Lovely as lilies
and sweet as peas
Emily loves Josh
like shamrocks are lucky
Josh loves Emily
like sunflowers love sun
Glad as gladiolas
Gold as chrysanthemums
Happy as daisies
We’re pleased as bees
For Josh and Emily’s
blooms and blessings
As dear as dahlias
in every color
Their forget-me-not love
is the rarest flower
____________Colleen Redman / Nursery Rhyme read for Josh and Emily at their Wedding / Poet’s United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
You get some cute children
You don’t get arrested
You get family reunions
You probably get some costumes
And homeruns
Some team spirit
And class pictures
You get communities mixed with communities
And a communal spread of food and drink
You get some freestyle moves
And funky grooves
You don’t get a hurricane
You might get some rain (but none yet)
and if you’re lucky you’ll get Dahlias with lunch
More to come…
1. Why is Labor Day for workers but no one works on Labor Day?” – My seven-year-old grandson Liam
2. I’m either going to a wedding or a hurricane this weekend.
3. Wear Your Love Like Heaven by Donovan and You Wear it Well by Rod Stewart are two of my favorite songs.
4. I know why English women wear hats. It rains there a lot and a hat keeps you from trying to save any kind of hair-do.
5. Soundbites break skin / What’s not said blares loudly / I watch the burning house / with people inside it / They show engulfed bodies / then move to feel-good fluff / while the warden tries to convince me / that firefighters are the enemy … Read Prison Break While Watching the Nightly News in its entirety HERE.
6. “The problem isn’t people who voted for Trump. It’s the people who didn’t vote at all.” – John Kerry on the PBS NewsHour
7. My family’s two towers came down just weeks before the twin towers on 9/11. My brothers Jim and Dan died on July 25 and August 29 respectively. On the morning of 9/11 I was at home grieving when my niece, Chrissie, called to tell me to turn on the TV. I remember feeling kind of numb and having a hard time registering what was happening. I remember thinking ‘now the whole country will be in grief.’
8. The pictures here come from Darcy Meeker’s Color Project, an art and science installation, and the Color Photo Booth that Joe and I took part in at Floydfest. Check out her website HERE.
9. The theme of the 7th annual Floyd Yoga Jam, “Illumination,” was incorporated into the festival’s opening ceremony midday on Friday, August 31. Facilitated by ceremonialist/herbalist Katherine Chantal it incorporated Acro Yogis in poses, the lighting of lanterns, a guided meditation and written prayers that were put into a prayer drum to be spun throughout the weekend. The sun shone more than the rain fell, but rain (sometimes in torrents) was an integral part of this year’s four-day festival, featuring Yoga, Music, Art and Community on Burnette Farm in Willis. A double rainbow was captured by some photographers on Saturday afternoon. A fiery sunset filled the sky that same evening, and the closing ceremony on Sunday included a bonfire.- More from Rain to Rainbows – The 7th Annual Floyd Yoga Jam HERE.
10. Raining Cats and Dogs? “The first recorded use of a phrase similar to “raining cats and dogs” was in the 1651 collection of poems Olor Iscanus. British poet Henry Vaughan referred to a roof that was secure against “dogs and cats rained in shower.” One year later, Richard Brome, an English playwright, wrote in his comedy City Witt, “It shall rain dogs and polecats.” In 1738, Jonathan Swift published his “Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation,” a satire on the conversations of the upper classes. One of his characters fears that it will “rain cats and dogs.” Whether Swift coined the phrase or was using a cliché, his satire was likely the beginning of the phrase’s popularity.”
11. I once told Joe that I love him cats and dogs.
12. Recently seen on Facebook: What do you with thirty gallons of water and fifty cans of soup that you bought for bad weather that doesn’t look like it’s coming? Asking for a friend.
13. THIS is my kind of art museum.
_______Thirteen Thursday
-The following first appeared (with a varied spread of pictures) in The Floyd Press on September 6, 2018.
The theme of the 7th annual Floyd Yoga Jam, “Illumination,” was incorporated into the festival’s opening ceremony midday on Friday, August 31. Facilitated by ceremonialist/herbalist Katherine Chantal it incorporated Acro Yogis in poses, the lighting of lanterns, a guided meditation and written prayers that were put into a prayer drum to be spun throughout the weekend.
