Monday in London

As you can imagine, London is gray, but not raining and with actually quite mild tempertures.  How could I have missed the awful snow storm like that?  Michael shakes his head at my fortune, and his misfortune since he is coming behind me by a week!  Oh well......

I'm staying at the East India Club, a true English classic men's club (until sometime in the past 20 years) and enjoying it for its ambiance, character, location and friendly staff.  I don't even feel uncomfortable taking dinner in the dining room as a lone female.  Well done everyone......

The East India Club

The Club is situated on St. James Square, between Pall Mall and Piccadilly in Mayfair/West End.  I'll show you the wonderful public rooms of the Club for its members...strict coat and tie dress requirements.

Reception

The Tea Room

The Grand Staircase

The Club is very old, I gather originally formed for veterans and soldiers of Easter colonialization and wars.  The building is filled with enormous, beautiful full length portraits of warriors of the past.  I actually read the script of one gentleman who was painted as he was going into battle in Afghanistan after the 1858 massacre of the British in Kabul.  Sound familiar?  Why don't we learn from history?  The Brits lost, the Russians lost, we are losing......

Had lunch with James Thornton and got debriefed on the work at hand within ClientEarth.  There is so much activity that I will spend the afternoon and evening with the staff in their offices tomorrow.  However, after lunch I took James back to an antique shop nearby where I had spotted the perfect birthday gift for Michael.  We wil celebrate his 78th in Paris in the next 10 days.  How romantic is that?????

More later.