I’m home from England now (dammit), so I have a bit of time to do my reflection post.

This A-Z has been difficult.  Not because I have been traveling, or because I worked remotely while traveling, or even because I didn’t plan a strategy as thoroughly as I did last April.

This happened.

Yesterday was such a long day.  My plane left at four, and I went back through several time zones and arrived the same evening at ten.  I had time to finish Broadchurch series two and watch Interstellar on the plane and barely made my connection.

And apparently, jet lag from time traveling makes me clumsy.  I decided to go out and get some groceries after arriving home.  I put my foot down wrongly on the Crumbling Albatross’s deteriorating front steps and tumbled down them, landing half on the pavement and half on the lawn.

I’d post a pic of my gory skinned knee, but it’s pretty gross, so here is an adorable kitten instead.

Image:  pinterest.com

No, it’s been difficult because I’m not organized overall.  Something tells me that it’s time to fall back and regroup.  However, despite the hapless flapping about, I did have some productive moments the last two weeks.

• I started to get a good sense of the period by reading old newspapers in the British Library. (Also, I’m chuffed as hell that I have a reader’s pass to one of the largest research libraries in the entire world.  I feel so intellectual, heh heh.)

• I found a market at St. James’ Church on Piccadilly and bought some old coins that Brit Character might have had in his pocket at the time.

The sixpence always makes me think of Paddington.

Image: Peggy Fortnum / paddington.com

• I got to know London a little better–at one point, I just ended up wandering around an area and realized that I could find my way back if I got lost, because I knew roughly where I was in the first place. Plus, I felt more confident there and had less need to plan out every step of every journey.

I think the recent heartbreak had something to do with the disorganization.  But it has mostly passed (mostly).  It’s time to untangle the knot of information I’ve gleaned and try to make something out of it.

Next year, I’d like to do an A-Z similar to the character one.  I’ll be thinking about it in plenty of time.