The sun shone more than the rain fell, but rain (sometimes in torrents) was an integral part of this year’s four-day festival, featuring Yoga, Music, Art and Community on Burnette Farm in Willis.
A double rainbow was captured by some photographers on Saturday afternoon. A fiery sunset filled the sky that same evening, and the closing ceremony on Sunday included a bonfire.
Lullaby, Laughter, Revival, Lucid Dreams, Super Hero School, Taming the Mind, and Yoga for Recovery were some of the Yoga practice themes offered in classes.
Acro Yoga, which combines yoga and acrobatics and is practiced with a partner, was popular with Yogajammers. Children’s Yoga offerings included Robot Yoga. An interactive Puppet Show and a Suitcase DJ were big hits with kids.
Plant Walks, a Labyrinth, Mandala Art, Meditation, Fire Performances and Poetry at the Tea Shanti Speakeasy Tent were some of the festival offerings that contributed to the mix of weekend highlights.
Genres of the music performed included Space Age Folk Wave, Progressive Americana, Folk Flamenco, Hip Hop, Roots Rock, Reggae, Funk, Soul, Indian Classical and Devotional.
Musical talents from Floyd were showcased and included Richie and the Wildlife, Nianng and the Land of Joy, Music Road, Morgan Wade and the Stepbrothers, Seph Custer, The Wildmans, Jam Sandwich and more.
Other headliners included Wah!, Wayne Henderson and Helen White, The Get Right Band, Dangermuffin, Oddisse & Good Company, Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band.
Speakers included Jeff Tiebout on The Nature of Illumination using sacred literature, David Rodwell of the Climate Reality Project, Sitar and Tabla musician Ustad Shafaat Khan on the spiritual and devotional aspect of Indian music and more.
Arts Vendors, Food Vendors, Merchandise Vendors, a People’s Park and Non-profit booths rounded out the scene.
First-time Yoga Jam attendee Sean Kitson said, “I didn’t know what to expect, adding that “the people have been great and so friendly.” Kitson came from Durham, NC, with his girlfriend, a member of the Global Breath Yoga Studio. “I’ll be back,” he said. – Colleen Redman
A few more photos and captions follow.
Yoga teacher Dana Flynn played music by Aretha Franklin during her class on Sunday. “Lean into the love,” the Flow Yogi told students.
Yoga Jam co-founder Shirleyann Burgess stops to pose with a festival volunteer.
Floyd’s Mystic Witches Yoga incorporated a “Do the Hocus Pocus” dance with poses. The witches’ performances raise money for local charities.
Mara Robbins poses with a community flag representing waterways in the region. The 1000 Flags / 1000 Waters project flags flew in the Art Village. Learn more at waterflags.org.
Flirting with Chemicals played at the Boogie Down Tent and was made up of a constellation of local musicians. You know who you are!
Acro Yoga and cheerleading teacher Robert Lu has taken on a challenge of lifting 10,000 people around the world with Acro Yoga. Li went to college with Ryan Turman, whose family owns the property of the Yoga Jam site and is one of the festival sponsors. Li has lifted people in Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, New York, Florida, and now Virginia. Here, he is lifting massage therapist Elisha Reygle in the festival Yoga Lounge.
See you next year! / Our World Tuesday
Like a maestro conducting
three networks at once
I flip discordant channels
looking for escape
Soundbites break skin
What isn’t said blares loudly
I watch the burning house
with people inside it
They show engulfed bodies
then move to feel-good fluff
while the warden tries to convince me
the firefighters are the enemy
________Colleen Redman / Poets United
The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on August 9, 2008.
It was a perfect day for Plein Air (painting outdoors) after several days of rain. Floyd artists Marsha Slopey Paulekas and Joli Ayn Wood set up along the Blue Ridge Parkway to enjoy the free expression practice made popular by the French Impressionists and others.
“My parents were both artists, so I’ve painted all my life, said Paulekas, who was painting a farmer’s field. “After 60 years, I’ve finally found a place in my life where I’m having a lot of fun while I’m painting instead of it always being such a challenge.” She was drawn to the interesting chopped lines of the farm buildings in the distance, and the light and commented that it’s easier to paint now that her children are grown.
Both painters agreed that their paintings were in the early stages. Wood, whose parents were musicians, was painting a scene that included Paulekas and Paulekas’s vintage car. “It’s at the stage where it’s a puzzle and I just have to keep going,” she said. “Come back when they look better!” Paulekas joked.
