August 9
We started out the day at the Tower of London, learning about its storied and bloody history from our entertaining guide, one of the Tower Warders. Here are the girls, the Tower, the guardians of the Royal jewels and the impressive Tower Bridge.    From the Tower, we went to meet our friends, Pat and Steve Hemmens at a cute restaurant that Pat chose near Covent Garden, which we found with considerable difficulty.
Pat was my secretary when I was a young partner at the Sonnenschein law firm, back in the mid-1970s. Born in England, but raised from age 4-20 in New Zealand, Pat has managed to maintain her feisty spirit and delightfully opinionated-on-everything personality over the years. Pat was very close to our daughters, Jodi and Wendy, when they were younger than Zoe and Phoebe are now and so has looked forward to meeting them on this trip. Periodically, when she was my secretary, Pat, frustrated at some new policy she regarded as outrageous that the firm had adopted, would tell me that she was going to leave the firm. I’d tell her that I’d be very sorry to lose her, but she needed to do what was right for her. After a while, she’d calm down, until the next outrage hit.
Eventually, Pat moved back to London and married Steve, who, until recently drove one of the classic, black London taxis. Pat and Steve have three sons, one of whom is a successful, professional magician, one a writer and one an academic. Here are photos of Pat and Steve, and two of their kids with me when Carol and I visited London with our daughters long ago. Steve’s taxi can be seen on the right.
Covent Garden, the old vegetable, fruit and flower market of My Fair Lady fame, which existed when I was there in the 60’s, ostensibly studying at the London School of Economics, where I got an LLM, has now been transformed into an upscale area of restaurants and shops. After lunch, we strolled through the market with Pat and Steve, encountering various entertainers.
We then walked down to the Thames with Pat and Steve and returned to our flat to rest a bit.
We walked to our nearby pub, intending to have a quick supper there, but it was too crowded and noisy and so we boarded the tube, deciding to eat near where we were going. As we ascended from the tube station we saw one of those sights that converts atheists to devout believers. Right in front of us rose a miracle
As has happened since Biblical Times, the Lord provided a meal. And we gave thanks, as we shoveled in our fries and peanuts.
We had tickets tonight for the Proms, a British tradition of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. Tonight’s concert of music from movies was great fun and a huge spectacle, though too long by about half for my taste. Well worth doing, though.
After the concert, we encountered a heavy drizzle and after several blocks, managed to coral a taxi, which did a U-turn to pick us up. Our driver misunderstood our Edith Road address, thinking we’d said Edith Row. When he said we’d arrived, we told him we had not, and so he had to drive us to another part of the city. He quite kindly reduced the fare by ten pounds because of the mistake, which was as much our fault as his.
Back at the flat, we packed and retired for the night.
August 8
Breakfast at the flat (eggs today), stop at cleaners and then off, crossing London Bridge
To the Globe Theater, meticulously reconstructed to reflect its look 400 years ago. Ran into Poor Yorick and admired Christopher Wren’s St. Paul Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge across the Thames. Our guide for the Globe tour was both very funny and very informative, which made the experience a good deal more interesting and fun than I’d anticipated.  
We met Tom Handler and his partner, Judith at the Tate Modern, where we peered at peregrine falcons through a telescope, then enjoyed a lovely lunch in the Tate dining room.  Afterwards, we saw a wonderful exhibit of the incredible range of work produced by Russian painter, and clothes and set designer Natalia Goncharova, who worked in Russia and Paris during the first half of the 20th century. A bit embarrassing never to have heard of her before. Here’s a small sample of a few of the many works of hers that I admired.   
After this, we took a short boat trip, which gave us a small taste of traveling on the Thames
Originally, we were going to take the boat up to the Old Tate, but wound up not taking it that far. Nonetheless, I left the title of this post as I’d written it–Tate a Tate–because I was proud to have thought of that devilishly clever title.
Judith needed to head home, but Tom joined the four of us for dinner at a C+ Indian restaurant.
The girls, Carol and I went to an outstandingly produced and conceived production of a play called “Tree” at the Young Vic Theatre. It’s impossible to convey the energy, movement and excitement of this production in a few photos, but here they are. The first two show a distinguished member of the audience, Zoe, who was called up on stage.     
