Hyde parking

I went 34 hours yesterday (well, Wednesday to almost Friday) without sleeping in a bed. When you can feel your exhaustion in unnatural ways in the backs of your thighs -- where D.H. Lawrence characters feel their sexuality condensed into points of darkness -- you realize that you've been up too long.

But I'm in London, and very happy about it. Highlights from yesterday:

• Reading and people-watching in a deck chair by the Serpentine
• Walking Upper Street on a Thursday night while wrapped around excellent tapas and finely produced cocktails. Cocktails! What's happened to drinking in England? I had a really good Mojito and the rum was not poured out of an upside-down bottle with a measuring spigot on it.
• Renewing my British Library card and remembering just how friendly they are there (for Londoners, anyway)
• Painting my nostrils the charming shade of gray that only the London Underground can achieve
• Eating a properly awful doner kebab in Euston Street
• Catching up with friends I haven't seen in six years
  

Today I get out of the Smoke and off to Stratford-upon-Avon, for a week of research, theater, tourist-dodging and Midlands accents, but for staying awake long enough to kick jetlag, nothing beats Troynovant.