1. “Is it gonna rain?”
2. The picture above was taken at Floyd Yoga Jam, where we had some torrential downpours, but more sunshine than rain over the long Labor Day weekend. It’s actually a hacky sack that they’re waiting to see fall.
3. My grandsons were Super Hero campers at the Yoga Jam. And not only did they enjoy camping by the creek with us, they did some floss dancing to one of the main stage bands. See HERE. 
4. I had a dream recently that I was at an impromptu talent show at Floydfest-like scene. It was my turn to perform on stage. I had nothing planned to do, so I decided to balance a ball on my head. It was a large red foam rubber ball and I got it balanced so well that I decided to keep it on top of my head. As I went around the rest of the day and my life with the large red ball on my head, some people noticed it and others didn’t.
5. I wonder why agnostics are looked at as non-believers when they are actually open-minded to the possibility of all kinds of beliefs, while also accepting that no one really knows or can prove the existence of God, Heaven, Hell etc.
6. ‘Dying isn’t the end of the world,’ my mother liked to joke after she was diagnosed as terminal. There are so many things worse than death: old grudges, a lack of self-awareness, severe constipation, no sense of humor, the grimace on your husband’s face as he empties your surgical drain into the measuring cup…” – The beginning of Nina Riggs’s book that I’m currently reading, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying
7. “We have so much human anxiety about where we’re going, and what we might be when we’re no longer here. But I think art can be a beautiful inverse of that: Instead of here and then gone, it’s nowhere and then concretely here. When you look at a final copy of a book, or a painting, or listen to a song, it’s just amazing to think how there was just a blank space in the world where it didn’t exist before. But now it does. Because someone dreamed it, and then made it, and now it’s here—hanging on a wall, or in a bookstore. It’s beautiful. And it isn’t going anywhere. – From The Powerful Practice of Writing by Hand: The author Laura van den Berg on what inspired her newest novel, The Third Hotel, and how she accesses the part of the mind that fiction comes from. – More HERE.
8. The days of life scatter / like the goldfinches / on Woods Gap Road / The closer I get / the faster they go / in a fleeting ripple of beauty / that won’t be seen up close… More from The Golden Years HERE.
9. Poets Rhyme Sugar with Teacup and Saucer. They alliterate Morning with Mug. My friends Katherine and Chelsea and I were recently asked to read our tea poems at a Ladies Tea, held at the Manor House Teas in Floyd. There were savories and sweets, sips of wine and tea, along with our poetic brews. – More from Poets Three for Poetry and Tea HERE.
10. “I think writing, or any form of art-making, is a way to prepare for not being here.” – Laura van den Berg
11. Hula or Hoola Hoop? When I search on my blog I have 26 posts with the words “hula hoop” and only 6 for “hoola hoop.” Watch some Yoga Jam Hoopla HERE.
12. Who can guess what THIS is?
13. Witches Yoga HERE.
____________Thirteen Thursday
________Wordless Wednesday
The days of life scatter
like the goldfinches
on Woods Gap Road
The closer I get
the faster they go
in a fleeting ripple of beauty
that won’t be seen up close
Rising from the roadsides
they leave me in the dust
They fly from my heart
like children who have grown
like children never born
whose memories can’t be known
___________Colleen Redman / Poets United
Poets Rhyme Sugar with Teacup and Saucer. They alliterate Morning with Mug.
My friends Katherine and Chelsea and I were recently asked to read our tea poems at a Ladies Tea, held at the Manor House Teas in Floyd.
There were savories and sweets, sips of wine and tea, along with our poetic brews.
Katherine read from her Tea Poets Journey, which I reviewed for The Floyd Press in 2010. See HERE.
Chelsea had the best hat photo-op.
She, who has several published chapbooks, read a poem titled Her Story about finding her mother. It included a scene of her mother sipping tea.
Katherine took requests for poems on favorite teas, such as Earl Gray.
I didn’t read from my chapbook Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press, although there were some mentions of tea in that collection. I read from my desktop published Teapoet, but forgot to remind Katherine (who videotaped the above) that the poems were haiku-sized, best heard in a group.
