For whatever reason I was wide awake at 2am, then slept in until 8:30. My plan was to go back to the V&A followed by the Natural History Museum. Crossing my fingers I’d have enough energy left.

That was the plan. Here’s how it turned out.

I bagged this visit to V&A and went shopping. Don’t judge. I’ve wanted to find sources for baguettes, good tea, and chocolate, plus stock my hotel mini fridge with butter and jam since the day I got here. The place I grabbed milk on day one was a dingy, cramped joint in a tube station that reminded me of a gas station Quik Stop.

After some frisking of Google maps, I realized I’ve been trudging past what I needed every time I walked to and from the British Museum. Somehow I had the impression that Covent Garden was just pricey cafés and tourist trinkets. I am so glad to be so wrong. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still pricey, but it has the goods.

I followed my Google map to the end of the rainbow; Le Pain Quotidien. Fabulous. The baguettes were still warm. I splurged on mini sandwich rolls (chicken/bacon/cheese, roasted vegetables, smoked salmon/ cucumber) and a pear upside-down tart (a sort of spice cake with pears). That was lunch and dinner sorted. Purchased shampoo at a parfumerie, salted caramel chocolates at Hotel Chocolate, and sachets of Earl Grey Imperial at Mariage Frères. YOLO. Picked up butter, sugar, prosciutto, apples, and bananas at a lovely Sainsburys.  

Back at the hotel, I ate a sandwich and called Uber. By two o’clock I was making my way into the magnificent building that houses the National History Museum. I meandered around until 5pm, with one break to draw. The pleasure in viewing a wide range of life forms was tempered by the constant reminder of species on the brink of extinction, along with those we have already wiped out.

I’m thinking they can add mirrors and can put humanity on that list, given the damage we are doing to the planet’s ecosystem.

The dinosaur section was more Jurassic Park than Paleontology, thanks to animatronics and moody lighting.

Elsewhere the overhead suspension of immense articulated skeletons is oddly elegant. The building itself is truly glorious. The vast entry hall is a space so grand it accommodates a blue whale skeleton with ease.

Elsewhere, the display of whales, dolphins, and sharks in midair offers a snorkel-eye view of sea creatures.

The amphibians and turtles were well represented. First hairy frog I ever saw.

The mineralogy wing features rows of the original 1881 oak display cabinets and is filled with light and calm. That’s priceless in a museum swarming with excitable tykes and restive school groups. There’s a section of precious gemstones of unusual size, which doesn’t blow my skirt up, but the Martian meteor that glittered like fool’s gold is as close to outer space as I’ll ever be.

I stayed until closing time, called Uber, and was back at the hotel by 6. Put together dinner from the supplies I bought this morning.
Now I’m yawning. Going to stay up until 10:30, then lights out. Tomorrow is the Virtual Veronese tour at the National, and if the weather is fair, a visit to the Lambeth Palace gardens and adjacent garden museum.

Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature. Nice title and that’s what I expected: a nice, polite exhibition. I didn’t expect to feel profoundly moved. But the familiar drawings and stories called up memories of listening to my daddy tell me bedtime stories about adventurous rabbits, with a whoosh of feeling safe and warm and cared for and loved.

The exhibit is geared to appeal to ‘little rabbits’ with a glowing mousehole at floor level, drawers of objects with PLEASE TOUCH signs, and scampering mice shadows.

TIL: it wasn’t all floofy bunnies. Miss Potter was curious about all creatures great and small. She drew and painted bats and terrapins, and she was particularly enamored with fungi. Her walking stick had a built-in magnifier for examining details of the natural world.

Miss Potter also drew on the postcards she sent, collected a treasure trove of objects she used in her illustrations, included her grandmother’s cane chair in the miniature world she created. She had no use for the limiting expectations of society for a woman of her social class, left 4,000 acres of bucolic landscape to the National Trust, and coaxed a dwindling breed of sheep back from the brink of extinction. In many ways, she was far ahead of her time. Did I mention she loved dogs?

The finale of the exhibit immersed the visitor in Beatrix Potter’s world with a floor-to-ceiling video loop of her beloved lake district. It spoke to the nature lover and knitter in me. Well played, V&A. Well played.

It was noon and time for a light lunch of Winter Quiche and Caeser salad.

Really, why would you eat anywhere else?

