We met our daughter at our Russell Square hotel (not the big red one: our favorite small B&B one with back view of Horse Hospital) after an enormous summer Sunday morning immigrations line at LHR and the always just-fine-even-after-overnight-flight Piccadilly Line ride. The three of us would spend two nights there, then two weeks in France, then another two nights on the way back.

After reviving soup and latte at Tutti's, around the corner on Lamb's Conduit Street, H and I were ready to walk around while her daddy tested out the hotel bed. Lamb's Conduit, by the way, is a fine little pedestrian-mostly street dotted with inexpensive sidewalk cafés and pubs.

Russell Square was hopping on that very fine Sunday afternoon, and to our delight there was a red-and-white striped Punch and everyone-but-Judy stage amusing children of all ages. Punch beat the doctor, the policeman, and other males with his stick, but presumably wife-beating is not so entertaining these days. The puppets are sponsored by Friends of Russell Sq., that has a booth nearby. I bought a 1£ paperback Vanity Fair from them, not remembering that whole chunks of it are set in Russell Sq. homes or remembering what a great book it is.

We took full advantage of Russell Square and the great weather, sat on its benches, power-walked it perimeter waiting for Pa, enjoying a beer and snack at the Café there.

H and I visited the special exhibits at British Museum, which hardly anyone can ever see enough, and we especially enjoyed the political cartoons from the Napoleonic era. History for dummies, my favorite:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_o...e_british.aspx

Bob walked back up to the British Library (I can envision a day when the Beatles exhibit will be pushed aside to make room for new heroes) while H and I walked down to the National Portrait Gallery, pausing at the Tottenham Ct Rd Caffe Nero for more caffeine for me and a loyalty card for her.

I love the Natl Portrait, probably because I paint portraits myself. Or maybe I paint portraits because I find people most interesting. This time I spent awhile sorting out Wm and Mary and their families, and then H and I went down to this year's BP Portrait Award exhibit. Wow. We loved it.

http://www.npg.org.uk

I've been disappointed in the modern and contemporary portraits there, including the big one of Paul McC who gazes soulfully at you as you ascend the escalator, but this exhibit was so well selected. Go see it if you can. I'd skip the Audrey Hepburn one, though I thought she was adorable, partly because calling someone an "icon" gets on my nerves.

Dinner at The Lamb, my official Favorite London Pub, and finally got to see what Sunday roast is all about when Bob ordered it. They were out of lamb, so their chicken roast was quite a bit like mine. Love the bartenders there.

And that was our first day.

Tip on topping up your Oyster at LHR tube stop, where the lines were correspondingly long: everyone tends to stand in one line, ignoring the second machines to the left. Give it a shot.

Excellent ~ I think your TR deserves to be upgraded to a "mini!"
This surely beats "micro."

Just curious about the B and B you stayed in. Was it on Guilford, Colonnade? Care to share the name of it? I have stayed in the BIG RED one,(Hotel Russell) ,a long time ago, before recent remodeling..I like the area, and would like to know of a good B and B. Thanks.

aw, thanks, nyse! Am trying to restrain myself to avoid a "macro," or a dreaded "mega."

Hi, aye, Not trying to be coy, really, but it's the Celtic, which tends to book up. Run by the darling Mrs. Marazzi and her devoted staff, it features a served white tablecloth breakfast and a range of room prices from very budget to not-so-very. Formerly St. Margaret's.

When I called them from the Gare du Nord at 15h30 on June 30 to tell them that the Eurostar tunnel was blocked by demonstrators and that we would not be arriving that evening after all, the clerk told me they'd already had four cancellations. When we showed up the next morning Mrs. Marazzi said that by evening they had filled all the cancelled rooms with those stranded UK-side.

By the way, can anyone suggest a good book (in English, natch) about Napoleon? I've read a few over the years, but am ready for a refresher.

Thanks, stokebailey, for the Celtic info. Looked on tripadvisor, and it mostly very good reviews. Looks like a FIND!!.

Welcome back in London Stokebaily! I am jealous!!

We spent much of Monday morning in the Museum of London, which we knew Bob would enjoy. The exhibits around the entrance terrace are always good: this time WWI recruiting posters.

Lunch at the Middle Temple, and thanks again to annhig for that. Bob wore "nice" jeans, while H and I were fairly well turned out, so we met the dress code. Central London's best bargain for ancient hall ambience and food, booked in advance by internet.

We cut through the garden, gorgeous in roses and fuchsia, across to King's College for a self tour. H had taken their tour last year during her semester at Regent's U with the idea she might someday think about grad school there. Their spiffy riverview bar was closed for renovation, but we could get the general idea. KCL is right in the middle of things, which is how H likes it.