It was a lot of fun, and it was Rhonda’s birthday! / Our World Tuesday
1. Every time something goes wrong with my computer (which has happened a lot these days), I think it’s the Russians.
2. Quote seen on Facebook: Don’t trust everything you see. Even salt looks like sugar.
3. When one door closes another opens HERE.
4. Sometimes I get my blog categories “poetics” and “politics” mixed up. Some poems are political but politics are never poetic.
5. After saying in last week’s 13 Thursday that I’d get up and dance to Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT anywhere and how a friend got me to class reunion by promising that the DJ would play it, guess what they played at the iBme-Uk Teen Retreat Community Share dance party?
6. This is the poem I read at the retreat Community Share night: Don’t over water / Please climb / Take time in the dark / Some roots / collide with cement / and win the battle against it / Some insight comes / from closing a door / and looking out for others / Don’t underestimate / The weight of a petal / What we see / and what we don’t / are equal
7. I can write a poem. But I don’t want to write that poem. I want to write the poem I don’t think I can write. Writing poetry, by its nature, is to bypass the intellect, but the mind keeps wanting to go to the intellect. So, to find a deeper essence of meaning in the practice of writing poetry, I have to keep bringing my mind back to one-pointed attention and steering it away from the intellect, just like I do in mediation.
8. In many ways, Kench Hill Centre is like an old farmhouse B&B in the English countryside. There are apple trees, ponds, vegetable and flower gardens and green places to stroll. From August 18 to 23 there were also lots of young people there, learning contemplative mindfulness practices, playing games and building a community of trust and sharing… Along with the mindfulness program, teens and mentors took a guided walk in the woods, had a tea ceremony, participated in a drumming workshop, listened to wisdom talks by the teachers and shared noble silence together. There was yoga, guided loving kindness meditations, walking meditations, wholesome food served throughout the day and regular small group discussions that deepened the support and caring the group members felt for each other… Read more about the Inward Bound Mindfulness Education teen retreat Joe taught at and I documented HERE.
9. In the three weeks we were in Europe – Paris, Italy and England—I didn’t meet one person who hasn’t horrified about Trump in the White House.
10. On the plane to Paris, we opened up a magazine and found a story about our hometown of Floyd! (See right.)
11. Homesteading, homeschooling, community, beautiful land and good water were some of the reasons a wave of new pioneers began settling in Floyd throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. Some lived in tents or off-grid and some rented old farmhouses for as little as $100 a month, while creating new foundations for more self-sufficient lifestyles and raising their families… so begins my story that recently appeared in a Floyd Press magazine insert called A Place Called Home (first photo) about the influx of back-to-the-land alter-natives who started moving to Floyd in the ’70’s and how that tradition continues today. – More HERE.
12. My life was very different while on vacation. For one thing, I wore lipstick almost every day.
13. “When hate and fear have been politicized and weaponized, kindness and thoughtfulness are acts of resistance. Resist, persist, insist on honesty, truth and justice for all.” – My Dharmacratic friend Will
_________Thirteen Thursday
Now that we’re home from our trip to Paris, Italy and England, I’ve been able to review some highlights and take a closer look at the pictures I took, like the ones posted here from Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s Garden.
Our time there went by so fast. Now I treasure every picture that we managed to capture but can’t help but feel that we didn’t take enough!
We were there in late August and now I find myself wondering what the gardens look like in Spring.
I can’t get over how many varieties of dahlias there were!
Très belle! Très belle!
Now as the summer is winding down here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I find myself missing Monet’s Garden.
But I’ve also been remembering the old adage that says it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.
Check out more from our trip to Monet’s Gardens in Giverny, France HERE. / Our World Tuesday
Crepe-myrtle
is summer’s answer
to lilacs in the spring
Happy girls bouncing
with berry-red pom poms
shaking in the breeze
while ironweed purple
and goldenrod yellow
in September school colors
play the field
___________Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
David Frost was born at the Kench Hill Centre where the 2018 Inward Bound Mindfulness (iBme) UK teen retreat took place. I’ve been told that the main house was once a hospital. These days, it’s a venue for events – such as weddings and family reunions – and is an educational center focused on environmental awareness and exposing city kids to nature.
In many ways, it’s like an old farmhouse B&B in the English countryside. There are apple trees, ponds, vegetable and flower gardens and green places to stroll. From August 18 to 23 there were also lots of young people there, learning contemplative mindfulness practices, playing games and building a community of trust and sharing.
