2 minutes

partly cloudy, mild, temps 13

Nice day - and a day when nothing is happening. Absolutely no appointments - nothing. Well, I had an interview I had to do, but that was easy.

Michael and I headed off early and walked over to Chelsea Green and a restaurant we like for breakfast (it's about a 25 minute walk) called Tom's Kitchen. As promised, though, here finally is the view down our street (Basil street) to Harrod's a block away.

Heaven.

We turned left at Harrods then followed all sorts of windy roads to the restaurant, where we had cappuccino and fresh squeezed orange juice - then Michael had a brioche french toast and I had scrambled eggs, toast and bacon (which I shared with him just to keep his crying from upsetting the children at the next table).

Then we walked down a block or so the the Kings Road and a favorite haunt. Starbucks. I'm not kidding. it wouldn't normally be our first choice in a city renowned for great cafe's - but this one has a second floor with huge floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the Kings Road. It has become a traditional place for us to go for a hot chocolate or coffee, and read our manuscripts. This time I was actually reading a book for research for the next one I'm writing. Such fun to sit there, reading and making notes.

Then off to Marks and Spencer to more food - picked up the Telegraph and the Times - and home.

yesterday was a long but fun day. Started with a phone interview with a British publication called Women's Weekly. Then a hair appointment up on the Brompton Road -

(just interrupted writing because we could hear horses clomping down the road below...leapt up and sure enough there was a carriage, with two horses, and two Harrod's men in livery. I wonder if that's how they deliver their famous harrod's hampers? Worth ordering one just to see)

Then grabbed a cab across town for lunch with my editor, Dan Mallory. The cab suddenly slowed down and I strained to see what the delay was, only to discover that two cars ahead was the Queen's carriage! Gold and enclosed and flanked by horsemen - returning for the Cenotaph for the Remembrance Day ceremonies. It's very solemn here. Everyone observes it the 2 minutes of silence at 11am. Indeed, one of the top selling video's in Britain is exactly that. It's put out by the Royal Legion and is 2 minutes of silence. Featuring men and women, some famous, some not, just quietly staring into the camera - with just the background sound audible. Excruciatingly beautiful and moving. Michael emailed later and said he was in the shops and at 11 am everyone just stopped. customers in the aisles, clerks, checkouts. Everyone stopped. After 2 minutes there was a sound and everyone started again.

We followed the queen down the road. She turned in to Buckingham Palace, and we didn't.

A few minutes later the cab dropped me at Lutyen's Restaurant, on Fleet Street. I had a few minutes to spare so I went in to St. Bride's church. Known as the journalists church - which surprised me since I always thought journalists were a godless bunch of heathens. But apparently I was wrong. This being Fleet street, a huge number of printed papers and magazines had their names on pews.

But what staggered and humbled me (yet again) was the memorial. To the journalists killed covering conflicts. Including a 23 year old photographer stoned to death in Somalia. Dear Lord.

And the poppies, of course. Remembering.

Dan and I had a fabulous lunch in what had been the Reuter's building (he had chicken, I had dover sole) and we gabbed for hours. Then headed back to the litte, Brown offices for tea. There's a photo of the Little, Brown team. Dan is standing on the far right. How kind they were to do this, so that I could meet them all at once. Such an amazing group of people. I'm really looking forward to getting to know them better. But what I do know is that they treated me - a new author from Canada - as though I was the most important person on their list (which clearly I am not). So gracious.

Teresa, my agent, was also there. Afterward she and I walked for about half an hour along the Thames. It was dark and we could see the London Eye (the huge ferris wheel, lit up all red - as a poppy. for remembrance day. Then the underground home. I got off at Sloane Square. The photo with the bus and the christmas lights is of Sloane Square. Most of London has just been decorated for Christmas and is as beautiful as you might imagine.

What a magical time. Je me souviens.

Nothing on the agenda tomorrow. No lunches, no meetings, no interviews. Just us. Wow.

This is why we remember

Since Louise invited me to guest blog, I’ve been thinking about how we have spent the four years that have passed since the death of my son Thomas in Iraq on November 11, 2004, Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans’ Day here in the United States. Coping with the sudden death of a beloved child is difficult enough but the fact is he died in combat in a war that most do not understand. It leaves us in an ambiguous position with people wanting to be respectful while still expressing their opinion. Our decision on the night that he died was that we wanted Thomas’s memory to be honored, not used by anyone to make a point about the war. We have since discovered that even asking that his memory be honored can be a tricky proposition but memorials have become our cause.

Thomas’s death left me with a thirst for information about life and death in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Thomas’s unit remained in Iraq, I read the StrykerNews website daily, praying for the safety of his fellow soldiers, only once finding the dreaded press release announcing the death of a soldier whose name I knew. This website has a tribute page for the fallen of the various Stryker Brigades, and even now I go back to read it at least once a month. New names are added from time to time, and occasionally someone posts something new about Thomas, even four years later. I am comforted when I find that someone else has remembered him.

Ultimately, the quest for more information has turned into a quest for memorials, evidence that people remember our soldiers, all of them. Whenever I visit a new town, I search out the local war memorials. Sometimes they include names of the fallen, sometimes they have scenes of battle or service. These memorials are particularly numerous in the U.K. In addition, I have developed a sixth sense in looking for references to war memorials in popular culture. Picking up any book at random, I will find that our protagonist is celebrating Remembrance Day in Australia or looking at statues of fallen soldiers. Maybe a year after Thomas died, I read a travelogue by Tony Perrottet, Route 66 AD. In the course of his tour of the Mediterranean region, Mr. Perrottet stops in Turkey to visit the monument where his great-uncle, killed in battle during World War I, is listed. This evidence that even a man who died young and had no children is remembered two generations later reassured me that Thomas’s memory would not be lost either. When I came across Louise’s description of the window in St. Thomas’s in her village of Three Pines (The Cruelest Month), also honoring men who died during the Great War, I thought “Yes! This is why we remember.” And also I thought, “This is how we can remember.”

I’m not expecting a national memorial to the soldiers of Operation Iraqi Freedom any time soon, but a local one would be nice. In the meantime, I content myself with these more subtle memorials. They keep reminding me that we need to keep reminding our community of the sacrifice made by our sons and daughters. Thank you Louise, and thank you all for remembering.

Lee Ann - http://www.souvenons.blogspot.com/