London Town Memories

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That certain night
The night we met
There was magic abroad in the air
There were angels dinin’ at the Ritz
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

I may be right
May be wrong
But I’m perfectly willing to swear
That when you turned and smiled at me
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

The moon that lingered over London town
Poor, puzzled moon
He wore a frown
How could he know we two were so in love
The whole darn world seemed upside-down.

The streets uptown were paved with stars
It was such a romantic affair
And as we kissed
And said good night
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

How strange it was
How sweet and strange
There was never a dream to compare
With that hazy, crazy night we met
When a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.....

A memory popped into my head the other day. It was a particular night I spent wandering some of the streets in London taking "mental photographs." (We saw so much, but a camera wouldn't have done it justice.) I'd walked around London lots of times before then...but never at night.

It was the Spring of 1990. I was headed back to Brighton from my parents' house in Swindon. We had to take the train from Swindon to Paddington Station and switch over through the London Underground to Victoria Station to get to Brighton. I was with five others -- three American university students, one New Zealander (affectionately known as "Jif"), and my little dwarf rabbit, Peepers (who travelled around England with me in my big straw totebag). I was 19 and felt invincible at that moment. Usually, I'm a real homebody. But somehow on that night I felt like I could go anywhere.

It's a memory that will stay with me all of my life: the lights, the smells, the shadows on familiar sights. Probably wasn't a safe thing for us to do. But there was a definite "magic" in the night air of London Town that night.

As an aside, the "magic" wore off quickly when we had to run to the Underground to get to Victoria Station in time to catch the last train to Brighton. We nearly didn't make it....LOL!