We lucked into our own frosted glass booth at the Princess Louise pub, luckily not as mobbed as usual, and tried some of the Samuel Smith products there. What a lovely place to sip a half pint, and I'm glad the Smith people are maintaining it so well.

H went off to meet friends, and Bob and I caught a bus to Trafalgar Square in time to swing through a couple of rooms at the National Gallery, then walked across Charing Cross Bridge to the South Bank. At that point we felt a little at loose ends, stopped near the National Theatre café, bustling, to regroup. Sometimes it's hard to know how to keep one's spouse amused.

We ended up strolling down to Blackfriar's Bridge and up to The (or is it Ye?) Olde Cheshire Cheese for supper. I snagged Samuel Johnson's old favorite seat after Bob didn't like the way it sloped downwards; maybe the old Lexicographer's weight tipped it that little bit. Supper was fine, and we got to watch a young Japanese man try to teach the parrot a few words in that language, probably off color. The cute Irish waitress recommended Eton Mess for dessert, and we gave it a try: their version at least seemed to be mostly air and sugar, with a couple of strawberry slices at the bottom. 300% more strawberries would have won me over completely.

We walked down to St. Paul's and thought things over a little more. A quick trip to the Tower Bridge seemed in order, so we waited for the #15 bus. I'd recently read Maintenance of Headway, a droll novel told from the perspective of a bus driver in a city that sounds a lot like London, and I got flashes of that book the whole time. One passage includes a driver's rant about what constitutes a proper bus-flagging signal (arm held at right angles to the body, palm outward), but the crazed obsession of his bus supervisors is maintaining an exact spacing (or headway) between a given route's buses. As we watched several repeats of other routes go by and finally climbed onto a jammed #15 I felt sympathy for those supervisors.

Never mind. It was worth it, if quite chilly, when we finally walked out onto the bridge. By the time we got back to the Celtic, H had already gotten the key to our triple room and brushed her teeth.

And that was it for that day.

Hi, kovsie! As you can see, it was all too brief, but almost as incident-packed as your trips there. We tried, anyway.

And for some reason, the pretty French barista at Pret a Manger across from Museum of London gave me a free drip coffee. Was it the time of morning? The day? My Midwestern US charm? I'd stopped in there to take advantage of wifi and set up a free texting app to keep in touch with our daughter. When I tried to go back and give her a tip, in gratitude for it all, but she insisted was gratuit.

H just texted me, at home now, from their bus enroute to Brussels: London is the capital of the universe.

" can anyone suggest a good book (in English, natch) about Napoleon? "

The only answer you're likely to get right now is Andrew Roberts' Napoleon the Great, published late last year.

To some traditional British minds, it's verging on the hagiographic and the offensive. To mine, it's far to up its own self-styled objectivity.

It doesn't regard him as a monster, it points out (laboriously and uncritically) the alleged benefits (and considerable management achievement) of imposing a common administrative system across much of continental Europe and minimises the damage this absurd posturer imposed on millions of people.

So it's close to the view of the man the French state still brainwashes its children with - with a bit of British objectivity thrown in.

And it does take a different slant on his catastrophic career from the most common views expressed about him in English.

>>And for some reason, the pretty French barista at Pret a Manger across from Museum of London gave me a free drip coffee. <<

It's a promotional thing - they all get an allowance of random free coffees to give out. Makes a change from their last tack of getting the staff to make small talk with customers who were just there to get some fuel on the go - now that was irritating.

Ah, thanks, Flanner. Sounds like just the ticket. I've ordered it. Will devote the rest of the summer to Napoleon if necessary, glad to read a balanced view.

Ha, Patrick. I would greatly prefer a friendly smile or, even better, free coffee to engaging in staff small talk.

The morning we left for France we enjoyed our leisurely Celtic breakfast, served by Mina the efficient Turkmenistani business graduate student who oversees the distribution of Full English, porridge and so forth. Leave her a pound afterwards; she deserves it.

Bob had never been to the British Museum, just around the corner, though we knew he'd love it. He quickly became enthralled with the Assyrian rooms and was difficult to drag away. That nation seemed warlike indeed.

(Snatches of poetry flitted through my mind, minus the occasional word:
"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold..."

and then, with even more blanks where words should be, Ogden Nash's:

"What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians."

I'm copying and pasting to remind myself of the words, if the occasion arises ever again.)

H and I made a quick side trip to one of my two favorite art supply stores in the world, L. Cornellisen & Son, established 1855. I like to think Whistler, Sargent, and Monet bought supplies there when in town, too. I bought a squirrel-hair watercolor brush and some stationery, my big souvenir splurge.

Then we rolled our suitcases up to St. Pancras and onto the Eurostar, glad to think we'd have another two nights in London on the way back.