I was working my way down the hall of sculpture when Truth and Falsehood, by Alfred Stevens, stopped me in my tracks. Truth in the act of tearing out the forked tongue of Falsehood. Sign me up.

This couple’s funerary monument. I can imagine the sculptor murmuring to the client ‘something that suggests eternal rest, perhaps?’

Wandered through another section, I found some delicious Indian works on paper and many fascinating small works, like this woman with a hawk.

My eye was also caught by this drawing of a lapidary drilling a hole in a gemstone.

I find myself more interested in images of people in the act of working than lushly attired royalty striking a pose. Not that I don’t adore embroidery and rich fabric. I’d just rather see the seamstress and tailor working on it than the monarch wrapped up in it. The needlework on display here is a whole other realm of delight, but that will have to wait until tomorrow

I’ll end with this bit of bonsai magic in the inner courtyard. Someone has got kickass pruning skills

Back tomorrow.

Walking along the street is nearly as interesting as the curated exhibits. 

• Don’t know what they are selling but I like the vibe, dear stranger.

• Redemption is always welcome.

• It’s spring, by golly.

• There’s more than one Queen in this town.

• Before there was Harry Potter, there was this.

Back to the business at hand… it was another fulfilling morning at the British Museum, the first hour spent examining the Parthenon marbles. Details like this carefully rendered underside of a rider’s foot.

Or this fight between a Lapith and a Centaur. Not sure how any man can look at this without wincing. I call this round for the centaur.

I drifted around a leaf on the tide of humanity streaming through the rooms until I alighted in the main hall in front of a massive lion.
I sketched him until noon, then broke for lunch in the Member’s Room. Cheese and pickle, on a seeded baguette. Toasted. I am so spoiled.

Afterward, I turned left into the rooms dedicated to the Enlightenment. One of the exhibits noted that the founding collection was funded by a fortune reaped from that stain on the soul of humanity, the Slave Trade. More ironic than an anvil.

I ended up on a bench in front of a marble sculpture of Cupid. A charming figure, though far from subtle (note the object next to cupid’s leg). More sketching ensued.

Headed back to the hotel to meet my daughter Emily, coincidentally here touring with her band, Dehd. She Ubered over after wrapping a promo photoshoot. Check out their latest release.

Tomorrow, the Beatrix Potter exhibition at the Victoria & Albert.

I’ll draw a veil over the rigors of the overnight journey from home that culminated in an arrival day that’s still a blur. Let’s just say no one is immune from bad luck, random disappointments, and unforseen difficulties. Instead, I’m starting with the morning I woke up in the city of London. Coincidentally, the English turned the clock forward, so the whole city probably felt jet-lagged. I found a fine coffee shop with an excellent brew and convivial atmosphere just up the block, but the bus route I’d scouted was unavailable due to road closures so instead, I walked. The sky was blue, the air fresh and cool, the traffic minimal. The streets pretty much reeked of charm in the early morning. Pots of spring flowers bloomed in front of homes and shops alike. All along the way, I noted places I want to come back to.

I passed a man walking along reading a hardcover book he held out in one hand. I discreetly gawked, but how different is it from reading an iPhone while you walk, as every other person is doing?

The line in front of the British museum stretched for blocks, but it moved very quickly once underway.

Inside, I began with the dimly lit and hushed experience of the Stonehenge exhibit. I was captivated by the 3D print of oxen skeletons, the bones rotated upright, illustrated with CG. So extra. What an ingenious way to display this find. It rouses the imagination.

More than the collection of stone ax heads, flint arrowheads, and jumbled carnage of bones from an ancient battlefield, I was moved by the skeletal remains of this woman. She was buried tenderly holding her infant in a sling.

Afterward I dallied with the Greeks and Romans, and spent quality time with mosaics.

The Egyptian wing echoed with the sounds of children talking and laughing, raucous as a schoolyard recess. Cheerful but, whoa, loud. As a member of the British Museum, (oh yes, yes I am), I was given access to the Member’s Room, a calm oasis with a cafe, library, and WiFi that I took full advantage of.A welcome discovery was the area of floor-to-ceiling books and cabinets of curiosities was relatively serene and even possessed an unexpected sense of humor.

A kind woman took a photo for me in front of a wall of mosaic. I assumed Covid had put an end to such courtesies but happily I was wrong.

Earlier than I would have liked, my eye and feet gave out and I limped back to my hotel. The empty streets of the morning were thronging, but not unpleasantly jammed.

