London’s riches are so numerous that I decided to take the first bus in either direction and see where I ended up.  Because my walking is limited right now, I stay off the Tube with its endless corridors and stairways.  The bus holds many compensations, however.  First, there’s the novelty of the double decker, although for the moment I’m staying downstairs.  Then there are the other passengers, mostly older people like me who are often chatty, and mothers with children in buggies who often look exhausted but respond to anyone who plays peek-a-boo with their offspring.  In the evening, there’s even a free newspaper to read with the latest bad news about Brexit, the B-word which most of our friends here can’t bear to hear, and no wonder.  And that’s in addition to the joys of looking out at the pubs, the houses, the millions of little independent shops, and the gardens.

I hopped (sort of) onto Bus 88 headed for Camden Town, expecting that we would head north immediately on Horseferry Road.  We didn’t; the driver turned right, and soon we were in a traffic jam worthy of any city in the world, barely crawling.  Soon my elderly neighbors were muttering about the taxi drivers’ strike which was snarling up the whole of Parliament Square.  After half an hour or so, we made it to Lambeth Bridge, and had wonderful views of the Houses of Parliament as we crawled across.  So fraught was the traffic that we had to go all the way to London Bridge before crossing back – again with views to appreciate, so who’s complaining.  Our trip down the Strand proceeded in a stately fashion, and finally the driver told us the bus was quitting at Trafalgar Square, only a little over an hour from my point of departure.  But it did make my choice easy.

Only yesterday I’d regretted that we didn’t get to see any art on my father’s birthday, despite many other activities which evoked his spirit.  A block away was one of the great museums in the whole world, the National Gallery.  Call it fate, or providence, or quote Vonnegut:  “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”  For whatever reason, there I was, and soon I was passing through the delights of Trafalgar Square, the performers who seem to stand on air, the singers who could profit from professional instruction, and the masses of visitors like me.  I took a chance and came through the nearby group entrance rather than traipsing an additional block, and was punished for my sins by the din of masses of school children from all across Europe – French, Spanish, and other languages I’m too ignorant to recognize.  The lift was my deliverance, and I decided to take whatever came, much as I had with the bus.

The grandeur of those old galleries is amazing – the vast height of the ceilings, the number of arches, the gilt here and there, the ornamental woodwork, the silk wallpaper, even the stuffed leather benches and couches (could they be horsehair still?).  It feels fresh and cared for, not old and fusty as it easily might.  And the paintings!  I sat first in a room that was all Venice – Canaletto showing us the splendors of the most special day of the year there, with the Doge’s immense barge ready to be boarded and scads of smaller boats filling the waters; then the more everyday scenes which are in many ways just as beautiful.  Soon a delightful baby and her father sat with me, and we had a nice chat about his six-month sojourn here thanks to his wife’s job.  I told him about the Thames Walk, and thought what that would be like carrying a baby, and how it might shape their lives. He too traveled by bus, and liked the idea of the bus to anywhere.

Next I ran into Queen Charlotte as rendered by Sir Thomas Lawrence, the German princess who was unfortunate enough to be married to George III, a lovely woman in a wispy gown looking into the distance.  No wonder she seems sober, because he had just had his first attack of what was then called insanity.  The landscape in the background is of Eton, quintessentially English.  I remembered walking across the playing fields there on the Thames Path and seeing the view of Windsor Castle, where this poor lady must have lived.

I jumped ahead to the nineteenth century, and drank in the Turners.  Even as a teenager, I loved the swirling mists of color in his paintings, and later began to know enough history to appreciate his depiction of the transitions of his time.  How sad to see a great old sailing ship tugged by an impatient steam-powered boat to be broken up in the shipyard for timber!  And it had been “The Fighting Temeraire” once upon a time, playing a key role in the Battle of Trafalgar.  But that was 1805, and the painting was made in 1839.  The ship was towed to Rotherhithe, just a mile or two from Gallery.  No wonder history feels so real here.

Fortunately for me, a seat opened by a painting I didn’t remember, the spectacular “Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus”, with the Greek hero and his crew sailing away after blinding the cruel giant who ate some of their friends and would have consumed them all.  It seems like many paintings in one:  the dark mountains and the silhouette of the monster, the gloriously rising sun with the faint traces of Apollo and his chariot bringing the dawn, the splashes of gold on the sea, the incredibly complicated sky with its intimations of blue and clouds of all colors, and the prominent ship with translucent mermaids playing by the prow.

Just a quick break from this writing to say how contented I am at this moment – in a dear friend’s 1930s flat, lying on a couch with my sprained ankle up and iced, looking at William Morris wallpaper and a stuffed bookcase, with a stunning modern abstract painting in sight as well as a vase full of orange and gold roses and Peruvian lilies which match its hues to perfection.

Back to the National Gallery.  After drifting through the Cézannes, I found myself in front of a Monet I didn’t recognize.  Could I really have forgotten?  I thought I knew this collection reasonably well from my time living in London in the 80s.  It was spectacular, but it didn’t ring a bell.  Ah, donated in 2006, that would explain it!  Here is one of the most beautiful water lily paintings of all, seen as a reflection at sunset.  As with the Turner, the coloration is so complex, and one has to almost drown in the painting to decipher and appreciate it fully.  The glow of the sunset melts from the top of the painting to the bottom, where the blue is already fading away.  The wisps of grass in the foreground orient us a bit, then the floating water lilies, and the reflection of the weeping willows overhead.  As spectators, we construct the scene along with the artist, much as the great Dutch still lives with their reflections in pewter and glass.

Of course, one could spend weeks in the National Gallery, but this painting seemed like exactly the right place to stop, much like a wonderful dessert at the end of a great meal.  It was the memory I wanted to have most clearly:  the artist in his garden painting at the height of his powers, showing my favorite time of day.