TUESDAY, July 2, 9:33 PM

Just a few minutes here before I run off to the restaurant, as part of the evening’s Fraught Attempt to Get Food and Drink. Everything closes at 10:30. Wife and daughter in West End at a play. Everything there closes at 10:30, kitchen earlier. I’m sure there are places that stay open but I’ll be sauced if I can find them, and yes I've interrogated Google Maps AND Apple Maps AND various food guides. So they have to haul it fast up from the theater, which I didn’t want to see because I have train travels to plan, and also because I just didn't feel like sitting in one place for two and a half hours when I could be out and about, Londoning.

Today we had breakfast with Laurie Graham, who surprised Astrid a long time ago by bringing me up out of nowhere, having bought the Gallery of Regrettable Food. Wait a minute, I know him! she'd said. Delightful morning at the Coffee Cup - and I suppose I should give you the lay of the land here, or the city; turn the map around to get an idea of Hampstead.

Sad goodbyes to the Kings, and off to the day’s Museums and walking. Took the shrieking, rattling tube to the National Portrait Gallery, and saw old and new friends.

I think the artist intended a certain person to be the focal point of the painting:

Had to chuckle at the poor fellow whose portrait was commissioned during the narrow period in which surrealism was just the cat's whiskers:

Wikipedia:

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (31 October 1895 – 29 January 1970), commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was a British soldier, military historian, and military theorist. He wrote a series of military histories that proved influential among strategists. Arguing that frontal assault was bound to fail at great cost in lives, as proven in World War I, he recommended the "indirect approach" and reliance on fast-moving armoured formations.

From there we went to Dishoom, the house of heavenly food. Big meal. I don’t know how people eat out all the time here. Or anywhere. It must eat up to 37% of your income. But we are on the grand vacation and you cannot think of such things. I was thinking the other night that the two things that make me flinch a bit in general are a) eating a lot, with desserts and such, and b) spending money, but that's what we've been doing. Constantly. Well, I set aside $ for this, so devil take the hindmost etc.

Next was the Royal Academy, where Laura (Thomas Tank Engine) had a piece in the summer exhibit, but it was 70 pounds for the three of us and while I like her, that’s a no. We toured the permanent exhibition, which consisted of very nice knockoffs.

Da-ad, he’s ruining my pedicure

Covent Garden next, because Wife wanted to see if she could find a nice scarf - and I was keen for that because I could get cup #4 from the Transportation Museum. Which I did. Then they got Pimm’s and watched Wimbledon. I got a big cup of coffee which I regarded with the same rapturous wonder as Dougie Jones, and we watched the game.

Lovely memory already.

From there to the park.

The middle of the city.

Speaking of the city: I kept seeing these.

Post Office and Telegraph. They’re everywhere. They are no longer serving their original purpose entirely - of course the telegraph lines aren’t used, and while the phone lines (I assume they were down there as well) may connecta few land lines, I expect there’s fiber down there now. When I did some research I realized something I hadn’t noticed, simply because I was presented with the city as it was when I first came, and never thought to ask “what’s missing?”

Wires strung up above everywhere. They buried it all.

It gives you a sense of informational delirium to consider what flowed along those telegraph lines. News great and small. A million intentions and questions, leaving no trace. Pulses that contained no information whatsoever until they hit an eardrum and were assembled by a man bent over a machine, scratching out the words with an ink pen.

As long as we're at it, more London shots:

LATER Okay, okay, I found this place.

If the kitchen closes at 10:20, theoretically they could make it, if I ordered at the last possible minute and they got on the tube straight away and there weren’t any delays. Very fraught.

Now, you say, couldn’t you have taken them to the hotel and had them in the lobby? No, the owner closed up the lobby at 9:45 PM.

Yes. He did that. The bar’s supposed to stay open until 10:30 but that’s when the young fellow is running the show; when the owner is there, he gets tired and locks up at 9:45. You have to use the side door to get in and you can’t sit in the lobby and there’s certainly no room in the room.

I had a grousing fit about that this morning, muttering under my breath about the ridiculous dimensions of this place, the cramped spaces, the tiny showers, the narrow halls, all the accumulated OLD PLACES that pen you in. Give me land, lots of land.

UPDATE: As it happened the pizzas were delivered just as they walked in. Perfect!

It's been a grand day. But now . . . it's time to go.

Ah, you ask, but where?

WEDNESDAY, July 3 11:46 AM

On the train. Nice. Slightly more room than the plane, but not by much. None of the bother, too - no TSA or bag check, no stowing your gear, none of that. Takes four times as long, of course. And the coffee machine, they just announced, is broken. Specialty coffees are off. Instant they can do, though.

We woke at eight, and made ready to go. It takes twice as long to evacuate a small room as a large one, because you can’t get both bags out to repack - well, you can, but it reduces the amount of walkable space in the room to four square feet. Had the same breakfast, which was nice - a thin piece of cold ham, a slice of cheese, a croissant, a hard-boiled egg with an oddly grey yolk. Natalie joined us - she’s off today, back to Boston via Heathrow, on her own again. Checked out and rolled our bags down the long street.

Down the lift to the tunnel to the tube, where we were informed that there were delays due to a fire at Charing Cross. Hope it didn’t damage the bookstore, you think. Indeed, we would stop between stations, which always gets the old claustrophobia thoughts up, but not for long. Out and up at Euston, where I bought the tickets. Only checked them in my pocket twice, I’m proud to say.

Waited for the track to be announced, headed off at great speed because we were unreserved, and had bags to stow and contiguous seats to get. Once on the train I was, of course, suspicious we had boarded the right one. Always happens. Always. A red mist of doubt descends the minute I board. I imagine I will be hurled far into the countryside and have to make my way back somehow.

But no: yes. Right train.

LATER And we are stopped because there’s a fire down the line. Also congestion and a downed wire.

Went to the club car to see what wares were available. As I was looking at the items, a woman barges in and blocks my view, head bobbing up and down as she examined the food like a big fat chicken. She selected one, heedless of her place in line, brayed something about wanting wine, was shown the location of the wine, asked if it was two for one, which she found tremendously hilarious, and she looked to me to see if I shared in her recognition of her towering comic skills. I maintained a Keatonface and mentally willed her into the cornfield. She made a few more “funny” remarks, each time looking for my reaction, and each time getting the facial equivalent of the bottom of a skillet. Then she put the wine back because she said she’d be drinking later, ha ha, and no I don’t want a receipt I don’t want to know what I’ve spent ha ha.

Made my way back to my seat through cars that were a bit . . . close, in terms of atmosphere, and noisy. Ours is not the quiet car but it seems to have established a hushed culture, and that’s fine. There are people back there with their lanky loutish limbs sprawled in the aisle, talking loudly, and I’m glad I’m not there.

A sandwich now, and then a nap.

LATER 4:24 PM We’ve been on the train for five hours now. It’s an hour late, due to “a fault with the signaling system in the south,” which is almost like “a problem with the ventilation system in the Heathrow tunnels” - the explanation for shutting down all the tube lines to the airport, just as Daughter was en route. She made it, by bus.

If the train stays a hour late, we get a 100% refund, so there’s that. Less than an hour, 50%. Which is still nice.

I am now at South Lanarkshire, heading towards the first stop on the Fourth Portion of the trip. Looking at a windmill farm out the window, only two turning with their usual slow malevolence. Ruins the scenery.

Next: as interesting as the destination will be, I’m looking forward to a proper sized hotel room. That will be tomorrow. Let's end with the day's voyage in very short form.

Where are we? Ladies and gentlemen, we are in Scotland.

Oh by the way! Still doing these.