Hail and Farewell

I will always look back on this trip to London as a blessed time. The business parts went well. Everyone wished they had my job which consists primarily of knowing all about Bechtel. When you've been building data exchanges for 25 years, it is pretty easy to do and basically low stress.

That left me free to enjoy myself. I was going to retire in January, so I pretended I already was retired. Amazingly, no one complained. I laughed and told jokes the way I always do, but this time they laughed, too. I think I love the English. And the Scots. And perhaps also the South Africans. In fact, I loved them all, and they loved me.

I saw everything and did everything, even after I found that I have arthritis. I stopped going to musicals because I simply don't want to be blasted by distortion for two or three hours. As a lover of singing, I want to hear the voices, not the blaring backup bands.

I found that when I went places alone, I could seek out someone to talk to. They have all disappeared into the void. Christine who attended Solomon on a free ticket because she had trashed the soprano and they wanted her to give her a second chance. The man who lived in Kensington near my hotel. The ancient lady eating bouillabaisse at the fish bar in Harrod's who thought it hadn't enough garlic. Sondra's husband.

Wo war ich schon einmal, und s'war so selig?  [When was I ever this happy?]