Tomorrow it’s back to the British Museum, this time to linger over objects that caught my eye, and to discover new ones. Sketching may be involved.

After I straightened out the credit card glitch, I spent a few hours locking in entry tickets to museums and tours. I didn’t anticipate the layer of anxiety choosing a time would be. What if I’m tired? What if I get lost en route? What if I am captivated by a particular exhibit and don’t want to move on? What if I’m drawing and lose track of time?
In the end, I erred on the side of simplicity and booked one venue a day. If I have the energy for more, I can walk up and hope there’s a ticket available. I’ll also make a list of unticketed things to do. All bakeries deserve a visit. Ditto gardens in fair weather. I have multiple audio walking tours on a Dickensian theme downloaded to my phone. Meandering along the Serpentine is always a fine choice. Sadly, I’ll miss the annual Swan Upping since it’s a July event.

It’s like building a 3-D jigsaw puzzle: where to go to see which exhibits at what time, divided into length of trip, subdivided by time of day, minus days of the week venues are closed plus extended hours on certain days, and prioritized by desire.

The size of the venue and depth of the collection figures in – the V&A requires multiple times the visits of the Wallace, the Soanes multiple times the visit than the Foundling Museum. There’s the strategy of visiting obscure museums on the weekends when the major museums are swamped. Sunny days for outdoor walking tours, gardens, and street markets (happily, rain and cold never factor inside the museums). Proximity counts; locations near each other are the first choice to add in if time and stamina allow.

All the factors affect each other. Once all the facts are gathered, intuition and multiple-choice play a part. Here’s how it breaks down.

• List all the places you might want to visit. Cast a wide net
• Plug them into a document with their addresses, days, opening closing times, and websites.
• List in order of desire. Desire is highly idiosyncratic. Maybe you want full immersion in a single museum multiple days in a row, or maybe you’d like multiple venues you’ve never visited before. Follow your bliss.
• Make a bespoke Google map with the addresses.
• Make a trip day-by-day calendar.
• Plug in venues on each day by desire, proximity, and visit time – thats your rough itinerary, a starting point for negotiations if you will.
• Start booking your timed entry slots online (this is new since Covid and I’m finding it a more irksome constraint than I anticipated).

This is where I ran into the first big hitch in my get-along. The first two days I wanted for the V&A were shown as fully booked. Huh. I swapped them for the British Museum.

Then I hit a wall. My AmEx and my Visa were declined by The Courtauld (day booking) and the British Museum (membership). After several frustrating go-rounds, I called Amex. The chipper customer service person assured me my card was valid. I emptied my cache and tried again. Declined. I typed in each number instead of auto-populate. No good. What the what? I know for a fact they accept international credit cards. The customer service rep, equally baffled, tried to book a ticket using her own card and no dice. Her final advice was to email or call the museums, explain the issue and ask for help.

I sent a plaintive, polite email to the British Museum asking for their help resolving this, complete with screenshot of my Visa and AmEx being declined. What on earth could be going on? I have no plausible guess. Maybe there’s some kind of ransomware situation? I can’t even.

Other places – Westminster Cathedral, St Paul’s, The National Gallery – are a week out from releasing tickets for the days I want. I’m going to set this aside until then. Fingers crossed they’ve fixed the glitch by then.

Let’s see. What have I missed? Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year x 2. I think that covers it. *

After two years of ducking into the storm cellar with every new variant and surge, I’m going to London at the end of March. Not exactly the trip I originally planned – three weeks instead of six, one city instead of three – but after reviewing the venues and exhibitions, I am fired up and feeling lucky.

Between turning the front yard into a cottage garden and raising the cutest puppy on four paws, I’ve been fully occupied and safe as it is possible to be.

Time to revisit the daily itinerary, double-check the current status of venues, and book those timed-tickets.

*That line is a quote from a dear Canadian friend.

As February turned into March, and rumors of illness grew to pandemic proportions, I went through the classic stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

For a (foolishly long) time I assured myself and my family that I could safely travel with the precaution of wearing a face mask on the plane and using hand sanitizer. My family became more vocal about their opposition, the numbers of sick and dying skyrocketed, and two weeks before I was scheduled to leave, I flipped and flipped hard from an attitude of I can handle this to sheltering in place, 24-7.

