Monday, July 17, 2023

My alarm goes off and I set about making coffee and finishing up my packing. It’s the last day of the trip, and we have to leave Mousehole, which we very much do not want to do. We get everything packed and organized, and then I go out for one last quick walk around the town, walking out onto the breakwater and looking back at the village, the blue harbor, the boats, the Ship Inn, the clock tower. I love this place and the inexorable something of it. I feel like I’m being wrenched away. 

We leave a note for Steve, Tanya, and Charlie thanking them for everything, along with some crochet projects we’ve been working on during the trip—Mom a dishcloth and I a mushroom. And then we check the cottage one last time, leave the keys, and walk to the bus stop. The tiny hamlet that clings to the coast passes as fast as it arrived, slinking out of sight. Tears come. Eyes blur in the morning light. Ugh. Things ending is the worst, especially when you’ve planned them for so long. Travel is amazing. I’m so grateful that we were able to come here. I guess it’s worth this pain if you got to have the experience in the first place. But I do not, for any reason, want to leave the UK. 

We’ve got another five hour train ride. In Penzance, we get sandwiches and drinks to take on board, and then hurry towards our carriage, which is of course at the very far end of the platform. Thankfully the air seems to be working this time. At first, it’s fairly empty, but by Plymouth it’s packed. I’m more comfortable temperature-wise today, but I’m still having a hard time focusing. I write for a bit, dink around on social media for a while, try to do a little reading, sleep, listen to King Gizzard. Before long the world gets more urban and then we’re at London Paddington again.

We’re staying in a hotel near the station tonight because of our early departure tomorrow. It’s pretty nice; there’s a double bed and a twin bed, and both are very comfy, and there are little chocolates on the pillows. Fancy! The bathroom is still ridiculously small and the shower is absurd, unfortunately. This is one of the few things that I will not miss about this country.

We have some time in the evening before things start closing, and the place we choose to visit is the British Library. It’s one spot I’ve never had a chance to see and oh, man. When I get there, and I’m standing in the Treasures of the British Library expedition—staring at an early draft of Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mushrooms” and a version of The Importance of Being Earnest in Oscar Wilde’s handwriting and the draft of Middlemarch that George Eliot sent to her publisher—it’s all I can do to keep my mouth from hanging open.

There’s something absolutely wild about seeing the rough draft of a great work, feeling a connection to the writer in the loops and squiggles of their idiosyncratic hand. One of my AP Lit students last year chose “Mushrooms” for her poetry analysis project, and I’ve been obsessed with that poem ever since. I take a photo so that I can share it with her later. Marveling. There are two copies of the Magna Carta, too, which is cool and all, but George Eliot? Sylvia Plath? Oscar Freaking Wilde? My English teacher brain is buzzing. 

They’re closing as we emerge, so we don’t get to see much else, but that alone was worth the trip. We take a quick spin to Leicester Square to buy a few last minute goodies, then we hop in line for dinner at Dishoom, a somewhat legendary UK chain of Indian restaurants inspired by Bombay in the era of art deco and old cafés. I’ve been here before, but only for breakfast. We wait outside for a while, then we’re shown to the bar to wait for a table, which we are eventually taken to. It’s very loud and dark, and it’s nearly impossible to hear our server, but it is a very cool environment, with all sorts of interesting retro decorations. Mom orders prawns and I get paneer tikka, we split an order of samosas and garlic naan, and my lord, it is all so tasty. 

After dinner we navigate to the one still-open grocery store near our hotel, a tiny Sainsbury’s, and raid the candy aisle. They don’t have share size bags of Revels, unfortunately, so I get as many of the small size as I think will fit. We also pick up some Cadbury Fruit and Nut, some After Eights, Aero Bars, and various other treats. Will it be enough to tide me over until the next time I’m in the UK? Only time will tell.

Back at the hotel, we pack as much as we can, I use the very infuriating shower, and we settle down for a very short sleep.