December 27, 1999 – Farewells and Pickpocketers

I eat my last breakfast at Glenelg and finish packing. Caroline pops her head in to tell me she is leaving for Wales at noon, but that Tony has a kidney stone and is staying home. Jake is going with her to Wales and Vanessa is available here if Tony needs to go to the hospital.

Caroline orders me a taxi about 10:30 AM and I bid them a weepy farewell. Caroline pretends to cry and dabs at her eyes with a white handkerchief. Tony looks very glum but I don’t know if it is at my leaving or the painful kidney stones. I am so sad to leave them both. They have made my stay here so much fun; a true home away from home. I promise to return. And I mean it.

The memory of Caroline standing at the end of their driveway waving her handkerchief at me until I am out of sight will always stay with me.

My London hotel on Inverness Terrace in Bayswater is a bit old and worn—part hotel, part hostel. But it is cheap and conveniently located two blocks from the Queensway tube stop. My room has two tiny twin beds. The bathroom is down the hall. They told me when I made my reservations that there would be no hot breakfast because they could not get workers over the holidays. But there is a kitchen downstairs where you can cook a simple meal and store refrigerated items.

At Bayswater station, I buy a week-long travelcard using one of the photos I had taken when Lisa was here. I stuff the card into my pocket and hop on the train to Knightsbridge. A young man sits next to me and he seems awfully close like he is leaning against me. I keep moving away but it seems like he is always there. I begin to wonder. Sure enough, I check my pocket and my travelcard is gone. I get up, check my seat, look in all my pockets, it is not there. I check my seat again. Then I ask the young man to stand up so I can check the seat between us. My travelcard is there on his other side under the armrest. He had not had time yet to get it into his own pocket. I grab it and get off at the next stop even though it is not the one I want. I am so mad I am shaking. I think I may have called him an “a**hole, under my breath.

I get the next train and resume my trip to Harrods. But Harrods is closed. Is this store ever open?

I use the last of my phone cards to call Mom and wish her a happy birthday.

I walk along Queensway until I find a mall with a movie theater. The queues are long but there are tickets left for the 18:20 showing of the new James Bond movie—The World is Not Enough. The ticket agents have fancy computer terminals that show the seating plan of the theater and the location of available seats. You must pick a seat on the screen when purchasing a ticket. It will be 15 years before the cinema in Augusta has something like this, and I don’t like it any more then than I like it now. I want to scope out the place before deciding on a seat.

The movie is fun, especially the opening scene with James Bond in a speedboat racing along the Thames whizzing past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The action culminates with 007 jumping from a hot air balloon onto the roof of the Millennium Dome. In another scene, Bond visits Q’s office (played by Judy Dench) where there is an explosion in the basement. The camera pans to the outside of the building and I can hardly believe my eyes. It is the modern Disneyesque building on the Thames that Lisa and I wondered about. Apparently this building is the MI6 headquarters―now, in the movie, with a gaping hole in it.

The building would come to feature in several more James Bond movies. One travel blogger writing a few years later says:

The building gets attacked in both “The World Is Not Enough” and “Skyfall” ― and finally destroyed in “Spectre”. The real agents at MI6 loved the virtual demolition. A special premiere of “Skyfall” was held at Vauxhall Cross for the MI6 staff ― and they cheered when their headquarters was destroyed in the film.

I grab dinner at Bella Pasta but, just as I get my entrée, the kitchen loses electricity. They can’t serve any new customers, but the people already served can stay as long as they like. I do. I order another glass of wine and stay until 10:00 PM.