The Kench Hill Centre in Kent, England, near the town of Tenderten was the last leg of Joe’s and my European vacation. It was the impetus for the trip, since Joe, an iBme co-founder, was scheduled as one of the teachers.
I had planned to unwind, read and walk during the six-day retreat while he was doing what he does best, but I also participated, feeling part of the community and taking pictures that were shown as a slideshow at the Community Share night celebration.
Along with the mindfulness program, teens and mentors took a guided walk in the woods, had a tea ceremony, participated in a drumming workshop, listened to wisdom talks by the teachers and shared noble silence together.
There was yoga, guided loving kindness meditations, walking meditations, wholesome food served throughout the day and regular small group discussions that deepened the support and caring the group members felt for each other.
I was impressed with how bright and full of spirit the teens were, sixteen of them from all over the UK, and from Ireland, Italy and America. They wanted to learn and freely interacted with each other and with the adults present. They learned to listen to each other, to see more deeply and let themselves be seen and heard. The atmosphere was one of acceptance, inclusion and curiosity. The food was wholesome and much of it was from the Kench Hill gardens.
It was sixteen-year-old Becca’s second iBme teen retreat. She came to find more peace within herself. “Through the wisdom talks, small groups and sitting in meditation, it became clear to me that everyone has more issues than you think, and with my own issues, I’ve learned to respect them as problems, but I also understand that they can create a better-ness for me and an ability to empathize with others.”
16-year-old Emily spoke about the insight she gained at the retreat, saying, “My nature doesn’t change. Who I want to be has always been there. It’s just coming back to that.”
Most of the teens cited “the people” as a highlight of the retreat. “It’s not just for mindfulness. It’s for bonding, making new friends, expression and emotions, bonding with nature, having fun and laughing. I feel much more relaxed now,” said 16-year-old Luke, who also spoke of how important breaking up into daily small groups was for him and how they provided a feeling acceptance and support.
Fifteen-year-old Megan said the drumming workshop was a highlight for her. She described it as “liberating.” She recalled another highlight, when some teens discovered an abandoned newborn critter in the brambles, and the community came together to care for it. They named it Pup.
The retreat culminated in a Community Share Celebration where mentors and teens entertained each other with musical performances, inventive skits, comedy, poetry and more. There was a dance party, followed by a community gathering around a bonfire as the retreat wound down.
But that wasn’t all. On the final day, the group sat in a circle and collectively held a red thread, signifying their connection to each other. After the thread was cut into pieces in a representation of their return to separate lives, they each tied four knots symbolizing their own goodness, their sense of belonging and support from the community, and also their future intentions. With the knots in place, they helped each other tie the threads on each other’s wrists.
There was also a gratitude ceremony in which each member of the community had an opportunity to express appreciations and speak from their heart before sending off their words with the ring of a bell. “I’ve never had so many people be so kind to me,” said sixteen-year-old Lia.
“I’ve made very strong connections here,” shared Pauric. Cosimo summed up the experience, saying, “I’ve learned so much from every single one of you. I can’t wait to be back!”
Below is the slideshow. Visit iBme Uk’s webpage HERE or on Facebook for more information.
1. Today I stopped to smell the roses … in the English countryside.
2. I mistakenly thought I saw a child driving a car (because the driver’s seat is where the passenger seat is in the U.S.). Everywhere I went there were ripe blackberries to pick and the scent of farms. I passed streets with names like Shrub Cote, Priory Way and Tilden Gill.
3. We were traveling from Italy to England, somewhere where they were broadcasting CNN, when I learned about the death of Aretha Franklin. I was a big fan and marked her passing by posting a video of her on Facebook singing Respect.
4. Along with the video, I commented: I’ve been known to say that I’ll get up and dance to Aretha Franklin’s Respect wherever I am no matter where I hear it. One year I was invited to my Hull MA class reunion and I told my classmate who asked if I was coming that I would if the reunion party DJ played Respect. He did and we all got up and danced!
5. We flew from Genoa, Italy to London the day after the tragic Genoa bridge collapse. If it had been the day before, we would not have been able to make the flight. Thanks to our hometown friend Jody Rose of Rose of the Winds, who booked our plans, for giving us heads-up and updates about the bridge.
