December 2025 – A Traveling Fool

December 29, 2025

London Adventure: A Late Start & The Benjamin Franklin House

Since I didn’t get to sleep until about 5am, I didn’t get up until 1pm. Too late for the included breakfast. So went back to the café where I had lunch the day before for a brunch. Had Eggs Benedict, but with smoked salmon in place of the usual ham. Absolutely delicious.

Afterwards stopped off at the Ben Franklin House and found that I had missed the start of the current tour and the next (and last for the day) would be at 4:15pm. So went back to the hotel for a bit. The Ben Franklin House was on Craven Street, which was right next to the café and in between the café and my hotel.

Back at the hotel, I discovered that the legitimate Simply Red Facebook page (the one with over two million members) had published a photo from the OVO Arena Wembley concert with me in it and another from the O2 Arena marquee that I was credited as having taken.

The Benjamin Franklin House (at 36 Craven Street, just off the Strand and close to Trafalgar Square) was built about 1730 and is the last standing former residence of Ben Franklin. He lived and worked there from 1757 to 1774. When he left, he returned to Philadelphia to help with the Declaration of Independence and other issues having to do with the American Revolution. The house was restored and opened to the public in 2006.

During the excavation and restoration, the remains of ten people were discovered to have been buried in the basement. An episode of “Secrets of the Dead” on PBS was dedicated to this discovery. The skeletal remains were found to be about 200 years old, which meant that they would have been buried there while Franklin was in residence. It was also discovered that Franklin’s friend, William Hewson, was the person responsible for the bones. He lived in the house for two years. As an early anatomist, he worked in secret due to legal issues at that time related to dissecting certain cadavers (about half of them appear to have been children).

When I returned to the house, I was running a bit late, so the fellow who let me in had me join the tour and then pay him later. There were only four of us on the tour. The person who led the tour portrayed Polly Stevenson Hewson, daughter of Franklin’s landlady and wife of the fellow who was dissecting cadavers in the basement. She became a “second daughter” to Ben Franklin during his time there.

Parts of the house were still original, such as floorboards, ceilings and staircases. After the tour, when I went to pay for it, I told the guy that my Reynolds ancestors in Boston had owned the house where Ben Franklin had been born on Milk Street back in 1706. His father, Josiah had a total of seventeen children from two wives. Ben was number fifteen and was the tenth and last boy. He was baptized at the Old South Meeting House, which was across the street.

Robert Reynolds (my 10^th great grandfather) and his wife, Mary, arrived in Boston in 1630 on one of the Winthrop ships. They settled in the part of Boston that borders Milk Street to the north and Washington to the west. They are buried in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. The land they owned included a stretch along Milk Street that included the house in which Benjamin Franklin was born. Robert’s grandson, Nathaniel owned the property at the time when he was born. Nathaniel’s son, John eventually moved to Marblehead, MA. This was where my American Revolution ship’s captain 6^th great grandfather, Nathaniel Reynolds, was born.

His son-in-law, Elisha Freeman, was also a ship’s captain and my 5^th great grandfather. My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Freeman. The first of the Freeman family to arrive in what eventually became the U.S. did so in 1630. His name was Samuel Freeman (another 10^th great grandfather). He arrived in Salem.

The guy at the Benjamin Franklin House showed me the front door, which was original to the house and said that I could photograph it. He also let me hold the chain in my hand. Franklin would have held that same chain every night when he locked up the house.

Next time – The Tower of London at Night and the Ceremony of the Keys

December 22, 2025

London Adventure: Final Simply Red London Concert at OVO Arena Wembley

After eating the salad I had purchased on the way back to my hotel, I dressed for the concert. This time I wore a red sequined, cold shoulder top. This was the actual date of the release of Simply Red’s first album, Picture Book, back in 1985. I was also going to be sitting front row center. I was honoring that special date by dressing up and using the color red.

I took a cab from the Railway Station to the arena and went to the VIP entrance. I received my VIP Front Row Experience carry bag with a VIP lanyard, a drinks coaster, a poster, a program, a journal with a pen, and a Bluetooth speaker. As I was being taken to my seat, I encountered a woman who was wearing a red sequined jacket. She was at the end of the middle section in the first row.

