England swings like a pendulum do...

Bobbies on bicycles, two by two
Westminster Abbey, the tower of big ben
The rosy red cheeks of the little children.

So sang Roger Miller in 1965. And if it was true 47 years ago it's even more true now! The weather this week looks pretty dreadful and Monday turned out to be the 'least dreadful' day of the lot so we jumped on a train less than a mile from our cottage and headed for London. Below is the Kingham station.

We had to change trains TWICE to get into London so we road on several different types of trains with various paint schemes. (We managed to get a thru-train for the return trip!)

Here's beautiful Paddington Station. It's stunningly beautiful and was built in 1854. Lovely!

Bicycles are locked up by the thousands within the station by commuters so they can grab their bike and pedal to their work each day.

We began by taking the open-top bus tours of London and a boat tour of the Thames; all for one price. To be honest, we saw SCORES of landmarks and I'm not sure what most of them are now from looking at the photos! LOL!

THIS ONE I know- as do all of you: the Clock Tower- home of Big Ben- the 26,000 pound bell that resides inside. To the left is palace of Westminster- all as taken while walking across the Westminster bridge.

This is "The Eye"- a 425' tall Ferris wheel that revolves slowly taking 30 minutes to rotate each of the 25-passenger glass capsules all the way around. The tour guide mentioned it takes in 500,000 pounds daily and the locals refer to it as "The Wheel of Fortune" LOL!

Now these next few photos I want you to examine. The crowds were ASTOUNDING! Everywhere we went was absolutely shoulder-to-shoulder- and this during a rainy Monday when school was still in session. London expects TWELVE MILLION tourists during the Olympic games in August! I can NOT imagine! This was on a 'Bank Holiday' so most offices were closed. One tour guide repeatedly referred to this as 'Sunday' (by mistake) saying, "You wouldn't believe how crowded this area is on a weekday!" Umm... no. I probably wouldn't! JUST the tourists were overwhelming!!!

Actually in looking at the photos now they don't LOOK as busy as they seemed. There were times when the entire roadway was completely obscured by tourists; 1000's of tourists like a swarm of bees.

Those of you who have read the writings of James Herriott or enjoyed the WONDERFUL BBC television series about his life will remember that Mrs. Pumphrey would regularly send a hamper of luxurious foods to James Herriott to thank him for his services. The hampers arrived NOT from Mrs. Pumphrey herself, but in the name of her spoiled dog Tricki Woo. The hampers came from Fortnum and Mason and James Herriott was expected to WRITE Tricky Woo (NOT Mrs. Pumphrey) a thank you note each time! Here's the famous store.

As we returned (via famous London taxi) to Paddington Station to begin the ride back to Kingham we grabbed a pasty for a snack. (Note- we also had our first round of 'Fish & Chips' while near the Tower of London! YUMMY!) Jane was enchanted by the many pigeons in the terminal who would walk up to your very toes in search of crumbs. They reminded her (of course!) of Angelo and also the book/movie of Hugo Cabret where the pigeons were in the French train terminal. In fact the architecture of Paddington station looks quite French actually.

We bought a couple of Paddington Bear books at Paddington station of course.

We also toured the Tower of London dating from 1066 where Henry VIII kept his various wives until their beheadings. BUT... it was so STAGGERINGLY crowded we actually quit 1/3 of the way through the Tower. You were surrounded, toe to heel and shoulder to shoulder by THOUSANDS of jostling tourists and could barely shuffle an inch or two at a time. What was billed as a 3-hour tour would have taken 8 hours or more I'm sure. For anyone with anxiety issues it would have been impossible!! It was made all the more challenging because there were 100 languages being spoken on every side of you LOUDLY as people tried to be heard over one another amidst the chaos! LOL!

Later we hopped off a bus and ran into Harrods department store. It was an almost UNREAL experience. Again- mobbed by crowds but something more- far more. I'm not even sure how to describe it and I'm seldom at a loss for words.

On the one hand, Jane and I consider ourselves reasonably 'cosmopolitan'- having traveled extensively in America and much of Canada for 30 years. We love Thai food and sushi and have stayed in some very nice hotels from time to time. We know just enough about wines to be dangerous. We live in comfortable homes and drive used, though semi-luxurious cars. (On the other hand- we ARE from Missouri and we both grew up in VERY middle-class families- at best.) We love Andy Griffith, barbecue and Silver Dollar City, just to balance the picture.

But what we saw in Hyde Park and SoHo and Picaddilly and what we experienced in Harrods made us feel like two Amish kids dropping in for tea with Queen Elizabeth and the Sultan of Brunei! We were SO FAR out of our league as to be laughable!!

