This is Liberty & Co., the consummate English store. I am an old sewer, working with my grandmother's scissors and a real thimble. I savor fabric and construction. I am an old costumer. To walk to the upper floors of Liberty's is, for me, a walk into time past and future. It's Tudor, inside and out. And filled with all things wonderful from the British Empire. I have a stack of Liberty silk scarves, collected over years of visits. This time I replaced the sho...

The first thing you need to understand about visiting London is that you're never done with seeing it all. This must be my sixth visit, and I'm still checking off things I haven't time to do. I highly recommend going to church in a 1,000 year-old cathedral. If nothing else puts things in perspective, that will. From Westminster Abbey yesterday I sauntered through St. James Park, past the pelicans and ice cream vendors, to Buckingham Palace. I took a picture of ...

I am the luckiest girl in the world. Remember this as we move on. I am an only child and I grew up in the country in a white house on a hill. My best friends were a dog, a horse, and a tree I named "Charlie." So you might imagine as I went out into the world I discovered that this friendship business was very cool. I have been blessed with crazy, fabulous, beautiful, smart friends of all types, sizes, persuasions, etc. etc., and so forth. Imagine my delight whe...

Behind Greyfriars, and across the street, is one of London's lovely pocket parks. This one is Postmen's Park. It is pretty and perfect and I wandered in to sit. I could see there were plaques on a wall of one of the buildings, with a roof to protect them. I warned you that London can break your heart. Each ceramic plaque honors someone who gave their life trying to save someone else. Many of them are children. Some of them are factory accidents, as England was...

I wandered around St. Paul's, continuing on the ancient, curving old streets. I quickly came to the shell of Greyfriars. Bombed in the Blitz. It had stood almost 300 years. Rather than tear down the remaining steeple or the outer walls, instead it's been filled with a rose garden and benches. I sat and thought.