Two of my Proietti sisters-in-law, Linda and Laura, came to see us in late October. They were our first  visitors  and we were so happy to have them. They are wonderful travelers, always up for anything or even nothing. We’ve traveled to different places together and it’s always a blast.      I planned a few things to do upon their arrival in London, including visiting the National Gallery, Tower of London and  Tate Modern museum . We hit a pub or three, also. My favorite day was taking the train to Windsor and doing a castle tour (which was really pretty good), lunch and then a play (Chekov’s  The Cherry Orchard ) with Ian McKellen in a supporting role.     Two days after this  us  girls caught a train to Edinburgh, Scotland, where we had rented an  AirBnB  for thr...

I've been in England for 75 days already! The first half of that I was basically on holiday. It hasn’t been much of a break since then.  Matt and I are here for two years as he pursues a master’s degree in creative nonfiction at City, University of London. The school was slow in getting him something he needed for his student visa to move forward so he flew home to California in late September to deal with that and do classes online. I stayed behind.     I started moving into our flat Oct. 1. It’s in the borough of Islington in Greater London. Since Matt was in the states, it was up to his intrepid wife to get this handled.  I came up with a game plan for our six suitcases over from the Marylebone home of our friend, Bob, who was in Spain for a few weeks.    Too far to walk.  Tube and buses out, too, because they involve waiting and moving 50-pound suitcases on my own.  Taxi it would be.  My thought was I'd make a delivery of one of the bigge...