A girl can dream, can't she?

If I had world enough and time, I would take the book London Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World's Most Vibrant City (by Steve Roud) into a room with me, my fuzzy red throw blanket, and some coffee and bon-bons, and never come out. And I'd like to do this during a month like we're currently having: way too much snow and ridiculously cold.*

Roud shares tidbits of history and legend from every nook and cranny in London--and I do mean every one. It's a thick book, with dense printing, organized so that each chapter covers a different borough and is further subdivided according to its stories, with headings like "Cock Lane, Smithfield." I read a bit of the first chapter ("Cock Lane is an inconspicuous, narrow thoroughfare, off Giltspur Street, Smithfield, which suddenly acquired international fame in 1762 when a house in the road became the scene of one of the best-known hauntings in London's history..."), but the sad fact of the matter is that I'm not going to have time to read the whole thing, and truthfully, it just reminds me I'm not IN London and therefore makes me sad.

But I have a plan! Not to put too much pressure on CRjr or anything, but I have this dream that during college he'll study abroad for a year--at Oxford! And while he does Mr. CR and I will move to London for six months, to be able to see him once in a while and to take an extended look around ourselves!! And then I can take this book along and have time to explore with it. Right? It'll totally happen, right?**

*Cold is one thing, but next week our forecasted highs are set to be several degrees below the normal LOWS for this time of year. And we've got so much snow (yes, yes, I know, still nothing compared to what the East coast has been getting this winter) that backing blindly out of our driveway between the monster drifts/snow piles on each side has become a suicide mission.

**I know it'll never happen. For one thing CRjr probably won't be able to afford college anywhere (have you seen how fast tuition is going up these days?), much less Oxford, and for another, he may grow up to find someplace like, say, France, more interesting than Great Britain.*** But I can still dream.

***This is the sort of thing I worry about, to keep myself from worrying about his health and peer pressure and other mundane crap like that.

Comments

[lesbrarian]

It's seventy-five degrees here. Trade?

...and yeah, that'd totally suck if you had to move to France for half a year. In fact, let's go ahead and plan to save you that inconvenience: if CRjr chooses someplace other than England for his semester abroad, he can have his funky aunt Jessica come chaperone. You get dibs if he does London or community college. Deal?

[Citizen Reader]

MMMMmmmm seventy-five degrees. Nummy. Normally I love winter, but really, this year I have just had enough. (CRjr and I want to take some walks!!) Didn't help that this past weekend we got a nice little ice/snow mix that's still wreaking havoc on our roads. Blech.

Okay, if CRjr somehow gets to Paris for his year abroad, I GUESS I can go to Paris. (Only a chunnel ride away from London, after all.) There's nothing to say you can't come and chaperone all of us, though. For one thing, I can't speak French and when I try the basics ("bonjour") people laugh at my accent. One nice museum guard in Montreal said, "It's okay, I speak English" to stop me from trying any more.

[rick]

CR, have you tried using your books as what you read to CRjr? Up to a certain book, he'll just enjoy that you're reading to him. Go ahead and work through a couple of books that interest you.

[Citizen Reader]

Hi Rick!
Oh, I've got no problem finding things to read to CRjr. I for one will NEVER tire of Benny and the Binky, or Boynton's Barnyard Dance. This past weekend we read New York magazine together, although neither of us were in love with the articles about fashion, and we often read our weekly newspaper together. And of course...."This Is London" by M. Sasek. (A great kids' book.) Just to get that British seed planted!!
But thanks for the support. Mr. CR doesn't think highly of reading boring adult stuff to CRjr, but I'm going with the "just likes the sound of any voice" theory at this point.

[Ruthiella]

If CRjr becomes a Rhodes Scholar, I think his tuition at Oxford will be paid. Start prepping him now.

[Citizen Reader]

Ruthiella,
Now that WOULD be dreaming big. Only if CRjr gets Mr. CR's intelligence genes. I barely got into a state school--but that may have been because I kind of forgot to apply to college. Hopefully CRjr is a little more on the ball.

[Sarah]

Maybe you should start reading CRJr books like MADELINE IN LONDON . . . or some board book of Paddington Bear . . .

[Citizen Reader]

Sarah,
Paddington Bear! Of course...I'll be looking into those. (And Madeleine books as well...)
But for today we got "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. I shelved it at the library a million times and never actually read it. It's awesome!