Amblers...

...don't you hate them?  Move along, people!  I never have understood those who just mosey down the street.  I guess I understand it more when the street is itself quiet or very interesting, but those who amble down busy city streets are a mystery to me. This afternoon London was filled with amblers.  Grrr. 

This morning to the British Library, where I read a little in the Humanities Room (where I'd never been before), and slept a little in there, too.  In my own defence, the Humanities Room is freezing, which made me sleepy, and my sleep cycle is somehow out of joint, which means I get up at 5am and am exhausted 4 hours later.  Tonight I'm going to try going to sleep at a regular time, with the blind closed, and I'll see if I can sleep until a regular time, too.

Did I mention that my dorm room bed is on the tiny side?  Why, yes, I believe I did.  After I come back from my conference next week, I'm being housed in a studio flat for a week. Depending on what that's like, I believe I may throw myself upon the mercy of the housing people and ask to be moved into one for the rest of my stay - I do kind of have the money.  And it might be worth it not so much for the bed as for the duvet.  Her

e I have a single duvet, which means I inevitably end up with one of my lower limbs uncovered,

which is not very pleasant.  ...But let us wait and see what the studio is like.

Look at that there below and in the middle.  That's one of the things I love about London:  you'll be walking along a street, just some street (in this

case, leading from Covent Garden), and when you look up there's a completely cool piece of architecture built into the top story of a house. New York is like that, too, and so sometimes is Philadelphia, and I think it's just great.  People don't usually look up, and I just love the idea that someone has produced something to delight the eye, simply on the off chance that an aimless eye might happen along to be delighted.  An ambling eye, I suppose one might say.  So perhaps I have more respect for ambling than I thought.

And can I just say that this particular delightful sight is on Wardour Street, a street name that always makes me laugh because it features in the early David Bowie song, "The London Boys," one of his, shall we say, less strong efforts.  It's about a country lad arriving in the big city: "Bright lights, Soho, Wardour Street,/You hope you make friends with the guys that you meet." After that couplet, seeing the street name always makes me giggle.