Do you ever get that feeling...

Everbody else knows what's going on but you? That was our day yesterday in London.

We boarded our train at Birmingham New Street Station and rode 1 hour 45 minutes to London Euston Station. Having arrived at around 12:30, we knew that we had better get moving. We walked the 2 and a half miles or so over to Westminster Abbey (we being Mary, Helen, and I). Actually, Helen rode while we walked. En route stopped at the Britism Museum to freshen up. By the time we got to Westminster, it was 2pm. We were digusted to discover that the abbey closes at 1:45 on Saturdays. Having seen most everything in that part of town already, we decided to go back to the British Museum and take in some things we failed to see last time and then grab some supper. We enjoyed the amazing pieces in the China section of the museum and spent a few minutes in the Americas.

After that we walked back to the station and treated ourselves to some pasties. Yes, I meant pasties. The singular, pasty, describes a oven-baked pastry usually filled with a meat. The little booth was called the West Cornwall Pasty Co., though I doubt their's are as good as the reknowned pasties of Cornwall. I had a pork and applesauce pasty (delicious!) and Mary had a Chicken Balti pasty (quite good). And by 'quite' I mean something between good and very good. I know some Brits who use quite to mean "only a little". Anyway, after we ate, we decided to go to the British Library, which is close to Euston Station. As misfortune seemed our lot, we arrived at 5:10pm, 10 minutes after the library had closed. So, we spent some time in a neat little bookshop near the station. We loved the books and Helen loved the time to crawl.

Our train departed at 6:30, so we got to the station around six. The platform number for the train was not displayed until 6:20, so we were part of a mad dash to the train to get seats together, which we found and had an uneventful ride home. We arrived back in B'ham at 8:10 and then took the bus home. We walked back into our door a few minutes before nine.

Then I began discover all the things we'd somehow missed in London. BK emailed me to ask if we had been part of the nude bicycle protest through London. No. We forgot our bikes. But we did walk some of the same areas where these people showed their, um, displeasure with oil dependency. I think BK must subscribe to some nude protest newsletter because he's always emailing me about them.

Today I was instant messaging with my niece, Brittany, and she asked me if we saw the Queen. Of course, we didn't, but apparently we somehow missed all the celebrations for Queeny's birthday yesterday(though her birthday was in April).

Then, a few minutes ago, I discovered that the American tennis player Andy Roddick was in London yesterday winning in the Queen's Tournament he has dominated in recent years.

So not only did we miss doing anything we'd planned on yesterday, we also missed chances to be scandalized, aculturated, and to act condescendingly. It figures!

But we did get a few pictures yesterday and today:

Helen and her new friend Ben.


Just to prove to Helen that she has been to Westminster when she gets older and tells us that we never go anywhere cool.


Helen today at play in the church building.


With her friend Elliot (13 months).


Tonight at supper looking for her belly button.