In Like a Lion

Nevermind that I'm sitting here watching the neighbor across the street shovel the sidewalk, it is March and that means spring is coming.

I love March. March is the month I took my first trip to England and the month I met Nigel. I'd got over to visit my friend Scott, who was a drama student in London at the time.

He was living in the smallest bedsit you've ever seen--it was just double the width of his single bed and not even double the length. He lived in Crouch End, a wonderful neighborhood just east of Highgate in North London. The bedsit was small and cold, with a heater you had to pump 10p coins into, the bath was down the hall and cold, and cooking was done in either a toaster oven or on Scott's one-pan burner. Nearly 15 years ago, that little bedsit cost him £300 a month--or $600 with today's conversion. And it was heaven on earth.

While Scott was in school all day, I was out exploring London and fell madly in love with North London in particular, from Crouch End high street (where I had my first real samosas) to Waterlow Park (you've seen it if you've watched "Truly, Madly, Deeply"), Keats' House, and Hampstead Heath. Most mornings I would walk with Scott to school through the Heath and then set out for my day of solo adventure.

In two weeks, I tore up London (and Oxford, where we made a special visit to the offices of Oxford University Press, being the book geeks we are and also to the dining hall at Oxford where John Locke used to eat his meals.)

Aside from meeting Nigel and seeing the Queen, my favorite thing of all was that the daffodils had exploded throughout the city. Every park was filled with them, and my favorite sight of all was the day in Hyde Park where I stopped to drink a cup of tea and eat a snack. It had been overcast all morning, but all of a sudden the sun started to break low on the horizon. The sky was that beautiful steely gray and the hill of daffodils next to me absolutely came to life. Now, anytime the sky does that, I'm instantly drawn back to London.

The day we (Scott and me... he was there) met Nigel was pretty amazing. Scott didn't have classes that day so we ventured to Kew Gardens to explore. Kew is magnificent and it ignited for me a love of botanic gardens. It was a cold day--I've never been so cold as I was on that trip--and we were wandering around the grounds, laughing and talking, and making our way to find tea. Out of nowhere, a gardener on a bicycle, a slight Asian man, rode up next to us shouting, "The Queen is here! The Queen is here! Quick, go see the Queen!"

We found out where she was, and in no particular hurry, made our way over to the Princess Diana Conservatory where she was said to be. We got over there and didn't see anything, but could hear people around the back. We went around to the back. Standing there were about two dozen people, a Rolls Royce, and two guards, and no fanfare. Apparently, the Queen had come to see the new conservatory on a private and unannounced visit. We stood for a few minutes, and suddenly, the back door of the conservatory opened. The Queen, with escorts, walked out, did her expected and classic wave, slipped into the car, and was gone. We Saw The Queen.


Our first order of business was to find a pay phone and change to call our friend Richard in Colorado. It was about 8am Denver time, and Richard was at work having his performance review, but stopped to take our call, worrying that something was wrong. I think he called us "dorks", laughed, and hung up.

Neither Scott nor I are exactly royalists, but that was really flipping cool.

Giddy from that little adventure, it was time to make our way back to London. That evening, we were going for dinner at Scott's favorite Italian restaurant and then off to the pub to meet my friend Paul. I knew Paul from the book industry--we'd met a few years before at an American Booksellers Association show and had always managed to keep in touch. We'd arranged an evening out in London, and who did he bring with him but Our Nigel.

The funny thing was, Nigel and I didn't really connect that night. Mostly, Paul and I were catching up and Scott and Nigel were chatting. The first pub we went to isn't so memorable to me--it was called The Lamb and I don't think we've ever been back. The other one, however, was magnificent. It is the Princess Louise and we try to go back there every time we're in London, and on our last trip, we actually went twice--once to meet Nigel's brother who was visiting from Shrewsbury and once to meet this motley crew. Sadly, Bittu's eyes are closed in every single picture, but this was the best one...


But I digress.

Anyhow, I love March. It's filled with some great memories for me, it's Women's History Month, we've got St. Patrick's Day and Purim, the Ides of March, the birth of Theodore Geisel, spring and pre-season baseball games are coming, and the flowers are starting to bloom. How could you not love March?