As museums and entire countries shut down, it became clear that my carefully crafted trip itinerary was toast – this world-wide plague was a way bigger deal than my little plans. By the time my March 25th departure date rolled around, I’d accepted my stay-at-home status.*

Unraveling my reservations – some refunds, some credits – took weeks, but as the virus toppled heads of state and entire countries locked down, vendors began to reach out to me to cancel. If I’d waited a week to cancel my flight from London to Vienna there would have been a system in place for refunds and credits. As it stands, that’s money lost.

Here let me praise Delta and its prompt return of my Skymiles and fees. My prepaid entry and tour tickets to Westminster and St. Pauls were refunded without quibble. Special acknowledgment for the Blenheim Palace staff and their help untangling several days of entry fees and tour reservations. My hotel reservations are a mixed bag of refunds and credits.

I supposed I’d reschedule the trip for spring 2021, shuffle the dates slightly, but keep the plan I had so lovingly researched for maximum art and history exposure. Now I am far from certain that I will be able or willing to travel. Covid19 is a stealthy foe and I have an unarguable pre-existing condition – my age.

Which brings me to now, the end of May. It’s time to book my Delta Skymiles ticket and rebuild the itinerary and reservations for next April.
But who knows?
There are so many unknown factors and risks in play; predicted waves of infection peaking next spring, the possibility of being quarantined upon arrival, the closure of bankrupt hotels, the collapse of entire economies. The possibility of death in isolation abroad in an overwhelmed medical facility.
What to do? Tick tock.

Do I bet on a safe and effective vaccine being available next spring? Do I hope I’ll have contracted and survived the virus and be flush with antibodies, safe from the disease and no threat to anyone else? Do I push travel forward to 2022, and negotiate with the hotels to extend my credits?
Most significantly, do I bet my age will not become an insurmountable impediment? Tick tock.

The Britannia 2020 tour was tailored to the harsh realities of aging. I had legit concerns about my physical ability to cope with the rigors of six weeks of solo travel; wonky vision, sketchy memory, diminishing stamina. Will these be significantly worse in 2021 or irrelevant, a non-issue?
Part of me wants to wave the white flag and accept I’ll be serving a life sentence in lockdown. Part of me wants to defy the odds. I’m leaning toward rolling the dice for next year.
One thing I guarantee will be different. All reservations will be refundable.

*Unexpected positive consequences: Navigating a locked-down life has a lot in common with exploring a different culture. It’s a strange land of latex gloves and facemasks, Zoom meetings, binging episodes of The Repair Shop, and stress baking. It’s been no hardship to spend days in the spring beauty of my garden and my sourdough game is on point. I’ve sent postcards to family and friends, just like I do when I travel; watercolors of birds and lions and dogs instead of details of paintings or busts of Roman emperors.
Life is sweet.

I’m wrapping up my (proposed! flexible!) day by day itinerary.
I’ve sorted events and places (hotels, flights, ticketed events), made one calendar that covers the whole trip, and weekly calendars with a skootch more venue and event information.
I based this on the calendar I made for St. Petersburg. Here’s a screenshot of it.
I’d forgotten some of the features. One I like the best is color-coding the text like this: Museums are red, Palaces orange, Churches/Cathedrals purple, Food/Markets in green, Day Trips/Tours are in pink.
Instead of blocks of black lettering, I can see the distribution of venues and excursions at a glance. It’s helpful to have a template to go by that has served me well.

These are the scaffolding of the trip, along with my Theory of Everything documents that email to myself. There’s one each for London, Vienna, and Blenheim/Oxford. They list each and every place and event with address, days and hours, ticket required or no, scheduled exhibition, and website. Sometimes the ticket cost, but not so much. I’m not flying all this way to balk at spending £10-20 on an entry fee, especially if it supports museums.

My math works like this – I fly almost for free (thanks SkyMiles!) and I’ve already paid in advance for the hotels to get the maximum discount. I don’t eat dinner out, maybe a couple of Michelin Star lunches, but otherwise no expensive meals and not a dime on alcohol. I am not interested in seeing plays or opera, concerts or nightclubs. My entertainment is soaking everything the museums have to offer, drawing postcards to send to friends and family and taking myself on Dickens-themed audio walks. Therefore it’s okay to splurge on things like a Vespa tour, or a fancy high tea, maybe even an oboe concert in a church.

Now if I could just find someone to row me in a punt on the Oxford branch of the Thames, while I lean back on a well-stocked picnic hamper and read Wind in the Willows…

EDIT: I found it!