I'm reviving this blog (yes, I've given in to the word) at least briefly, because I want to publish some of my notes from my trips to England in 2008, and Britain in 2009. I'm planning on going to Japan in 2010, and that may appear here as well. 
 
I've been reluctant to do this. These are edits of letters I sent to my family as I was on the road. They were personal. It was not fitting that what I wrote as something intimate should be made public. But these are edits, and it's not as though my loved ones had to see it here, in a public forum, first. 
 
Some background: I grew up in an anglophile household in Indianapolis, Indiana. My parents even sent me to St. Richard's School, a then-new day school staffed by young Englishwomen who taught us a song satirizing the Duchess of Windsor, and had us put on pageants celebrating the Commonwealth. Their methods of discipline included slaps on the face hard enough to leave handprints, which I know is very wrong, but surprisingly, I don't much resent it. 
 
It was part of my inadvertent upbringing as an Anglican. 
 
Anyway, what you'll see is a celebration of Britain as seen by someone who already loved the place. When I was little, I was given M. Sasek's This is London, and the whole idea started when I bought a fresh copy for myself. If you think of the arrival scenes in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, you'll have the right idea.