I tried inserting a short video that shows some of the energy and the way in which the company invited the audience to participate in the production, but, unfortunately, I failed, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
Tree was an outstanding theatrical experience. And we had a helluva good day, all around.
August 7
Margaret fixed breakfast, then we took a lovely walk together around Chipping Campden, Margaret and Nick narrating the sights and history of this quaint, utterly charming place, and introducing us to neighbors we passed. Wandering around a place aimlessly is my favorite thing to do on pretty-much any trip, giving you time to soak in the environment and culture. When you can do that with local friends, it’s tough to beat. Sure to be one of the highlights of the trip.
Below are a few sights, the local postman, evidence of an old school etched in stone, street signs, a silversmith’s shop, the tomb of Baptist Hicks, Zoe and Phoebe in St. James’ Church and in front of the Wilson’s house, called Stamford House.        
We bade goodbye to the Wilsons and drove back to London, uneventfully, to return the car. Picked up some sandwiches which we ate at the flat and then, after a short rest, took off by tube to meet our friends, Joe and Cathy Feldman from Chicago, who are spending a year living in London. We ate at a good, but quite noisy, pizza restaurant so our opportunity to converse was restricted, but it was good to see the Feldmans.
After dinner, we walked to see The Mousetrap, the Agatha Christie play that has been running continuously for 67 years in London and which Carol and I had seen in 1967. The girls enjoyed the play quite a bit, but I had trouble hearing and understanding the words. Still, it was a successful evening.
We returned to the flat and retired.
August 6.
Breakfast at the flat and a slow start to the day. Carol had planned to visit the Tower today, but when Nick told us that the drive to his house would take much longer than the rental car company had said, we decided to move the Tower to later in the week and set out for the Cotswolds earlier than we’d anticipated.
Enterprise Rental Car picks us up at the flat right on time and drives us to their office, where we do the paper work and go to a very cute restaurant across the street, which has abysmal service and fair food.  After lunch, we set out for Nick and Margaret’s. Behind the wheel, I remind myself to stay on the “wrong” side of the road. Actually, I find driving on the wrong side much easier than crossing the street on foot. Driving, you just need to remember to keep the steering wheel next to the middle line of the road. Crossing the street, you need to look both ways, three times. We have been exceedingly lucky, so far, with the weather, only a couple very brief drizzles and very comfortable temperatures. Doing this in the heat we’d thought we might have would have been much more difficult.
It takes us about 2 1/4 hours to get to Chipping Campden, where Nick and Margaret live in a house built in 1705. There are several other “Chippings” around, Nick says, because it means market and the town name signifies that it has a market. The drive is not bad, though we run into some rain. I manage to keep the car mainly on the road though, inexplicably, it occasionally veers to the left and hits the curb, but nothing major, like a tree.
From the outside, the Wilson’s house is hardly noticeable, but inside it’s fabulous, blending original early eighteenth century wooden beams with beautiful modernization. Here’s a photo of the Wilsons in their wonderful skylit kitchen.
Margaret’s impeccable taste is apparent in each room of the house. Perhaps even more impressive than the inside of the house, though, are the gardens, which Margaret attends assiduously and takes justifiable pride in.  
We stroll around town seeing the grounds of the house that Baptist Hicks, a 17th century wool and materials billionaire lived. The house itself was burned down
We visit with Nick and Margaret and enjoy an early delicious supper that Margaret has prepared, featuring vegetables and fruits from her garden. We then set out for Stratford, where we have tickets for “The Taming of the Shrew.” Nick, very kindly, offers to drive us the 20 or so minutes to Stratford and to pick us up after the show. I know I should turn down this offer, but, in truth, I’m very happy not to have to drive on dark and winding roads on the wrong side of the road, so I accept.
It’s nice to see the theater (which Carol and I have seen before), and the costumes and production are lavish, but none of us is thrilled with the play.  In my characteristicly timid assessment I told Nick that I hated the play, thought it was silly and slapstick, didn’t care about the characters and did not think that the playwright would ever amount to anything.
After Nick drove us home, we said goodnight to the Wilsons and retired to our comfortable accommodations.
(All of the photos in the blog have been taken with my iPhone. I took my good camera along, but have decided that I don’t really need it for the type of photos I’m taking, which are merely intended to document the trip.)
August 5.
