This not exactly a late report on how to get huge and ripped. However, skipping a newsletter is not unlike skipping a workout. You've gotta get one in there no matter how brief to keep the pace, the continuity, the pump and the blood moving. We got in from London late last night and are shaking the twitches of travel from our bones and our brains. The necessary phone calls have been made to reconstruct some falling bridges and snuff a small outbreak of brush fires and we are ready for the iron 'n steel.

London to us as tourists was a magical experience, like the lady sawed in two while stuffed in a decorative box. The music played dramatically as the magician without effort and emotion applied his trade. He pierced his lovely model with swords and separated the bisected halves as she smiled. You watch in familiar suspense knowing the outcome. The trick done, m'lady hops out of her enclosure to twirl and spin from the fingertips of mysterious man in black. Bows, applause, astonishment and end of act. England is grand and lovely.

For two Americans on the loose from Santa Cruz, London and England were a seven-day adventure. Day one, we sat on Flight 284 at San Francisco International for five hours before being requested to disembark due to aircraft mechanical failure. The journey would resume tomorrow in the early afternoon. Fine. The 747 jumbo jet was full. Travelers resembling zombies were transported in a preposterous convoy to a new Residence Inn where, after being carelessly lost in the vast outskirts of S.F., we were fed pizza pie for a late dinner. I didn't have the nerve or energy to rebel. Bomber Blend and tuna judiciously stashed in our carryon case to the rescue. We slept to the distant rumble of arriving and departing aircraft through the night.

We eventually departed and arrived at Heathrow Airport early the following afternoon, I recall. The behavior and mood of the crew and passenger ensemble were remarkable. This others and I accredited to the fact that they were mostly English. Americans I suspect would have caused a riot. Dragging around far too much luggage, we staggered to the bus ramps where we waited for our connection to the hotel in Winslow and the Oscar Heidenstam Awards that evening. We noted immediately that it was very cold and rainy and gloomy. We shivered and waited and waited and shivered. Everyone drove on the wrong side of the street and the wrong side of the car in the wildest synchronicity. We shivered.

The Oscar Heidenstam Awards Dinner is another story for another time, grand simplicity in love of the sport of Iron and Steel. Laree and I were honored and fussed over and we made true friends. The refined English pride was presented to us in big-hearted portions. The one-day affair ended with breakfast the following brisk morning. Laree's plate was quite full of gammon (ham), bangers (sausage) and country eggs so she passed on the appetizing mounds of black pudding, which she later learned was generous amounts of animal blood mixed with a grainy meal. Bomber Pudding, any one? May we be excused from the table, please? Gotta pack.

Layers of clothes limited the cold to our ears and sniffling noses. We aimed for London and our next hotel via busses, the tube and foot, avoiding taxis, as they are, we were told, expensive and suspicious. Laree let out a yelp and thumped her forehead with the meaty palm of her hand somewhere in the midst of our hasty travels. Have mercy, something's wrong. My sweetheart left our passports and airline tickets in the blue bag on one of those crazy busses. We sent out a plea through one of the drivers and after a stretched out forty minutes a company car appeared at the roadside bearing our documents. Profuse thanks and we were back in action, never to forget the honesty and kindness that warmed our shivering hearts.

Our old and classy British hotel served us well. We were anywhere in the heart of London where the city people settle into apartments, eat, live and sleep. They scurry around high speed all day and into the night, from shop to shop, from the underground to the bus to the car to the motorbike. Starbuck's line every street, as do McDonald's, Burger Kings and fish n' chip pubs. Stand on any corner and you'll hear French, German, multi-Asian languages, Pakistani, Russian, Spanish and other sounds. The cacophony is symphonic and tireless.

We visited what we were able in the three remaining days, hungry to observe and absorb something more than England from the tiresome tongue of a tour guide. We took to the tube and stopped at the various familiar districts whose names we recognized from Beatle songs, movies and CNN: Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham, Parliament, and The Thames. Big Ben bonged for us at 3:15 but I was too cold to set my watch. The ubiquitous red double-decker bus traced the popular streets of London as Laree and I insisted on sitting on the open-air upper deck, ducks in a cold and wet fog. A swift commuter bus took us across the countryside to Oxford where we watched the snow gather and the people rush about indefatigably. Lovely and old defines the scenery. We huddled in a pub eating bubbles and squeek till a bus pulled up for the return trip to Victoria Station.

Not one gym or one bodybuilder did we see in the greater London districts. Four rare characters in shorts were running for the sake of running. Nor did we see a proliferation of overweight, under-muscled and unconditioned citizenry. The fact is that they are almost athletic in their rapid walking from place to place, upstairs and downstairs, darting from train to train, crossing bustling streets, chasing the tube and meeting schedules. Laree and I shifted into high gear to keep up with the crowds and play this British game. We never walk at the pace the English walk 'cuz in the America we know we would look too weird, but it feels good. Once they get where they're going (wherever that is, another mystery) they slow down and relax: chat, read the paper or a book, snooze or muse. Fascinating.

Something else: they have good food available in abundance if you ain't broke, but they don't serve up the best meals in the world. Lotsa sweet breads and fried stuff and beer. Perhaps the facts that protein is in every meal and they don't eat gluttonously keep the Brits from tubbing out.

There's freedom in simplicity. The Royal Lesson learned here is keep moving and don't pig out. We knew that.