We saw things we could never have imagined. EVERYWHERE you looked there were Roll's Royces' Bentleys, Ferraris and Aston Martins. People were wearing multi-thousand dollar outfits EVERYWHERE! We're talking $1000 purses, $1000 boots, $1000 cashmere pashminas, $10,000 watches, the list goes on. These were "beautiful people" from France, from China, from the Middle East and who knows where. Every bizarre make-up trend, every bizarre hair-do, every Paris fashion style you've EVER seen was there and as common as blue jeans and a t-shirt in Wal-Mart.

These people were WAY BEYOND glamorous. We're talking TRULY EXOTIC! Even the Harrod employees looked like they were dressed to walk a Paris fashion runway. I don't think we could POSSIBLY have felt more out of place if we had shown up naked for lunch with Prince William and Kate!

It was MIND-BLOWING to see people walking around (1000's of people!) wearing outfits that cost more than a new Mercedes, driving cars that cost more than a new 3000-square foot home. And these weren't a handful- they were the majority in these certain areas!! CRAZY!! Now admittedly these are the areas where people like Elton John, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Thatcher and Sean Connery live! (We saw each of their homes, btw and FWIW, J.K.Rowling's was the most magnificent! LOL!)

So to be honest- the level of exotic wealth and fashion- and the density of the crowds made us both feel a bit overwhelmed. Getting back to quiet little Kingham felt wonderful! AND... I think driving around in the Cotswolds with their ridiculously narrow roads may not seem AS intimidating after seeing the utter CHAOS that was London traffic!!!

That said- now we have a better sense of the great city of London. (Which is wall-to-wall buildings and people and frankly almost impossible to get a 'big picture' feel for because you're in canyons of tall buildings everywhere and suddenly UP POPS Buckingham Palace with no warning and then UP POPS the Victoria and Albert or St Paul's between a tall office building, a luxury hotel and an Indian curry shop!!)

Another word about London which surprised me greatly. New York City seems to me to be simple and logically laid out with the 12 or 13 avenues running from the the Hudson to the East River. Lengthwise it simply counts numerically from Battery Park in ever-higher numbers toward Harlem. The financial district is at one end, the most chichi stores are along 5th avenue, we know where Central Park lies down the central spine, etc.

London was MUCH more confusing to me with no visible plan in sight. I guess because the city is a 1000-years-older than New York and rambles along the wandering Thames river. Important sites are on both sides of the river and variously located utterly randomly and the roads themselves (like the rest of England it seems) have no visible means of organization-- just curving streets that intersect in 1000 different ways at 1000 different odd angles which leaves you with absolutely no sense of direction.

And as I said, because it's so old and so built-up things are tucked in from every side. Somehow, for instance, I thought Buckingham Palace would be... well... palatial! I thought it would sit surrounded by grassy approaches rather like the White House in Washington. As you see the White House from from the National Mall you can see all the way from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial and the nations most historic sites are all spread out and visible from a great distance.

NOT SO in London! As I mentioned earlier you're going past apartment after hotel after restaurant after office building and there next door is an old, old building. Lo and behold that old, old building is Buckingham palace; an island of royalty surrounded by a city pressing in on every side. The same was true of the British National Museum, and every other major site. Very strange compared to the rather modern and youthful America.

So we'll go back another time or two via train. NEXT time we'll avoid the buses and simply take a London Taxi (quick, comfortable, QUIET and not outrageously expensive) and ZIP directly to the British Museum  or whatever landmark we want to explore in a few hours. Note- several of these museums and galleries feature up to a million objects! No, really! So you're not going to "see the museum" but rather pick a time period or area and explore for a few hours.

So that's our new strategy: Slip by train, zip by Taxi, tour and rip out of town. (Slip-Zip-Rip) We're going to try to NOT wear our overalls or our plaid shirts and work boots- but we have no hope of looking any dressier than jeans and a sweater in a world of silk and wool, gold and diamonds.

(NOTE- Jane observed last night that in most of the more touristy locations the crowds were not dressed any nicer than we were- there were just LOTS OF THEM. And that's true. But in the theater district and some of Hyde Park, in SoHo and Piccadilly you are among people who live in these areas and shop at Harrods as their local purveyor of everything from cosmetics to books to garden tools. A WHOLE different crowd! I suppose it would be no different than wandering in Beverly Hills or along Rodeo Drive.

We came away feeling a bit the opposite of the old song, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree'?" We felt more like "How ya gonna lure 'em back into town, after they've come from Missouree'?" LOL!

We've ventured out into a MUCH LARGER WORLD than we honestly knew existed... and it was a bit overwhelming to be honest.