Monday, April 27, 2009


The penultimate day of our trip—a Tuesday—started with breakfast at The Jones Café as it was on our way to a good walk across Victoria Park to the City Centre of Leicester. The Mister got some new shirts at Pilot and I added to the collection of fridge magnets growing like colorful acne across the face of the kitchen cabinet at home. I was able to replace the souvenir Leicester tea towel, which his mum had given me years ago and now was hardly less worn than the scrap of linen it is claimed shrouded Jesus. These aren’t the souvenirs that get stored away until they get thrown away. I had happily packed up all the tea towels left behind in mum’s house after she died; the used ones as well as those we had given her. They were still unwrapped in kitchen drawers—good linen dishtowels from the gift shop at The Metropolitan Museum in New York just up the road from us—never used and perhaps too precious to her. Sure his sister got the monetary bulk of the estate, such as it was, but she’ll never feel the love of an old tea towel.

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