Breakfast at the flat. Drizzly, gray morning. More Londonish than the lovely and comfortable weather we’ve had since arriving. Explained the difference between barristers and solicitors to the girls, because we’ll be seeing both today.
Went down to our local tube station and set out for Buckingham Palace. Carol had booked a visit to the palace this morning, something that is available only during August. We hadn’t really expected it, but evidently the queen got wind of the girls’ visit and insisted on a photo.
The tour of the Palace was terrific, with wonderful audio giving just enough detail to be interesting and not to bore. No photos were allowed inside, but the rooms were grand and the contents exquisite. One gets a sense of the evolution of the palace and the central role of Queen Victoria. Wonderful tour that I’d recommend to anyone coming in August. Afterwards, we had our photo taken outside the Palace, where, as you can see, it’s turned into a lovely day, with very comfortable temperatures. 
Left the Queen and moved on to the National Portrait Gallery, where we had lunch in the lovely windowed dining room on the top floor. Afterwards we had only a short time, with the girls splitting off to look at Tudor portraits that they’d read about and Carol and I looking at fifty portraits, chosen as the best in the annual portrait contest sponsored by BP. Many of them were quite outstanding and the styles represented differed greatly, one from another.
After leaving the portrait gallery, we made our way to the Supreme Court of the UK. Though the Court is not in session during the summer, we had the treat of being shown around for an hour and a half by our friend, Nick Wilson.
I got to know Nick in 1966, when, as a recent Oxford graduate, he came over to Northwestern University School of Law to assist in teaching legal writing. We’ve seen Nick and his wife, Margaret, from time to time over the years, most recently in Chicago, where he was delivering a prestigious international law lecture at Northwestern University School of Law that I had helped to make happen. Nick is known in London as Lord Wilson of Culworth, after a distinguished career as a barrister and QC, is now a justice of the UK Supreme Court. His wife, Margaret, is a distinguished lawyer herself, having served as an Appeals Court Judge. (We will be with Nick and Margaret tomorrow, when we go to Stratford, and spend the evening at their “cottage” not far from there.
Here we are with Nick and Margaret last year in Chicago and a formal photo of Nick in his wig, when those were commonly worn by barristers and judges. 
Nick showed us all of the three courtrooms and explained the workings of the court. THe 12 Supreme Court judges generally sit in panels of five. The court was created only some fifteen years ago, having prior to that been a part of the House of Lords. They have been in the building in which they now reside only ten years. Approximately 1/3 of their time is spent hearing final appeals from countries around the world that were formally part of the British Empire, though many are no longer. He showed us the beautiful, bug little-used library. 
In his chambers, he served us tea and cake and did not shy away from pointing out how technologically unsavvy he was, showing us how he used the computer screen that the Court had provided him.  We said goodbye to Nick (until tomorrow) and returned to our flat for a brief rest and change of clothes, then headed out to have dinner with Andrew and Hilary Walker. As was true of my relationship with Nick Wilson, I got to know Andrew in 1966 when, as a recent Oxford graduate, he came over to Northwestern University School of Law to assist in teaching legal writing. We renewed our friendship with Andrew, when Carol and I spent a year in London shortly thereafter attending many musical events together.
Years later, on leave from his position as Senior Partner at the prestigious London solicitors’ firm of Lovells, Andrew visited Northwestern for several months, which I played a small part in facilitating because of my relationship to then Dean Bob Bennett. At that time, we got to know Andrew’s wife, Hillary, who studied art history, and we traveled with them to the East Coast for almost a week, before they left to return to London. Years later, we spent about ten days, being hosted most graciously by Andrew and Hilary, at both their London flat and their Scottish cottage. We saw opera, both at Coventry Garden in London and at Glyndebourne in the South of England. Here we are with Andrew in formal dress at Glyndebourne (Hilary must have been taking the photo.).
We had a very pleasant dinner with Andrew and Hilary, introducing them to the girls and catching up on recent news (to the extent that we could in the rather noisy restaurant).
We tubed back to our local stop, having topped up our Oyster cards (the cards one purchases to ride on the underground, which can be added to– or topped up–when they get low on funds). Near as we can figure the cards are named for the phrase “the world is my oyster,” since the card gives one access to the world. After 11, so retired in preparation for what promises to be another full day tomorrow.
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