Historical accuracy

It's a bit hard to get over, as an American, how old everything is here in England. Unlike Berlin, where even the neoclassical buildings are only fifty or sixty years old, the pubs here can be 17th century, and the houses, 18th or early 19th. My awe has waned a bit since the proprietor of the Lord Nelson pub told me that, built in 1637, his pub was older than the Mayflower -- he was wrong! the Mayflower sailed in 1620 -- but I'm still impressed by the stolid walls and squat houses leaning into each other along the rows of London's streets. This isn't a city that believes in condos with single-word names like 'Dwell'. Which is not to say that it's a city without gentrification; to the contrary, I can't imagine a place where it's easier to burn money. My small purchases of a power drill, cleaning supplies, and paint samples have been surprisingly expensive.

Speaking of paint, we're going to repaint the living room of our place, and we're currently in the process of choosing the color. At present, the room is a shocking shade of periwinkle blue, but mercifully there's a mirror-shaped swath of white paint where the mirror above the fireplace used to be. That's where we've been testing paint colors, and so the space looks like it's got a bad case of the cream-colored measles. Whenever I have to choose paint -- and to be honest, this is only the second time in my entire life I've done it; the first was when I decided to paint the kitchen in my first Hyde Park apartment, and I chose something like 'San Francisco bay blue,' with 'baby-eyed blue' coming a close second -- I'm completely astonished by all the names. They're even more ridiculous and finely distinguished than the names for shades of clothing, which are themselves often laughable. You've got to wonder whether there's a computer, a robot, or a human with better-than-average sensibilities choosing J Crew's 'toasted chestnut' and 'fawn'. But even more impressive are names like 'nutmeg cream', 'pale hessian', and 'crumpled linen'. This isn't even taking into account my favorite detail of paint-choosing in England: there are entire lines of colors which reproduce Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian shades, so you can paint your period home to be historically accurate. Seriously: there are paint chips that say Edwardian at the top. This is called the Heritage Collection. Can you imagine the American equivalent? Antebellum, WPA, Red Scare, Free Love -- how would we periodize it?

Not much other news of note. It's pretty much been all house stuff, all the time. We did, however, have our first meal at the new place. Boiled eggs and toast. Boxes served in place of a table.