By GAIL LOWE
A week after Harry and Meghan said their “I do’s” at Windsor Castle, husband Tony and I flew to London to immerse ourselves in all things royal, the city’s major attractions, including Westminster Abbey and the Tower of Big Ben (it’s been under repair recently so we didn’t see much of Ben) and the macabre (the rack inside the Tower of London, for starters).
The city is intriguing and worthy of exploration, but it’s also sprawling to the point of being overwhelming. Tourists need to be fit to navigate all the stairways leading to and from the Tube.
When I traveled to London in the 1990s, menus in restaurants offered fish ‘n chips served in newspaper cones, bangers and mash and Yorkshire pudding, but now the food scene is multi-cultural. There are restaurants specializing in cuisine from Uganda, Taiwan, Israel and other nations that I had not noticed several decades ago.
After a few days of crowd immersion, we were ready for a day in the country. I had wanted to visit York where “Wuthering Heights” and scenes from “Downton Abbey” were filmed as well as Windsor, Bath and Stonehenge. York, a quick two hours north of London by a high-speed train from Kings Cross, was first up. We bought tickets and made the trek past rural scenes early one morning.
As soon as we stepped off the train in York, we found ourselves at the edge of the little walled city and could see York Minster rising in the distance in all its Gothic glory. The cathedral was on our list of “musts” as was “The Shambles,” a narrow cobbled street lined with cute shops and restaurants. One ancient restaurant, alleged to be haunted since the 17th century, was called “Mr. P’s Curious Tavern,” a place Tony picked for lunch. I now call it “the scene of the crime that almost was.”
When Tony went off to Mr. P’s men’s room following lunch, I eyed a woman seated alone at a nearby table. I had seen the man she was with follow Tony in the direction of the men’s room so I got up and went to her table to say hello.
She saw me coming and said, “You’re an American.”
“Yes,” I said, taken aback. “How did you know?”
“The man you’re with — your husband? — has a telltale accent. So do you.”
Before I had a chance to respond, she launched right in. “What is going on over there? That man is a maniac.”
I didn’t have to ask. I knew who she was talking about, and it wasn’t Tony. The woman continued, saying that she and her husband are business owners and that tariffs on steel and aluminum will not bode well for their financial status. There was nothing I could say in defense, so I stood there nodding my head, hoping she wouldn’t stick the fork she was waving in my eye. I also wondered what was taking Tony so long.
“We’re going to participate in a protest,” she said. “There are many of us who feel the same as we do.” She paused then and said, “What were you thinking when you elected him?”
“I’m really sorry . . . “ I began. Fortunately for me, I saw Tony out of the corner of my eye. Saved by the bell or, in this case, the husband.
“What was that all about? Did you get a verbal scorching, too?” he said when we were safely out of earshot and throwing distance of forks.
“What do you think? She was complaining about you know who.”
He nodded. “Her husband got my ear in the men’s room. He had a lot to say.”
“He wasn’t threatening with a fork, was he?”
Tony looked at me funny, so I let the matter drop. No crimes to report.
There’s always been the Ugly American, but now we’re not only ugly but monstrous to the rest of the world. Our friendships are on the rocks.
In another few weeks, we’ll be heading to Canada for our annual summer sabbatical. Usually, we spend a month or more there, but this year we might be forced out because Canadians now think the way the Brits do — that the man is a maniac and the whole lot of us are, too, even if we didn’t help elect him.
It makes me nervous because we have to cross the border, and the guards might search every inch of our vehicle just to torment us. What if our Canadian relatives refuse to invite us into their homes? Maybe our friends there will disown us. And what if Scotiabank hops on board and denies us access to our accounts? I know it’s Orwellian, but if it can be imagined it can happen.
My hope is that we’ll always be friends with Canada and the rest of our allies, but at this point things are looking pretty darned bleak. A trade war today. Another kind of war tomorrow?
I’ll let you know what happens in Canada —that is, if we’re not sent off to the the Northwest Territories, never to be heard from again.