Shortly after I sat down, I met Carine from Belgium. She was just a couple seats over to my left. She and the couple seated between us were lovely people and ready to have a great time. I was pretty much directly in front of the pieces of paper that Mick had taped to the floor. One was a set list. The other contained some prompts for what he wanted to say in between songs.

Carine had noticed Sarah Brown, one of the band’s former backup singers (from 1995 to 2008) going to her seat to our right and up at the side of stage. She pointed her out to me. I was very glad that she had a few days later when someone in the fan group saw that same woman walking down the stairs to head backstage during a video of “Something Got Me Started” (the first of the three encore songs) and was certain that she was someone else entirely. But I was able to say that I was there and saw Sarah myself.

During Soul II Soul’s set (which was much more fun up close) we found that the security at the arena was putting their priority on the people who were walking back and forth in front of us to get more drinks. Once the Simply Red set began and several of us stood up and moved forward to the barricade so we could clearly see the band without anyone getting in our way, we were told to sit down. That was when a few of us got a bit rebellious.

We had gotten the most expensive seats in the place with the idea that nobody could get in front of us and ruin our view of the stage. Carine and I both thought it was ridiculous and we weren’t going to take it sitting down. A woman on the other side of me was worried they might throw us out if we didn’t remain seated, but I said that the more of us that stood the better. There would be too many of us to threaten. So, since I knew that “Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)” would be the next song, I said something to Carine and to the women on my other side. As soon as the first notes were played, we were on our feet. Carine and I motioned to everyone around us to stand and they did. Most of us stayed on our feet for pretty much the rest of the show. I only sat down a couple of times when my back complained loudly.

At one point, when Mick was explaining how the song “Enough”, which was co-written with Joe Sample, came about, a man could be heard talking quite loudly far down to my right (which would have been stage left to the band). Mick stopped talking and looked in the man’s direction. The man quieted down for a moment until Mick began to speak again. This time Mick walked over to where the man was sitting and looked directly at him. Since the guy didn’t seem to get the message, Mick bent over and pointed at him, telling him to shut up. He followed that up by returning to where he had been standing before he was so rudely interrupted and apologizing to the audience, explaining that he needed to be able to concentrate on what he was saying. He then continued his story and sang the song.

The next day, the press and some social media said that he had gone on a “shocking rant”. They were blowing it entirely out of proportion. Nothing shocking. No rant. Just a performer telling a disrespectful member of the audience to “shut it”, so he could continue the show.

The remainder of the concert went along with no further interference from noisy or drunk audience members or security threatening to remove anyone from the front row. The band put in another stellar performance throughout and received an ovation from a standing and cheering crowd at the end of the final song of the main set – “Fairground”. Then another at the end of the final song of the encore – “Holding Back the Years”. And Mick did this entire show while dealing with an eye infection.

After the show, some more people came up to me and asked if I was Trisha. There were also people stopping me to comment on my sparkling red sequins.

The Simply Red Facebook page (with two million followers) published five photos a couple days later. The second photo showed Mick singing onstage near where I was standing. I could also be seen. Photo number five was of the marquee at the O2 Arena and I was credited as the photographer. Both photos really tickled me. I will share both of these photos in my next post.

The day after the concert someone else in the audience posted a video on YouTube of the band performing “You Make Me Feel Brand New”. Mick was standing for the entire song near where I can clearly be seen standing and singing along directly in what was his sight line. The fella filming it kept me in the frame most of the time. Then the couple to my left, between me and Carine, stood up. It was harder to see me then, but my ponytail was still frequently visible. I have included a screenshot that I took from that video here.

Next time – A late start and the Ben Franklin House

December 9, 2025

London Adventure: A Change of Hotels, Touring the Houses of Parliament & A Massive Protest

Although I had a late night, I needed to get up, have breakfast and check out of the hotel. The restaurant was the most crowded I had yet seen, but I had the whole process down plus I was seated near the food. I made my way through the buffet and got back to my room relatively easily (though it took a while to get my tea).

Since I am a member of the Intercontinental Hotels Group Rewards program, I was able to check out at a different desk which only had one person ahead of me. Arrangements had been made ahead of time for my transport into central London to my second hotel. I was tickled to see that the car was ready and waiting for me. So far, so good.

