Aug. 4: Our last full day in London

I started my last day in London by meeting my nephew who lives in the Earl's Court area. After showing me his beautiful flat, we had a delicious lunch and walked around the Earl's Court area. We then went to Kensington Palace and walked through the gardens.

In the afternoon: washed and packed (trying to put off shoving everything in my suitcases!)

Later that afternoon, I went to the IMAX version of the new Harry Potter movie, which was wonderful--so fun! I enjoyed ordering popcorn there--I was offered a choice of salty or sweet!(Ms. Wright, I hope you got the chance to see the movie at another showing because it was worth the price of the ticket!)

In the evening, I met my wonderful London friends for dinner at the Mad Hatter restaurant, where we dubbed our group--you guessed it---the Mad Hatters! It was bittersweet, since we knew we were going our separate ways, but are hoping to meet up again ---possibly at the Children's Book Festival in Hattiesburg?? These women are amazing and have added immeasurably to my experience here in London. We were all ready to spend a lot of time alone when we came on this trip, thinking we would be the only "oldie" in the group, so what a blessing to share a whole flat with other "mature ladies." We also really appreciated what Mr. Mike, Old as Dirt, brought to our group and were very sorry we didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him.


All the people in our class have given me so much in sharing their library experience and their love of literature. I keep thinking of how lucky the library profession is to have such gifted people serving the public (and gifted instructors---Dr. Welsh and Ms. Wright--- serving us!). I was also inspired by the people I met---they have so much more knowledge of certain authors and some of our students are much better read than I am. I have a lot of catching up to do when I get home!