of our Port-a-potties, ...

 Today I am writing about our activities on September 5th, 2007, in case you forgot the time period. After a proper English breakfast, which, in case you don't know, usually includes just about everything one can find in the kitchen, we left for Bath and Oxford. There really are baths there but we couldn't see inside of them. They do have beautiful parks and the river is spectacular.    After Bath we went on to Oxford where my son-in-law got his doctorate in quantum physics. (I can barely spell that, let alone understand what it is) He had reservations for us at Buford House BnB on Banbury Road, where we rested a few minutes and then took a tour of that famous city, going to the flea market and a pub where he used to hang out. We went to a covered market where they have stalls and shops offering all sorts of fresh and organic food. There were no huge chain stores represented there, only father and son businesses. (or maybe mother and daughter) The next day we headed to th...

 Go back to England with me today. After a much needed rest from our London adventure, we took off for Padstow in Cornwall. My son-in-law drove us in his sporty little convertible on this wonderful sight-seeing trip, starting out on the super M-3 highway. It was during this drive that I learned that a speed limit is just a suggestion for him because he drove about 90 to 100 mph the whole time we were on that highway. We did turn off onto smaller roads, some only one narrow lane riding jam up against the trimmed hedgerows. It was rather terrifying at times but really beautiful. We saw the pastoral scenes that I have always read about and seen in movies. We also sped by Stonehenge! We arrived at the seacoast town of Padstow and went to my son-in-law's aunt's house where she operates a very casual BnB. The interesting house was built in 1780. She had a room for me on the 2nd floor, which is the 1st over here. Our first floor is called the street floor over there. Anyway, you proba...

 Guess I should tell you what we did on our first full day of visit with my daughter in Esher. We decided to see the City of London and its environs so we left their home about 9:00 a.m. We took a taxi to the train station, bought our tickets and were told to "form an orderly" queue", which we did. Do you suppose we would have been tempted to be disorderly? We got to Waterloo Station and caught an underground "tube" to Trafalgar Square where we bought a tour ticket for "The Big Bus" so that we could really see London. It was a double-decker and we sat up top in the open air and listened to the prattle of the tour guide who spent most of the time telling us about Charles V's beheading and other gory goings-on.  We did get to see many famous sites and it was great. We got off the bus near Harrod's---I have learned that "near" or "only a few " over here generally means a looongg walk. We had an uninteresting lunch across the s...

I sat myself down here today to write something dramatic or at least entertaining but nothing is forthcoming. I reread my previous writings and quite enjoyed them. I hope my few readers did as well.  Not a lot is going on now. We are still trying to to come to grips with this pandemic thing and just about the time we think we've got it under control, they find something else to panic us with. (My English teacher in high school said we should not end a sentence with a dangling participle like "with". I doubt many know what a participle is now, let alone why it shouldn't dangle) Come to think of it, that sounds a bit obscene. Ah, but as usual, I digress .I came across the one where I wrote about my trip with my son to visit my daughter in England. This is not exciting but it's a little different. I checked in at American Airlines in San Antonio two hours before my flight was scheduled to leave. When I got to the gate I learned my flight was delayed and most of the p...