An enormous protest was going on in central London with regards to the situation in Gaza. Whitehall was completely blocked off from all traffic and Trafalgar Square was also blocked. I could hear the crowds in the square as we neared the hotel, which was the Clermont Charing Cross on the Strand. This street was about to be blocked off too, so we made it to the hotel just in time.

The room was not yet ready (it was only 11:30am), so I checked my luggage, gave them my cell phone number so they could text me when it was ready, and headed out to explore a bit. Although I have stayed at this hotel several times before, I had never explored the train station to which it was attached.

The Charing Cross railway station first opened in 1864 with the hotel opening the following year. One of the hotel’s guests back in the day, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. He set the meeting between Holmes and his soon to be new client at Baskerville Hall at the hotel restaurant.

My first venture to this hotel was during the Gulf War in 1991. I had traveled to the UK with my mom and we were staying at another hotel nearby. The Gulf War had begun while we were on the flight over to London and ended while we were in York a few weeks later. My entire memory of that blessedly short war is from the British viewpoint.

A few days into our time in London during that trip, we went to high tea at the Charing Cross hotel (it had just become the Clermont shortly before I stayed there in 2023 and had been the Amba Charing Cross when I had last been there in 2017). Although I had done cream teas before, this was my first full blown high tea and it was mighty elegant.

Charing Cross has been considered to be the center of London and the point from which all distances from London are measured. Historically the name came from a hamlet called Charing, which means “riverbend” along with the Eleanor cross that had once been there. The original cross was erected in 1294. It was the largest and most ornate of the crosses built by King Edward I in honor of his deceased wife, Eleanor. The crosses were constructed from Lincoln to Westminster along the route of Eleanor’s funeral procession at each location where the procession rested. The cross that currently stands just outside of the hotel and railway station is a reconstruction built in 1884 to replace the one destroyed by Cromwell and his troops in 1647.

The Charing Cross Railway station has some places to eat, a grocers, a chemist, and some other shops inside. There is also a taxi stand right outside which is quite handy for grabbing a cab fairly quickly (depending upon how long the line might be). I planned to get one there that night to get to the OVO Arena Wembley for my third night of concerts.

I decided it would be a good idea to have some lunch before my tour at Parliament began, especially since I would need to walk from the hotel to Parliament. So I headed out to see what looked like a good place for lunch nearby. It didn’t take long to discover the Café Concerto. The menu looked varied and the prices reasonable for London these days. I went in and ordered a BLT with some strawberry lemonade. While there, I received a text from the hotel that my room was ready. Great timing!

I got back to the hotel and checked into my now upgraded room. It was a Deluxe King which was larger and had a sofa as well as an armchair. Best of all, it included a free mini bar that was stocked daily. I collected my cases and headed up and over to the room. It was in the Buckingham Wing, which was on the other side of the road via a little enclosed bridge over the road (Villiers Street).

That part of London had once been the location of property owned by the Villiers family, which were the Dukes of Buckingham. It was sort of confusing that I needed to take the lift from the ground floor to the first floor in the main part of the hotel, then, once I crossed over the little bridge, the floor on the other side was the third floor. I needed to take another lift there down to the second floor to get to my room. The hallway floors were a tad creaky in the Buckingham Wing. I had the feeling that the building was older than the main part of the hotel. I happen to like the charm of older buildings, so I was quite pleased. Plus it was pretty quiet. Good for sleeping.

On my way too and from the Palace of Westminster (as the Houses of Parliament are called), I had to navigate my way through some pretty large crowds. But I made it to the Cromwell Green Visitor Entrance in plenty of time. We were supposed to be there 20 minutes ahead of the tour to go through security. I boosted myself up onto a relatively low barricade normally used to keep vehicles from trying to crash through and sat with a lovely British couple while we waited to get in. After getting through security and gathering inside of Westminster Hall, we were a small group of fourteen people.

It is thought that King Cnute had a palace on the land where Parliament now stands during his reign from 1016 to 1035. Edward the Confessor built a palace on that location at the same time he built the first version of Westminster Abbey (roughly 1045 to 1050).

The Palace of Westminster was originally built as a royal palace in the eleventh century. A fire destroyed the royal apartments in 1512, after which the king, Henry VIII, moved to the Palace of Whitehall, which he took from Cardinal Wolsey.

