Webbready

Below is the final excerpt from the journal I kept in during my trip to London nealy nine years ago. Since this entry is short, I present it in whole. I only wonder what I can do in the following year to keep my fingers busy and warm.

January 24, 2000

The final day of our trip has arrived. There is so much that is yet to be done, but so much that we have already done. I know not where to begin and neither do I know where to end.

In the morning, we had one last, long, final walk, a walk in which the cold attacked us with its strong, scratching claws. Despite the number or tours we have walked on this trip, the effect of the winter air has not lessened in the slightest. Indeed, familiarity breeds contempt and the knowledge of the cold’s ways only causes me to despise it further. Ar any rate, we left for Chelsea, which if I remember correctly was supposed to be the Headquarters of the Duke of York. Since my memory may be frozen, I shall go onto the next stop we were to visit for the day. That was the Royal Chelsea Hospital, a place rumored to be started at the suggestion of mistress of Charles II. Royal Chelsea Hospital was to lie directly on a path from Hampton Court Palace, the royal palace of the time. Here reside pensioners, veterans who had served twenty years or more in the service of the Queen. We met one such gentleman in the Chapel who called our attention to all the various decorations in the area.

After this we left, once again into the piercing cold and walked for some distance. Although we passed the houses of some famous people like Oscar Wilder and Bram Stoker, there were so many stories and so many people that they all blend into one indistinguishable whole. Occasionally, a detail such as Wilde’s conviction of sodomy, is clear, but more often than not, it is a blend of names and facts. The only thing that remains clear is the persevering, terrifying, hateful cold. The cold that blends the memory of Thomas More’s Old Church with the tale of the tenants who kept wombats for pets; that’s all I can remember.

Finally, heat arrived in the form of the Stockpot, the place where the group stopped for lunch. Dinner was also a group activity, although I have little to say about our meal at the Hotel Russell except that it was a grand gesture by The Treasury* to pay for such an exquisite meal. I wish I had more time to write and more to reflect on, but the cold has finally won and both mind and body are infected by its presence. With that note, I close this journal, and at last get some rest.

* The Treasury was a euphemism for Dr. Adam’s generosity in paying for our meal.