Wednesday Dec. 10: The French fries taste like blood.

Wednesday morning we got up at 9:45, continuing our trend to adjust to the time change. We had breakfast at the Brompton Quarter Café. I ordered the kids pain au chocolate, and you should have seen their faces when they got to the chocolate center. Frank could not have been happier. Chocolate for breakfast! But the rest proved a little too fancy for the kids. The pancakes were more like crepes, and they put honey on it instead of syrup. The kids did not like these changes to one of their favorite dishes. We grownups loved our food. I had a traditional English breakfast: eggs, sausages, bacon, a baked tomato, and baked beans; quite yummy.

After we left the International House of Eschewed Crepes, we headed back to Hyde Park for more fun at the Winter Wonderland. This time Virginia, Frank, and I did the Ferris wheel. Because the midweek crowds were light, they let us go around three times. It was an amazing view of the park and the London skyline from a different vantage point.

Graham and Frank partook of the bungee jump experience where they each got hooked up in a harness and bounced 15 feet in the air. They loved it. As usual we were running late, so we hopped on the tube and after a couple of train changes we headed to Camden in Regent’s Park. We grabbed some sandwiches at Fresh & Wild, the British incarnation of Whole Foods.

We headed to BADA, where Polly’s niece Ellen has been studying all term in the drama program. Her performance on the next Thursday night would be the culmination of her work, and was the impetus for us to take this trip. We were privileged to see a rehearsal, since the kids weren’t coming to the actual performance. The show was Shakespeare’s King Lear (a “real upper,” as Ellen described it), and they did the final act for us. Ellen’s director instructed my kids: if something’s funny, you can laugh; if something’s sad, you can cry; and if it’s boring, you can leave. It wasn’t boring. You may not have studied King Lear in a while, but it includes the gouging out of eyes, stabbings, and poisonings. This rehearsal included lots of fake blood in small plastic packets. It was really great. Frank watched it all with great interest except for when two of the characters kissed. For that he had to cover his eyes.

We had a look at Piccadilly Circus. The kids liked the lighted signs and all the hustle and bustle. We walked down to the Sherlock Holmes pub near the Embankment tube stop. The kids had sparkling apple juice and a bowl of chips. Graham said he liked the juice, but not the bubbles. Although Frank loves French fries, he didn’t eat the ones at the Sherlock Holmes because he said they tasted like blood, a reference to the ketchup, and King Lear, I assume.

That night we went back to the Tea Clipper, where we met a wonderful bartender who was quite amused to hear our tale of ruining the kettle, and told us where to buy it. But she really liked finding out that her colleague the night before had to clean out three taps. “That’s brilliant!” she kept saying. They let Polly ring the bell for last call at 23:00.