Parliament had begun meeting at Westminster in the 13^th century and continued to do so. A much larger fire destroyed the majority of the palace in 1834. Only the 12^th century Westminster Hall was saved and included as part of the building that now stands.

During World War II, the palace was hit by bombs repeatedly — fourteen different times in all. The worst air raid killed three people and destroyed the House of Commons Chamber. Both that room and Westminster Hall had been set on fire and, since they knew they couldn’t save them both, Westminster Hall was where they put their efforts.

There are three main towers in the palace: the Victoria Tower, which has the Sovereign’s Entrance, which the Monarch uses whenever they come to the palace; the Elizabeth Tower, which is where the enormous bell, Big Ben, resides; and the Central Tower, which stands over the Central Lobby.

The building was planned around the Central Lobby, which is the meeting point for all of the corridors leading to the over 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases, and three miles of passageways, which are spread over four floors. We began our tour in Westminster Hall.

At the time it was built, Westminster Hall was the largest hall in Europe. The hammerbeam roof was built for King Richard II in 1393 and is the largest medieval roof of its kind in England. Westminster Hall has been the site of many trials and lying-in-states over the centuries. The most recent lying-in-state was Queen Elizabeth II.

The hall was where William Wallace (who actually was never called “Braveheart”; that was Robert the Bruce’s nickname) was tried for treason in 1305. It was also where Sir Thomas More was condemned to death back in 1535, mostly because he wouldn’t recognize Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church. Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder plotters were tried for attempting to blow up Parliament in 1606. King Charles I, in 1649, was the only reigning monarch ever tried and condemned to death in Britain.

Westminster Hall and St Stephen’s Hall were the only places where we were allowed to take photos. St Stephen’s Hall stands on the site of the royal Chapel of St Stephen’s, which was destroyed in the fire of 1834 and where the House of Commons met until that time.

We weren’t able to visit the King’s Robing Room in the Royal Apartments, but we were able to see the Royal Gallery, the Norman Porch, and the Prince’s Chambers. The Lords Chamber, the Peer’s Lobby (an antechamber where matters can be discussed and messages delivered), the Peer’s Corridor, as well as a few smaller areas within the precincts of the House of Lords (using the main color red) were next. After that, we went across to the precincts of the House of Commons (mainly green) via the Central Lobby and the Common’s Corridor to visit the Member’s Lobby and the Commons Chamber. We could see the dents on the door where the representative of the Monarch (Black Rod) bangs with their staff on the door at the State Opening of Parliament each year when asking the MPs to attend in the House of Lords to hear the Monarch’s speech.

After roughly 90 minutes, we went back through St Stephen’s Hall and Westminster Hall to leave the building. Then it was a matter of weaving in and out of all of the protestors on my way back to my hotel. I stopped in at the grocers in Charing Cross Railway Station for something to eat for dinner on the way.

Next time – the Simply Red Concert at the OVO Arena Wembley

December 2, 2025

London Adventure: The Second Simply Red Concert at London’s O2 Arena

Breakfast had many more people than the day before. I figured it was a combination of my getting up later and the strong likelihood that several of my fellow breakfasters had also attended the concert the night before. This time I had a table facing the window, but it wasn’t right next to the window. No problem. Just wanted to get some good food and start my day.

The tickets for the concerts were all electronic. I had the ticket for the first night at the O2 on my phone (in the O2 Arena app) before I left home. My ticket for the OVO Arena Wembley concert was also already on my phone, in the OVO Arena app. But my ticket for the second night at the O2 was not on my phone. I had followed up with the ticket vendor while still at home, but had gotten nowhere.

Once I arrived in London, I chatted with a fellow at the O2. He told me to arrive at the box office when it opened at 5:30pm on the day of the concert and they would get it straightened out. I had a friend who had an issue with one of her tickets for an earlier concert and had gotten her situation taken care of in a similar manner. So I had planned the day to be ready for the concert and walk over to the box office at 5pm.

When I returned to my room after breakfast, I decided to try the O2 app one more time. The ticket was there. Could the problem have been that the app couldn’t handle more than one night at a time? Or maybe couldn’t deal with two different ticket vendors at the same time? At home, I often have several different tickets for different venues or different nights at the same venue on my phone without any problems. Whatever the issue had been, it was solved and I didn’t need to hang out at the box office later in the day. I took a screenshot of the ticket as backup.

