Today

Returned after a lovely weekend in London, celebrating Becky's birthday. We did a variety of things, including going to Ronnie Scott's. On Sunday, the sun was shining so we decided to take a boat trip from Waterloo to Greenwich, plus a trip around the Thames Barrier.

Lovely trip; we ate crisps and I drank quite a lot of water. There was a cheerful commentator who had a variety of stock jokes and amazing facts about what we could see, delivered in a jaunty manner.

All in all a very nice way of seeing London, especially on a bank holiday weekend.

In My Day

In 1964 I had the excitement of meeting for the first time since I was 1, my Canadian half-sister. She came over to spend most of the summer with us and brought her eldest son, who was about 6, with her. We all got on very well; Daddy was so happy to be with the daughter he hadn't seen for 15 years and mamma was her usual fascinating self.

Although this was back in the '60's Mamma had worked out a good package for seeing Paris in less than 24 hours. Carol was very keen to go, so off they went, very early in the morning, leaving me in charge of 6-year old Mark. (I don't know where everyone else was.)

I decided that a boat trip would be just the thing. So we hopped on bus and train and bus to get to Westminster Pier. We caught the boat and headed off towards Greenwich. We passed the Houses of Parliament, London Bridge and the Tower. So exciting, I thought, until I noticed that Mark was turning green.

I hustled him off, hoping that terra firma would sort him out. The green-ness persisted and I hurried him back home. In West Norwood Station booking office he was horribly sick. Not having much experience with this sort of thing, I had come out with only one paper tissue. I mopped up what I could, but Mark didn't recover for a couple of days and Carol was distraught on her return from Paris and felt very guilty that she'd gone at all.

In fact, it's a mystery how she entrusted her son to me 13 years' later when he lived with us for 6 months as part of his European travelling experience.