The Saturday before Christmas

Shopping and a show in London. No better way for the Hunter family to celebrate than with a pre-Christmas gift to ourselves. Chip might have done without the shopping but being the big daddy of a houseful of women, he's always a good sport about going along and holding the bags. We love him for that, truly.





The Big Man in the Red Suit made his way around the Oxford train station, as the Helen and Douglas Charity Foundation handed out mince pies and mulled wine for travelers coming and going. It is awfully nice to come out from the shadows and publicly acknowledge this very big holiday that's kind of washed out in America with all sorts of inclusive winter imagery, very blatantly ignoring the giant elephant in the room with the fur trimmed, red hat. Who wants to celebrate wind and snow and ice without the promise of gifts? Christmas is a day our particular family celebrates mostly in our hearts with family traditions of cookie making and gift giving and merry making of all kinds. There's a little church mixed in because it's only right to acknowledge the little six pound, eight ounce baby Jesus, as Ricky Bobby would agree. In America, it's all about "winter celebration"....I get it, but I don't really care to celebrate winter--it's very cold and dark and a little depressing. So, Christmas tree, carolers, twinkling lights, Father Christmas and free wine in the train station were ok by us.







Our destination was John Lewis, one of the huge, traditional department stores in London. We had to go there because their television commercials have been so awesome--slaves to the advertising industry, we are. We bought some ornaments, a few gifts and some clothing before heading out on what was a very mild day, down Regent Street, passing Hamleys, the famous toy store ("the finest toys in the world" by their report) and being sucked in the doors by the crowd. Like earthbound starlings, we ebbed and flowed with whatever actions were initiated ahead of us. The flock sucked us past the teddies, the dollies and the various store employees set up like circus barkers, demonstrating the latest toys. As you can see, the little boys were enthralled with a clunking disaster of a toy that lit up, changed direction and made horrible noise like a demonically possessed moon rover. Thankfully, the crowd surged ahead and we were belched out onto the street in short order, our feet never having really touched the floor.





We proceeded down the street to the West End for a comedy show by Bill Bailey. I can't describe him except to say you should google him and you tube him. He was quintessentially British and laugh out loud funny. Eddie Izzard, probably the only guy funnier than Bill and doing his own show half a block away, sat five rows behind us laughing his head off just like the rest of the audience. His own show was scheduled just thirty minutes after our show ended. But hey, I guess it's a job and when you're not working, you go out and have fun like everyone else.




After the show, dinner at Cafe Emm in Soho. Lots of merry making in this very crowded restaurant; fun and loud and food average to pretty good. Olivia and Allison have dined out enough times to have a sixth sense about restaurants, steering Chip and I away from "experiences" in search of fun. Chip and I have dined out enough to almost ruin it for ourselves with the maximizing of the food experience. The girls have a special withering look reserved for restaurant picking, with flared nostrils and squinted eyes, unveiled when faced with a potential restaurant choice that has zero curb appeal...a loser restaurant if you will. They don't overthink it. If a restaurant is empty, has no ketchup on the tables (in their word, "fancy") or serves dishes with ingredients like lemongrass, it is likely sucky. TGI Fridays and Chilis, by this definition, are good restaurants so there is a balance to be struck. But the shared decision is important because they are right more than they are wrong. It's not all about the food when all you eat is chicken fingers and hamburger and you think everyone is watching you. Have we been misled all these years by the priorities of food critics? Are Chip and I losers? Don't answer, we already know.

The Les Mis experience

Ally's birthday request was to see a show in London and she chose Les Mis. For my part, although I've seen it once before, I started crying by the second song and stayed weepy until intermission. I pulled it together until Eponine took one for the Revolution. I could feel the giant drops hitting my blouse again. Occasionally, Chip would reach over and pat my knee because he figured I was crying. Generally, he was correct. It's tragic and epic and getting caught up in the story is part of the fun. Even the ensuing headache that comes with holding back the full blown sobs is almost worth it. It's just like the Steel Magnolias or the Brian's Song headache. I wish they had a little cigarette girl who came around at intermission and sold Advil.



After the show, we strolled Camdentown while waiting for our dinner companions. Excellent bargains, for the very young and hip of course.





A nod to my friend Nina. I can't take pictures of food like she does, but we went for pizza at Marine Ices in Chalk Farm. Sprinted to Paddington with three minutes to spare for the last train to Oxford. Tomorrow, we worship the birthday girl. Better get my rest.