I had originally planned to visit the main part of Greenwich for the day. But changed my plans when I was going to have to deal with the missing ticket. Now that my plans changed again, I chose to stay close to home. I spent some time exploring the upper level of the O2 complex, which mostly had shops, and didn’t buy a thing. This time I circled the entire complex, instead of going halfway and coming back. Then, after a light lunch, I went to the swimming pool and then sat in the thermal pool again.

This time the thermal pool was empty when I arrived. The previous day, a guy was already there. He had all of the jets shooting full blast and both waterfalls going. He was sitting under one of the waterfalls like it was his own personal shower. I hadn’t wanted to get so thoroughly pummeled (with my very fair skin, I bruise somewhat easily). Plus I didn’t want to get soaked by the waterfalls (since the water coming down on the fellow was spraying out quite far from him). So I had kept to the periphery. This time the setting for the jets was much more reasonable and the waterfalls weren’t running. So I settled in on a more centrally located seat where I was more likely to stay put and relaxed thoroughly. Others eventually joined me in the thermal pool and we had some enjoyable conversations.

After having some dinner and getting dressed up for the show, I went to the hotel bar and had a Lemon Drop Martini. Then I sauntered over to the entrance to the arena with my ticket ready to be scanned from my phone.

This time my seat was on the other side of the arena, a bit farther back from the stage and blessedly not so high up. To my left was a group of people, both male and female, all in their mid to late thirties. They were wondering what songs were and weren’t going to be played and when they might hear “Fairground”. Since I had the set list fully memorized by this time, I was able to answer their questions. They were mildly snockered and having a great time partying.

To my right was a very nice family from Belgium. The mother was about early fifties and had brought her son and daughter for them to see Simply Red live for the first time. Mom was a long-time fan who had indoctrinated her kids on the band’s music from pretty much the womb.

The seats directly in front of me were empty until after Soul II Soul finished their set. Then their occupants arrived, carrying several drinks (beer, wine, and cocktails) and already quite intoxicated. They were quite loud and rowdy and continued to be so even after Simply Red took the stage. If anyone dared to say anything to them, they responded quite belligerently, peppered with numerous expletives. I am usually very much of a live and let live kind of a person as long as no harm is being done to anyone. But my mild-mannered Belgian friend and I were whispering to one another about what we thought we could get away with doing to them without being arrested.

The guy left again and returned with four large beers in his large hands. Not too long after that, he threw up all over himself and the woman to his right. The woman he was with was to his left. Simply Red was not yet that far into their set and suddenly four people were leaving the concert. I was thankful they had been in front of me and not behind or next to me. It took a while before the cleaning crew came to take care of the mess. But it was likely that it wasn’t the only mess they had to clean up that night. The venue made it clear both nights that the drinkers were the priority to them, not the people who actually wanted to experience the show.

Because I knew the set list so well, I had planned out what to photograph and, more importantly, what to capture with video clips. Some of the action going on around me precluded some of my plans, but I still managed to get some good stuff. Since I would be front row center the following night, I didn’t want to spend all of my time looking at them through my phone when I was right there face to face.

Once again, they were incredible. Some acts I have seen live have been carried away by their own egos and sleep-walked their way through their set. This band never does that. They always go all out to put on an amazing, entertaining show. At the very beginning of the set, a video is played of Mick forty years ago saying, “I want to be a great singer. I want to be the best.” He isn’t talking about being the most famous or the richest. He truly means that he wants to sing very, very well. He worked at it really hard to make it happen.

For the encore, one of the fellas to my left had switched places with the girl who had been right next to me. At the end of the concert, he gave me a big hug and wanted to kiss me. Honestly I could have been this guy’s mama. But he was jovially three sheets to the wind and high on Simply Red’s unbelievable showmanship. He said it was the best concert he had ever seen in his life and planted one on me.

I followed the Belgian family out from the seats and we walked together for a little bit. They needed to get back to the main entrance while I was going out to the hotel from the bottom of the stairs we walked down from that level.

Back in my room, I got ready for bed and packed up to leave the hotel the next morning after breakfast. Then I posted the photos and video clips I took and called it a night.

Next time – transferring to a central London hotel and making my way through crowds of protesters to tour Parliament.