6. While in Europe (Paris, the Italian Riviera and England), I learned which few of my Facebook friends are insomniacs. We were six, then five five hours ahead time-wise here and a few friends were awake and commenting in the wee hours of night/early morning.
7. The bucket list trip has been fantastic but not without the stresses that are inherent in daily life . In this case, it was the wear and tear of long traveling logistics, language barriers, and my computer bit the dust! Technology takes up a lot of our time, but when it’s not working right it takes up more than too much. For a couple of weeks I had to wiggle my netbook power charge cord, prop it up at angles and pray that it would start, before it completely gave up. By the time we were in the Kent countryside, where Joe is one of the teachers at a Teen Meditation Retreat, I had to face the learning curve and use his Mac.
8. Poem written in Italy about travel logistics and relationship: We are a crossword puzzle / When I go down / you go across / but we meet at some point / to make sense of each other / Every word counts / Every blank space / is a mirror to see / ourselves better.
9. The picture above is of Joe and I soaking our feet in Claude Monet’s water lily pond. More HERE. You can also read about our stay on the Italian Riviera HERE and about our two days in London at “Not Your Grandma’s Bangers and Mash” HERE.
10. It’s never too late to put flowers on the table / to let the song birds of your childhood / sing like Jericho through middle age / to let them be blue/ and enjoy them when they’re golden / to visit Claude Monet’s garden in spring … Read the rest of this poem HERE.
11. Ma’am of Madame? In England I’ve been called “My darling.”
12. Heard on a London weather report from a pub TV in London: “Pop your brelly in your bag.”
13. The whole reason for putting the Cinque Terre on my bucket list was that years ago I read Shirley Maclaine’s book about hiking the Camino and entertained the idea of making that month-long pilgrimage someday. The reality is, I don’t have the stamina to pull something like that off. The idea of taking shorter hikes in-between the colorful villages of The Cinque Terre sounded so doable, and I liked the idea of swimming in the Mediterranean Sea in between hikes and eating Italian food. The Cinque Terre is considered the Italian Riviera but unlike the French Riviera, the businesses in the villages are local and family owned… – More from The Hike That Happened HERE.
____________Thirteen Thursday
As soon as we arrived in London, after a long day of travel from Italy, we headed straight for the pub.
After finding no IPAs in France and only a couple of bottled ones in Italy, it was good to be in England and enjoy a really good beer, not to mention that everyone spoke English. We toasted to my son’s paternal extended family, who are all from England. When I asked the pub keeper about their untraditional bangers and mash (sausage, mashed potatoes and gravy) he said, “We go our own way.”
With only two short days in London, we had to work fast. We made our way to Trafalgar Square, where I remembered being when I was last in London in 1975. I think I look like an excited kid who just met Aslan in this shot.
While in Trafalgar Square we mingled with the street performers and artists, like this man, an activist who was making a statement about the environment using coins as his artful medium.
“Joe, it’s for you.”
This part of London was like Times Square and shows a double shot of England’s double-decker red buses, which we did ride to get back to our hotel.
It looks like Joe is about to catch Cupid’s arrow singlehandedly.
London is very diverse. While walking through one of London’s Central Park-like parks, I stopped to talk to these young Malaysian women when I saw them trying to squeeze together for a selfie.
There were lots of tube rides and “Mind the Gap” announcements, which is how the Brits say “Watch Your Step.”
Can you imagine using the word “circus” in place of “street?” We saw these shoes in Piccadilly Circus. There was also an Oxford Circus, but that doesn’t sound like as much fun. “These are something Elton John might buy,” I said to Joe.
I kept looking for that hip fun street that I couldn’t remember the name of but remembered from 1975, and there it was! Carnaby Street!
Where do you think we went next?
Why don’t we do it in the road? Even strangers paired up to recreate the iconic crossing captured on the cover of the Beatles’ Abby Road. I guess I’m Ringo.
We also went to Buckingham Palace but didn’t plan well enough to see the changing of the guard maneuver. Apart from a couple of old school guards who never moved, there were a couple of bobbies armed to the max, and when I asked them why so heavily armed, the woman cop answered, “because the Queen lives here!”
We were told she was in Scotland.
We liked the Carnaby Street area so much, we went back a second evening. The pubs overflowed into the streets. Now we’re off to Kent where Joe is a teacher at an iBme-UK teen retreat. Cheers (or should I say Hello Goodbye)! ______Our World Tuesday
