Regent's Park
London

Miguel has gone to see the Sherlock Holmes museum, I'm sitting in the park, surrounded by dog-walkers and ducks. We're going to catch a train to Gerrard's Cross this afternoon to go to John's, but we're decompressing at the moment. We've been sitting here discussing how I'd like to live in England again, but Miguel finds it claustrophobic and isn't sure he could bear it for very long.

I told him it's ok, and it's just how I always feel when I'm here. We had a good time at Jackie's in Sheffield, we went to Chatsworth and Miguel met the Duchess, wandered around the grounds and wondered how it would have felt to be born into money. Yesterday we went out for lunch at the Olde Cheshire Cheese in Castleton, I took the opportunity to have plaice. We walked up to Peveril Castle and inspected the fortifications. Miguel felt guilty, he said, because Ian would love it so much, so we bought the coloured book to take home to him. Then we went to Iyam, a plague village, and walked round a bit, saw the Celtic Cross which, I think, is the oldest "in place" thing we've seen yet -- 8th century. Then on to Bakewill but not for long, because Mike was cold and couldn't get warm. We actually had a beer in a pub, White Rabbit beer, very nice.

Got to sit with Grannie lots, although most of her conversation revolves around things that happened many eyars ago. She was very tired on Wednesday, hadn't slept well, and a couple of times she asked me if I remembered things that could only have been Mum -- putting violets on her father's coffin -- when I gently said that I didn't remember, she said, "Oh, no, you wouldn't, you would have been quite little, Jan was little." Considering Jan is my mother's older sister... She told me about Auntie Jess dying, and Uncle Harry, and said that she wishes she could just stop with all the medications and let nature take its course. Jackie got annoyed at her line of conversation and wanted her to talk about something else, but Grannie's pretty stubborn still and managed to steer the conversation to Auntie Nora, and how she died.

This morning we hopped a train back to London, and sleepily rode into town again. A few minutes from Marylebone and the train to John's, but first we need to feed Miguel.