A quiet morning at The Penn Club -- breakfast in the almost silent dining room, and then an inspiring visit to the National Gallery, where we just happened, by chance, to walk into a small room with some wonderful early 19th century paintings by mostly French artists. We stayed there for about 20 minutes, wandering among the paintings -- but soon I noticed Cia sitting quietly on one of the benches. This, I thought to myself, was quite unusual, for she is usually an eager museum-goer and I have to "drag" her out. I sensed that something was wrong, and sure enough, she said she was not feeling well, especially in her abdomen area. We sat there for awhile, hoping the discomfort would leave, but soon she said, with a sad face, that perhaps we should take the bus back to the hotel so she could rest awhile. We did that, and luckily, we got back fairly quickly and she was soon wrapped in a blanket and looking a little more comfortable. 

We stayed in our room the rest of the afternoon, listening to some chapters of A Tale of Two Cities and generally being at peace. It actually was a delightful afternoon for me, just sitting by our beautiful big windows close to Cia, and reading a little, writing a little, and sometimes just gazing out the windows at the light-looking, pastel-colored clouds coming across the buildings in the distance.  

She slowly improved all afternoon, and was soon smiling and even laughing, and around 5:30 she said she was actually quite hungry, and that made me more than quite glad.  We had a lovely walk down to the stores and picked up some take-out food, brought it home and had a wonderful dinner down in the dining room. 

SO happy to have my Cia back!

Scenes from London . . . 

Mohandas Ghandi, in one of the squares in Bloomsbury

A plane tree, made famous in A Tale of Two Cities