Unexpected Christmas

I got home at last, Tuesday December 21. That only left one day to get ready for a trip to London! to attend the marriage celebration of Harold's nephew Joel. We were to leave Thursday before Christmas, but that great storm I fought in Iowa caught up with Cincinnati and dumped 12 inches of snow, topped with an inch of ice. All travel came to a halt. We couldn't even exit our driveway. We learned later that our drive was not plowed out until two days after Christmas. I spent Thursday shoveling two tracks from my parking spot down our long, steep driveway, hoping that gravity would play its part in getting the car down the hill.

Next day, Christmas Eve, my plan was tested. I "drove" the car down the driveway, with Mark and a neighbor pushing on either side. It was a roller coaster out of control, but I managed to hit the street without crashing into any stone walls along the way. We made it safely to our plane, having changed our reservation before the mad rush of stymied passengers.

We arrived in London early Christmas Day. Remember Scrooge awakening in London on Christmas morning? the children, snow, singers, and other jolly-makers? That's not the London we saw. Everything was shut down tight as a drum, even the tube. Special buses took passengers to town and dumped us at a closed station. The best part of Christmas Day was finding our flat in Bloomsbury and meeting up with Eric, who had arrived safely from Los Angeles the day before with nary a problem. He had spent Christmas Eve wandering around London on his own, after being turned away at St. Paul's along with crowds of others.

We spent most of Christmas Day walking, looking for any sign of Christmas or people or food. At last, near the theater district, we found an open restaurant. By then the boys were famished. Generally speaking, London was tomb-like during the entire week following Christmas. Many shops and restaurants were closed, but the museums were thankfully open.

Joel married a young woman named Michelle from SW London, and our family represented the Byers set of relatives. We enjoyed many marriage-related festivities, as well as doing some sight-seeing. See next entry for details.