Saturday, December 6

I’m up early and on the Piccadilly Line to Russell Square. It was a hotel on Russell Square, where I spent my first night in London. The hotel-lined Square is much larger than I remember. The red telephone booths that dot the Square are wall papered with blue-tacked sex industry advertising. The advertising boasts, “No Rush.” One flyer claims to be a “genuine photograph”. Around the corner is the British Museum. I picture sleeping streets and waking lions. A little further on is Tottenham Court Road. It was on Tottenham Court Road where I bought my first camera, the Pentax. I don’t care for today’s digital cameras. They have the personality of a television.

I join Joelle for breakfast before we set off for some window shopping along Sloane Avenue. We ride a packed tube to Notting Hill Gate. The Saturday afternoon crowds in the streets around Portobello Market are thick. After lunch in a pub, we walk to Hyde Park. The Prince Albert Memorial is Romanesque and St. Peter’s-esque. Gold, marble, mosaics, an American buffalo, an Indian elephant, Prince Albert in an Elvis Vegas years cloak. Queen Victoria disapproved and the monument was covered until after her death. Walking through Knightsbridge and the pressing crowds of Harrods we find a supermarket and purchase our evening meal.