Happy Bank Holiday, everyone.

Yesterday was kind of rocky, but after a good night's sleep, I'm back in the land of the living again. Like everything else, Jet lag seems to get worse as I get older.

I had a rather pleasant and relaxing time in Reading last week. I stayed at a 14th century rural inn (with 15th century plumbing) called The Bird In Hand, located about 15km outside the city in a small village called Knowl Hill. I didn't have a car, but fortunately, one of my students did, and he very graciously chauffeured me around during the week. The Berkshire countryside was lush and green, and it rained constantly, despite the fact that the U.K. is officially in the grip of a drought.

On Saturday, I trained it into London and headed for the Portobello Road Market, a vast flea market of antique, jewelry, and clothing shops. There must've been a hundred thousand tourists there, and everyone was crammed into the tiny shops trying to escape the pouring rain, so it was kind of claustrophobic, but I still managed to have fun wandering through the antique malls on my ultimately fruitless search for artifacts from Butlin Beachcomber bars.

I had a delicious lunch of duck gyoza and chili chicken ramen at the Wagamama in Kensington High Street, then tried to make my way up to Camden Market, but weekend tube closings made the journey impractical, so I opted to visit the the British Museum and National Portrait Gallery instead. I capped my day with a plate of puu-puus and a cocktail at the London Trader Vic's.

On Sunday, I met up with The Cartoonist, plep, and Konstantin for lunch and a pint or two along the Thames at the Captain Kidd pub in Wapping. We had a good chat about UFOs, Scientology, moon-landing conspiracies, and the X-men. We concluded that Aleister Crowley was behind all of them. The ever-mysterious plep maintained his secret identity by holding a copy of the Fortean Times in front of his face at all times.

The rest of the week was relatively uneventful compared to the weekend. Several of my students were staying with me at the Bird In Hand, so I didn't lack for dinner companions. We made a couple of evening excursions into Reading and Maidenhead for Onion Bhajees and Garlic Naan.

On Saturday, I had to endure the clusterf*ck that is Gatwick Airport, followed by an 8-hour flight back to Minneapolis. I got home just in time to celebrate my son's 17th birthday. One more year, and I can kick him out of the house...w00t!