Winter jaunt

Off to London Town for a few days, to see some art shows and stay with my friends who have moved again since I last visited them 18 months ago. Since then, they visited me here, but I wasn't in London last year, unless you count a few hours at one of the London airports and I can't even remember which one it was, en route from Crete to Ireland.(3-islands-in-one-day, beaten later in the summer by 4-islands-in-one-day, Sark, Guernsey, Britain and Ireland).
This is the mark 2 journey, reduced from my original plan of going to Ghent, Bruges, Brussels and maybe Amsterdam.After all the illness and stress of December I just couldn't get it together to venture, alone of course, into unknown territory, hoping to find paintings where I thought they should be,or in many cases not knowing where they 'should' be at all, traipsing around in who-knows-what foul weather, cross country and between countries possibly. God-alive, why does everything seem so difficult in these short, cold days?
I'd just as soon hibernate, really, but I remember feeling that last winter I had missed an opportunity to get away for a few days and ended up feeling very stressed from early in the year right through to the exams. So this year, since we have I think, an extra week's break, I'm determined to get off this dripping wet island, even if it's only across to another wet one.(...and away from the smoker).
In the back of my mind, I know there is an essay waiting to be done, but I am telling myself I will be back on the 8th, which is the day that the college Library re-opens, so I am missing nothing and will start to work on it during next week, for sure (haven't even decided on the topic yet..
Saying a little prayer for good weather and no tornados.