Except we didn't get two nights after all. On June 30, after taking the noon RER from Fontainebleau to Gare de Lyon and the normally excellent #65 bus to Gare du Nord (standing room only and delayed by an auto accident, quite warm on that 102F, 40C day), we rolled ourselves into the station and towards the London Hall. Whoa. Why were hundreds of travelers sweating at the foot of the escalator?

Bob had bought a handmade guitar from a luthier at Festival Django and had failed to unload his travel guitar as expected, so we were encumbered. He edged into the crowd and learned that demonstrators were blocking the entrance of the Eurostar tunnel, it had happened the previous week and stopped all trains for the day, and we'd know within an hour whether our 1530 train would roll.

Dismay. One benefit of traveling with a group of three is having someone to sit with luggage while we sent out scouting parties. We eventually learned that there would be no more trains that day, and staff were handing out cards with instructions for compensation and how to rebook for the next day. The Information Desk woman used a no-appeals hand gesture to tell me that the Eurostar ticket office was FERMER! My task was to rebook, while H looked for a hotel online. I was picturing the few, if any, vacant seats the next day being snatched up, with Bob and my LHR flight early the following morning.

Meanwhile, it was very warm in the station, but the atmosphere was civil. The surely-stressed Eurostar Staff politely told me that I could try online (no chance, website crashed), stand in the immense line allowing people to ascend a few at a time to the not-fermer-after-all Eurostar ticket office, or try the phone number provided. I opted for the second and third options, and after 20 minutes of listening to the French recording as I inched forward in line a young British voice answered. Oh, joy; I was prepared for French, but delighted to speak English. He gave us seats on the 10h00 train next morning. I told him he was an angel.

Meanwhile, H found us rooms at the Hotel Pas de Calais, in St-Germain. In the cab to our hotel, H called the National Theatre, where she and I had tickets that night for The Beaux' Stratagem, and in a trifecta of good fortune the box office was happy to trade our seats for the following evening, at a nominal 2£/ticket charge. Silver lined what had seemed like black clouds indeed.

Would also like to recommend the Celtic. We had a 10 day stay there in March of this year, while visiting a number of galleries. A great location, and friendly staff. Breakfast was substantial. We booked well ahead due to popularity of B & B. Handy also to direct line to Heathrow.

Yes, quite handy to the Picadilly line. For our 08h30 LHR flight we could have slept in until at least 05h00 to catch the first Russell Sq tube at 0539. As it was we stood outside and waited for the gate to roll open at 0530, arrived at the airport in plenty of time to check my bag since a guitar in soft case was now my carryon and get a couple more Caffe Nero loyalty card stamps before our flight.

Embarrassing to misspell fermée in public like that, twice.

When we disembarked at St. Pancras, after first-class Eurostar treatment that a person could get used to, it was still very warm. The walk back to our hotel seemed longer than it had two weeks previously.

H and I cut back through Russell Square, and this time she wanted to buy some paperbacks from the Friends' booth for her summer of travels. She found something fluffy by Barbara Cartland and something more substantial, 50 p each.

The booth Friend asked H where she was from, which led to a fun long conversation with another patron who'd visited our town in the past, and who was full of travel and London tips for H's year ahead. I asked her for local supper spot tips, mentioning that we'd be attending a play at the National Theatre afterwards. She assumed that of course we'd want to dine outside, and advised The Kitchen at the NT as just the ticket.

We walked down to the National Portrait Gallery and spent a couple of cool hours there, fortified with iced caffeine, then took a very warm bus ride back to Russell Square. Supper was a late sidewalk lunch along Lamb's Conduit Street, under a shade tree.

The three of us walked to Waterloo Bridge and across to the National Theatre. The sun still beat down on a record-tying hot London, and the idea of a leafy Garden Bridge seemed very appealing. We had the idea that a beer would be refreshing, so after picking up the tickets at National Theatre we surveyed the scene at The Kitchen. It was mobbed. I spotted a place to sit outside the Understudy Bar, and unfortunately H and Bob went in there to get our drinks. I could see them standing there for at least 20 minutes. They came out hot and unhappy, and H said it was the rudest bar experience she'd ever had: the bartenders kept ignoring them and serving others. We had to powerwalk down the South Bank to cool off.

No matter: Bob was able to catch to catch a bus to St. John's Wood for his evening Beatles' pilgrimage while H and I attended a very fun production of The Beaux' Strategem. See it if you can, and the 15£ seats are just fine.

Bus home, up early and around the corner to Russell Sq Tube Stop for the westbound 05h39. H told us later that at breakfast Mina asked how her parents were doing. Give her a tip if you stay there. She deserves it.