Clyde, his father, and I spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in London.
The city’s beautiful: sunlit, cool but not chilly, busy but not crowded. Clyde and I arrive without our bags; in Detroit, we made a connection our luggage didn’t. As a result, I face the unpleasant prospect of making three of the most important appearances of my writing career … in three-day-old clothes.
Clyde, bless him, does what he can, even going so far as to wash the clothes I do have in the sink and iron them dry. In the end, I pick up a new sweater at a pleasant little British shop (a.k.a. “The Gap”). That, plus my 3-day slacks, plus Clyde’s rinsing and ironing, gives me the confidence I need to go on stage Friday night.
At midnight on Friday, our bags finally appear. The good news? The folks at the event on Friday night are forgiving, sympathetic … and amazingly supportive. One dear woman, an employee of the Brit chain Marks & Spenser, even offers to take me shopping with her 20% employee discount (an offer I was prepared to embrace willingly, given the fact the dollar is worth only half a pound, making London a very expensive shopping destination for those of us on a full-time writer’s salary!).
Saturday is a blast — I love the conference! The other speakers do a fine job, and I enjoy doing my part, as well. At the end of the day, everyone seems excited and energized and ready to try their new Tarot skills on friends and clients alike. Kim and Martin — the organizers — treat me like royalty; having heard I’m mad about Doctor Who (a Brit TV series), they make a point to be sure I have time to nip out to Forbidden Planet (the world’s greatest sci-fi fandom store) … and they even present me with a splendid little collection of Dr. Who 40th anniversary figures at the end of the show. By the time I leave, the pair of them feel more like family than new friends.
On Sunday, we make a quick flight up to Edinburgh, where we go on a well-organized death march through the Old Town and the New Town; the highlight of Scotland, though — at least for me — is our meeting with Georges, one of my favorite college roommates. Despite the passage of twenty years, he’s as wry and slender as ever. It blows my mind that he has two sons — one of whom is not much younger than Georges was when we shared a townhouse in Hattiesburg’s Peppertree Apartments.
Joe buys us a great dinner at a spot Georges picks, then Georges takes us for a round of drinks at a local pub. (He grins the entire time over the fact that his ex-tee-totaler roommate will now have a sip of the occasional pint of Guinness.)
It’s been a great trip, on the whole; today’s our last day here. More later!
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