Sunday in London

  London, England, United Kingdom
Monday, May 12, 2008

This morning Dr. Kirkpatrick called my room at 8:00 and said he'd been sick during the night and didn't feel up to going into London. We had arranged to meet John-Ross Schroeder in front of the Ritz hotel near Green Park, so that we could take an open top bus tour of London. John-Ross is a long-time employee and now elder of the Church, a Texan who has lived in the UK for the last 25 years or so. He's one of our most steady and talented editorial researchers and writers, and a good friend as well. I tried to reach him so that we could discuss the plan, but he had already left home and couldn't be reached on his cell phone. So I made the trip in to London and met him right on time. He'd had quite a time getting to London from his home north of the city. The British rail system tends to do maintenance on Sundays, so there are often delays, cancellations or reroutings that day.
 
I arrived a few minutes early and walked over to Green Park to have a look. The unseasonably warm and sunny day meant that the park was already crowded; the city of London through the day was increasingly filled with residents out in summer clothes, eager to take advantage of the weather. John arrived right on time and as he hadn't had breakfast yet, we decided to have a cup of coffee at that quintessential British café institution: Starbucks.... We caught up on news of family and friends, discussed the situation in the Church in the UK and various editorial matters as well.
 
We walked by Piccadilly Circus,

Piccadilly Circus on Sunday morning

and over through Leicester Square.

Leicester Square

I showed him the building just off the square, on Cranbourne Street, which housed the Church's first office in London. My father had worked there in the mid-1950s.

John-Ross, the first Church office, Cranbourne St

Then we looked at some of the used bookstores on nearby streets. Most of them were not yet open, but we found one open earlier than the others, and both of us found interesting books at good prices and picked up one each.  We strolled slowly through the streets of London until by noon we had reached Fleet Street, which used to be the center of the British newspaper industry. Most have moved out of this area now, but Fleet Street is still synonymous with newspapers. I invited John for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in London: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Located in an alley just off Fleet Street, the pub and restaurant is located in one of the few buildings that survived the Great London Fire of 1666.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

Dr. Samuel Johnson lived around the corner in Gough Square and often ate here. Johnson was a brilliant 18th century essayist who is said to be the most quoted Englishman ever, after Shakespeare.  He said things like "It is better to live rich than to die rich", "A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him," "Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble" and "As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly" to quote just a few.
 
The Cheshire Cheese is paneled with old nearly black wood and is wonderfully atmospheric. It's not expensive either (by London standards where everything is expensive!). John-Ross had a leg of lamb and I had a cheese plate - England too has wonderful cheeses.

John-Ross Schroeder at lunch

We had a very enjoyable lunch and then it was time for John to head back home. I decided I would walk to the Paddington train station from where I could get the Heathrow express back to the airport, and from there a shuttle to the hotel. On the map it didn't look like too long a walk, but in reality it took more than two hours. The exercise was welcome and it was a beautiful day to be out and watching the Londoners, and tourists. I walked by Hyde Park, and Marble Arch, and later by the pleasant Notting Hill area which was the location of the movie by the same name starting Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. I strolled by Portobello Road which I remembered from the film and then on finally to Paddington Station. The Heathrow Express only takes 15 minutes to reach Heathrow, from where I took the "Hotel Hoppa" back to our hotel.
 
Dr. K. still wasn't well enough to go out to Windsor for dinner with the Hawkins as we'd planned, so we decided to eat at the hotel in stead so that he could join us.  We had a very pleasant dinner with enjoyable conversation, and then said our goodbyes. Peter will be coming to our annual GCE meeting this year so we'll see him again in a few days, but Sonja won't be able to join him this year.
 
We won't make a late night of it again as tomorrow will be another long travel day.