Musings on a day trip to London

Tate Modern

London school girls at the public installation, TH.2058 by Dominique Gonzales-Foerster

St Paul's, late afternoon

Parliament across the Thames

Ode to moms and dads trapped by little kids. A day in London alone. Your day is coming. I am your future and it is good. Latte and pain au chocolate in hand, you board a bright and quiet train full of grown-ups dressed in suits, grab a seat by the window and sit down to read the paper at high speed as you whiz through green fields full of animals and small towns that turn bigger as you approach London. You gaze out the window, review your guide book, critique the foundation makeup of the woman in the seat ahead (tan plaster of Paris is closest description) and even engage in political conversation with your EU seat mate who sees your guidebook. He's surprised and interested that you have already voted and ask "Do you think he'll win?"

You arrive on the banks of the Thames admiring how busy and working the river seems, eventually arriving abruptly on a tree grove doorstep that initially blocks the giant facade of an old gigantic factory that is now the Tate Modern Art Museum. Once inside, you spend a few hours reacquainting with that former self that had intelligent, original and most importantly, sequential thoughts. An art museum is like a giant cocktail party. You look for familiar friends first, maybe Magritte, Gris, Monet and Matisse, Calder and Oldenburg, to catch up, reminisce and laugh about the old days. Strengthened by familiarity, you move to challenge yourself and do the adult thing by meeting some new people, like Kleita, a West African photographer whose bedspread-back dropped black and white portraits of West Africans make his subjects look like kings and queens and Mark Ofili, a contemporary artist of the last ten years, whose No Woman, No Cry collage grabs you when you walk into the room.

The depressed and/or suicidal guys, Rothko and Bacon, are the cool guys but not great for the chit chat, likewise Lichtenstein and Warhol... always so cool but everybody always hanging around them...ugh, forget it. You'll never get close, keep moving. Munch surprises with a touchingly heartbreaking painting of a sick child that is also, for a breath of fresh air, not The Scream and you think maybe you have always avoided him at parties unnecessarily. You wander, alighting here and there, acclimating to the hip scene that always welcomes you back. Inevitably, as at any party, you briefly get trapped by some seriously dreadful, scary people like the Vienna Actionists from the 1960s, and American artist, Paul McCarthy. Their video work is literally nauseating and you're pretty confident that it isn't art just because they say so-you head directly for the wine.

Lunch!

What you will not want to do at the end of the long day, is attempt to move out of the bike lane to turn in the dark on your bike. Do not do that. Although it is kind of cool to know double deckers can swerve, it cannot be counted upon. God bless the bus drivers.

Unrelated but needing mention, I must recommend two movies that I saw today. Brad Pitt is HILARIOUS in Burn After Reading and Zac Efron truly brings it in HSM 3. Two thumbs up on both movies. If the Oxford audience is any indication of popularity, HSM 3 is going to make a trillion billion dollars. I haven't seen the likes of this kind of participation since everyone cheered when E.T. flew off on the bicycle. It's an evening full of dancing, singing and cheering... and that's just the audience. Badum bum.

Camden Market, North London

On Saturday, we took a day trip to London to see the Corys before they returned to the U.S. I made a new rule (I am so good at that but it does come back to bite me) that the girls must do one cultural thing every time we go to London, so we started our day at the Natural History Museum. There was a time in my life when I liked to take my children to learn interesting things about the Earth. Apparently that time has passed. We spent way too much time in the geology exhibit, is all I can say. I am secure enough to say that I haven't found information about the planet or stuffed mammals interesting since about fourth grade. Sure, I fondled the obsidian and looked through the microscopes and pushed buttons to find out facts about volcanoes, but more because it's a museum that allows touching without being yelled at. That has been a problem for me in the past and it's mortifying, especially when you don't know you are leaning on the artifact. I think it is more fun to go around natural history museums with little kids, and I did mention to my family that I would not be returning to a natural history museum until I am a grandparent. They looked at me as they always do...with weariness and boredom. I became very discouraged in the human biology exhibit where we played interactive memory games to learn about our brain biology. I totally have early onset dementia.

The Camden Market is fabulous for the young folks. It's a bit of a hike on the Tube but it was worth it. Olivia and Ally had a great time shopping the stalls for overpriced, poorly made and yet darling garments while Anne and I carried the bags, bought them water and made encouraging remarks, like "That is so cute." and "It's your money, do what you want." It was insanely crowded so after an hour or two, we took our leave to a more civilized part of London, near Carnaby Street. There we located Liberty, a really unique and beautiful department store. As Anne is an avid knitter, she wanted some English yarn as a souvenir to work into a scarf for herself--a very nice way to remember her trip, I think. The great thing about haberdashery is there are lots of chairs for knitters, which we used to park our surly teens and bags while looking for yarn. Chip and Pat missed all the fun, in favor of a football match. We parted at Liberty with hugs all around, a fitting place for Americans to say goodbye. Liberty and justice and shopping for all.