I almost appeared in a British tabloid!
When we were leaving St Paul’s Cathedral, there was a rush of guests arriving for a wedding in one of cathedral’s chapels. The guests were of the young, bold, beautiful and restless kind. You know, thin leggy women and disheveled cool dudes. While I could not recognize any single person coming in, they must have been at least B-list important, as a couple of paparazzi were snapping pictures like crazy. The chapel was cordoned off, but the entrance to it curiously interjected with the commoner path out of the building. At one point, I found myself directly between a paparazzo and his prey, and for a second or two, he was furiously photographing the back of my leather jacket…
On a related note, I am adopting a cooler look myself. I got disheveled down many years ago, given that I rarely ever need a comb. But now I am also trying to dress the part. For the last couple of days, taking advantage of a reasonable weather, I have been wearing bleached jeans, black leather jacket and black ski turtleneck. Not only do I look cool, but I also appear thinner and leggier… oops, wrong gender…
Natasha has taken to calling me Father William. Something about looking priest-like… I have to talk to her about such innuendoes. Or, maybe, there will be little talking…
The weather today was not as nice as yesterday, but the morning was sunny enough. Ubiquitous rail repairs cut us off the rest of the world, so we decided to take it easy and drive to Greenwich to take in the market again and then the park.
Not a great idea to drive into Greenwich. In the center of town, parking is impossible to find. On the main streets, it is obviously not allowed; on the side streets, it is restricted to residents with permits; and the parking lots are full to the limit. After twenty or so minutes, we gave up and proceeded directly to the park, where metered parking spots are aplenty.
In theory, if the car is parked close to the Royal Observatory on the main park thoroughfare, then it is not too far from the market – you only need to cross the park. But instead of attempting that, we simply took a stroll around the park itself. Girls were riding their scooters, while Natasha and I were stately walking.
We ended up crossing the park anyway, as the kiddie playground is located near its edge. While the girls enjoyed the swings, jungle gyms and such, the skies grew overcast and the day grew less pleasant. We walked uphill back to the car, and, not wishing to stay outside anymore, embarked towards a big mall in Bromley.
The mall has a multi-level parking garage, but finding a spot there on a Sunday afternoon was not an easy task either. This time, we persevered, and soon found ourselves among throngs of holiday shoppers.
Our couple of hours there were quite uneventful. Toy stores, jewelry stores, curiosity kiosks and the sweets stand provided several doses of excitement, while the book store was somewhat disappointing. We bought some badminton equipment and a new scooter for Kimmy, checked out a dozen other stores, had a few quick bites in the attendant fast-food establishments and left with a profound feeling of a day well-spent…
Kids have only 8 school days left before the long winter vacation. Or, in case of Kimmy, 7, as I am taking her to the kids Christmas party on the 20th…