Creaking back to place

Overcast, cool, temps 10

Sunday in London - that can mean only one thing....walking up to the Brompton Road, getting The Times, and finding a nice cafe or pub to sit in, and read.

A tradition here is the Sunday Roast. It's a pub meal. Most pubs offer three choices...roast beef, chicken or pork. We might wander down to The Kings Road and try the Cadogan Arms for Sunday roast. But, frankly, it's more likely we'll just come home. Via Harrods.

Still haven't been in! and it's just down the road. But I think today's the day. Need to pick up some gifts - and love wandering around the food court (what else!) After I won the Creasy Dagger a few years ago we celebrated by going to the oyster bar at Harrods. I don't actually like oysters, but Michael adores them - so I thought it was the perfect way to celebrate, and to thank him. Such fun to see him and his oyster rituals. He's a very measured man. Unlike me - I hare off all over the place. Michael takes his time, and considers things carefully, often apparently quite gravely.

He studied the platter of assorted oyster varieties for what seemed an age - I got so antsy I also ate the oysters, just to have something happen. Then he carefully placed condiments on each one (a bit of horse-radish, a squirt of lemon, and dash of a kind of vinegar thing. It was his ritual. And he looks so serious doing it, as though if he didn't get it right the oysters would explode and kill us all.

But, when finally finished, he looked up with the most joyous expression on his face.

Then he ate 'em.

It would be fun to go back there today.

On a more prosaic note, we need to do laundry and we can't quite figure out the washer/dryer in the flat. Because space is so precious in London - and the two square feet the machine is sitting on is worth more than our house in Sutton - Londoners don't go in for separate washer and dryer machines. They're combined. One machine does both.

Or neither.

Ours does the latter. We've pressed every button - twice. Stared at it. Even Michael took to staring at it with such gravity you'd think it was an oyster.

But nothing. We called the people who rented us this flat - it's a vacation rental management company - and their person is coming over. Which is a very nice thing to do, on a Sunday. She asked that we perhaps stop pressing every button, which seemed a reasonable request. Wasn't working anyway.

How amazing to have no agenda....and the rough one we have includes the harrods oyster bar.

We hope to get to Westminster later in the week, before we return home on Thursday.

And wonderful news - Aunt Agatha's bookstore, this magnificent mystery and crime bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, named BURY YOUR DEAD one of their top 10 books. You can see the whole list if you go to the aunt agatha website. Congratulations to everyone on the list - including two personal favorites, SJ Rozan and Stefanie Pintoff. yay!

Be well - off for lunch tomorrow with Michael's sister Carol and her husband David - then dinner tomorrow with agent Teresa and her husband Charles.