Dropping Like Flies

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Sunday comes and we’ve lost another one. Sarah has the stomach bug that had been torturing David the previous days. She is laid out, no chance of moving. Let me share with you the history of this virus.

When we arrived on Thursday, David’s roommate Sam was just recovering from something nasty. David got it Friday, Laurie spent a couple of days in bed feeling very ill and now Sarah has succumbed. I’m the next obvious target on the hit list but I’m dodging, dipping, ducking, diving, and….dodging, the very best that I can. Under such perilous circumstances, it is within our nature to place blame. Unfortunately, Sam, Sick, and Scapegoat are all wonderfully alliterative and dear Sam was the first to get ill. Therefore, Scapegoat Sam, as he will here forth be known, is the monster who brought plague into the flat. Poor Scapegoat Sam, you really couldn’t find a nicer guy.

We settle Sarah into bed with bananas but without cantaloupe (not a common fruit in the UK and impossible to find anywhere) and head to pick up David’s girlfriend in Notting Hill. Rachel is lovely and lots of fun. The two of them take me for a stroll through Hyde Park, past Royal Albert Hall and through the mews of Kensington.

Trees are down from high winds in Hyde Park and had to be closed a few days before. Damage is nowhere near what has occurred in Stanley Park, however. We pass by an enormous memorial of Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. She had this stunning gold statue of him riding a horse erected directly across from Royal Albert Hall, also built for him after his death. Oh to be so loved. And I thought dinners at Quattro were lavish!

On the other side of Royal Albert Hall in the heart of what may be the most beautiful and exclusive part of London lays Imperial College, Rachel and David’s university. They took me for a tour. Their first year accommodation halls looked like a museum and save for a few mistakenly built 70’s style buildings, I still have not gotten over the beauty and location of the campus.

On our way for a coffee on Kensington High Street we detoured through the mews. I was thoroughly confused as I followed their two bobbing blonde heads. How can one short-cut through a person that inspires artistic and literary genius? I quickly figured out that they meant mews not muse and turned my attention to admiring the narrow cobblestone back streets with their tiny, narrow homes that cost £2 million a piece. You’re living the dream if you’ve got a place here. Start saving now. London has a congestion fee. Any car entering the city centre is charged £8 per day. Politicians are pushing to increase the fee to £25 per day for SUV’s. Hybrid cars are charged nothing. Currently, the charge does not affect the largely residential area that I wandered around but it is set to expand into it. Should this be the case, the flocks of Range Rovers that littered the streets may so be extinct. What a thought.

After a quick trip inside the Victoria and Albert museum, (theme of the day!) before it closed for the night, David and I said our goodbyes to Rachel and headed wearily home. I was in bed by 1030 and out like a light for the entire night. Sarah did wake me up just after midnight, looking much healthier, to declare, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”!

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