LONDON — Will slept until after 10 a.m., and we still managed to make it through the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery by 1:15 p.m. With a stop for breakfast of Cream Tea. Not that I am proud of this. But when you have a 12-year-old in tow, even a relatively patient one, it’s sometimes all you can do to make sure he has seen several dozen important works that will hopefully seep deep into his brain, like rainwater through gravel.

So he saw the skull in The Ambassadors, the evil pig stare of Thomas Cromwell, the forever battling troops in Ucello’s Battle of San Romano, Van Gogh’s electric yellow Sunflowers. Will particularly liked several small Raphael’s; I loved the Tudor portraits, especially of Cranmer and Wriosthesley; Rick loved a painting with a chubby cupid being bitten by bees, the Raphael, the Van Gogh. The boys lucked out that there was a strike of museum staff, so several large galleries were closed.

After a bit of shopping, Will scored a new jacket from the very British Topman, near Oxford Circle, which was insanely crowded. The sidewalks were packed a la Harajuku in Tokyo; we could hardly get back down into the Tube station. The only real benefit was we could join the mass of jaywalkers and defy the homicidal bus and cab drivers. Covent Garden, too, was a crazy mass of humanity and street performers, which creep Rick out. Kind of like clowns. Or mimes. We fled.

After shopping, we split up — Rick and Will to the Natural History Museum, and I to the Tate Britain. They loved the dinosaurs; I loved the Turners and the Pre-Raphaelites, especially the Ophelia of Millais. I had seen the painting many times in books on Shakespeare, but seeing it in person brought unexpected tears to my eyes. Something about the flowers, the bird, the faraway look in her eye, echoes of Hamlet, and also of Midsummer Night’s  Dream.

We managed to meet back up for dinner at the hotel. Good to be back together again!