Last day

Well, the weekend turned out to be beautiful weather, for the most part, so I’m a bit sad I didn’t have my weekend in the country to recharge for the coming year, but I had such a wonderful time with Ro on Saturday and again tonight that there’s no question I made the right choice to stay in town.

Yesterday, I woke up relatively early, considering the night I’d had on Saturday, and seeing that it was breezy and sunny out, headed right to Paddington station to catch one to Henley-on-Thames, a river town and the start to another 9-mile walk. The walk went through a shallow valley, where I saw – as promised by the guidebook – red kites, which have made a comeback in England.

I got desperately lost, of course, but this time because the book was badly out of date and didn’t describe the many stiles I had to clamber over or provide a proper description of the return path. I know this because after I tromped about nervously through fields for about half an hour not knowing if I was going the right direction, I decided to head toward a road, where I was hailed by a fellow who was part of a group using the same damn book, following the same damn walk, and desperately lost, like me. We compared notes, flagged down a walker who serendipitously appeared, and got oriented, but not before I heard the news that the latter part of the walk was even worse than the first half, and decided not to go that route.

Inevitably, I got lost again, and was standing around disconsolately and anxiously when a black and white terrier came bounding around a corner ferociously, doing her best impression of ferocity, followed by a little pup of the same color, who didn’t know she was supposed to be offended and vicious when I started tickling her tummy. The owners arrived a moment later, apologetic, and I said, “No, no, I’m lost and I was really glad to see your dog come barking, actually.” The couple was from Henley (“wouldn’t live anywhere else, not with these kinds of walks around”) and had just come from the annual fete at Grey’s Court, the old manor house I’d just looked at too. “The dogs have been cooped up in the house all day, poor things,” the woman explained, which was why they came home and immediately set out on a walk with Rosie and Bella (the pup).

The couple walked with me to a point in the fields where they set me back on my path, and headed the other way with the dogs, leaving me musing about the kindness of strangers, and the luck of the directionless and misguided.

I was supposed to have dinner with Ro on my return to London after the walk, but I foolishly missed my train by 2 seconds and had to wait for the 8 pm. (No, it was really idiotic – I’d misread the train schedule, thought I had until 7:17 pm, walked into the station at 7:04 and 45 seconds, stopped to look at the schedule, and then stared as the train doors suddenly closed and it moved out of the station.) I muttered curses for a while, then went for a walk along the Thames, a peaceful, slow-moving river in those parts with houses built a few feet from the water’s edge. Fish and watery plants waved through the clear water. It was a nice half an hour.

Today, I went to the office to clean out my desk, said goodbye to a couple folks, and then went out to shop. For real. To actually buy something. I spent an hour trying on a couple dresses at a shop where I’d already picked out a dress to think about on Saturday, and finally bought one: a nice black and white sleeveless garden partyish number that’s just slinky AND modest enough.

And tonight I met up with Ro again, for dinner in Piccadilly. He’s so lovely, in all senses of the word: beautiful, funny, gentle, smart. And fierce. It was the perfect way to end my time here in London. I can’t wait to see him in New York.

And so it comes to an end. It’s 11 pm and I haven’t started packing, and I have a cab for 5 am, for a 8 am flight. Sigh. I arrive an hour before registration opens. Think I can make it? Double sigh. Why do I do this to myse-- yeah, yeah.

Philosophizing about London and the summer and the firms is going to have to wait until the plane flight. If I’m not sleeping during it.

Until I'm back on that side of the pond -- signing off from London.