August 29: Feels like home

Mindful that this is the week of the Summer Bank Holiday weekend, we have steered clear of theatre, tourist attractions this week. In October, we have 3 shows booked. For this week, we decided on a couple of specialist tours (limited group size, priority access). It’s proved a good choice. Yesterday, we joined a backstage tour of the Royal Opera House. Today, we joined a “highlights” tour at the British Museum. What they shared was a well-prepared guide, who mixed social history and fact with anecdote, name dropping and whimsy to deliver a monologue that was both engaging and informative. The days of well-meaning volunteers shuffling groups passed labeled cabinets are long gone.

The ROH was fascinating: the onstage experience is no expense spared. We felt the weight of some of the costumes, made with only the finest materials. We saw the extensive technical crew building the enormous hand-painted set for Tosca, which opens the 2025/6 season in a few weeks’ time. But, backstage, it’s a very different story: buzzing neon lighting, polystyrene ceiling tiles, slightly curly A4, office-printed directions taped to intersections pointing to practice rooms, stage entrances and bathrooms. The tour was billed as “Macabre”, so we did get to handle a grotesquely clammy brain-helmet (used by the zombie chorus line in a recent production), as well as a prosthetic nose, some fake blood, scar-wax (which is a thing). We also learnt how the building itself had burnt down three times, twice at least as a result of “fire spectacles” on stage which probably made sense artistically, but had dire health & safety consequences.

The British Museum tour was also well-led and definitely showcased some amazing artifacts: the Rosetta Stone, the Rothschild Reliquary (and its fake), the Portland Vase, St Hedwig’s Cup, the first ever bank note (Chinese), the Sutton Hoo treasure, the Lewes chess set, the frescos of the tomb of Nebamun, the Elgin Marbles. It was a pretty impressive list and well-narrated. But, so, familiar as we are with the collection, we found ourselves wondering why X or Y was omitted (!). We lunched in the Members’ Room, (as is our wont!), which is both tasty and also gives a sense of belonging, which is the real luxury. Carey got literally the last cup of coffee of the day. It was tea-only behind him – a crisis narrowly avoided.

We both feel so at home in London. We love Calgary: the sky, our friends, our condo, the walks, the pace and quality of life it gifts us. But, we both “know” London in our bones. Carey has “lived” here for almost a decade; me, for almost three. It has a rhythm, an energy, an abundance that is itself and to which we respond. We are glad not to live here (in many ways), but neither of us could now imagine never returning. It speaks to identity, just like Paris or New York does. It’s a part of our shared being - and it is good to be back.