It is Christmas, a time of presents-family-gratitude-reflection-the Savior.  It is a special time of year when we send cards with all kinds of greetings expressing loving messages and family photographs.  This evening, as I close my day, I thought I would express my gratitude to all of you have added so much to my little project–now gotten very big–THE ANGLOPHILE.   I have friends all over the world whom I have never met or even seen, but I have a sense of closeness to them because we have a common interest:  all things British.  I turn 70 in January, and as I grew older I wondered what I would eventually do with my time other than all the wonderful activities and travels I have done all my life.  Would there be a special spark, a guiding star with a big twinkle that would become my passion.  I have been to Europe so many times that I have decided not to admit the number of times because people have accused me of  ”pleasant exaggeration,” and we wouldn’t want that gentle reputation. I wouldn’t want to write  a London restaurant guide because my doctor, Seth Lewis, M.D., reminds me that he reads my blog, and he always reminds me to watch my diet.  So that’s out, thanks to an “espionage doctor” whom I regard highly.  I could write about London theater, but there are real specialists who are in London on the scene who can do that a lot better.  I attend symphonies and concerts for myself, and I am certain others are not really interested in what I think;  so, I will just tap my own feet and fingers and enjoy great music by myself.  My dear London friend Maureen Walker says people love me because I am eccentric.  Does that mean I thrive in clutter of wonderful things which remind me of who I am and where I have been?  Eccentric?  Perhaps, but perhaps more truly said:  VERY MUCH ALIVE.  My two sons suggested that I should put together a blog for people traveling to London who stay in our flats;  so, it all started very small.  I have written about the Tube, the Open Top Bus Tours, tours up and down the Thames, the National Gallery, on and on for three years now.  Suddenly, something really special happened:  I began to make friends with people who loved the same things I do, and the ANGLOPHILE developed another dimension–it became a group effort.  Today, I heard from a contributor in Chile who gave me “heads up” about the portrait painter Andrew Festing.  Yesterday, I heard from three regular contributors living in the UK.  I have become friends with three contributors in Australia whom I feel close to.  They send me the most amazing early images of the Royal Family as well as architectural photographs from their own collections.  I have enjoyed people who write on their own blogs and exchange wonderful stories and photographs with me.  They are the ones who start my day off with a BANG–THANKS so much, fellow bloggers.  A contributor in New Zealand has become very much in my wife and my prayers as he struggles with health issues but continues on with his interests which very much parallel my own.  He’s great, and he lifts me very much.  As this gentle person wrote in his Christmas card to me:  ”Some people cross our paths for a reason in life.”  I suppose that is my Christmas message.  Those of you, and you are numerous, who have become those “twinkles” in the stars of my older age years, you will never know how grateful and indebted I am to you.  I am sitting in a concert hall, and an idea for my blog comes to me.  I pull out a card and jot down a few notes.  In the middle of the night, I reach for my pen and notebook to record another idea.  Books are piled higher than the bed lamps.  My son calls my “computer blog room” my cocoon because it is so full and cluttered that only I dare tread.  I tell my family that when I breathe my last breath, there will be a smile on my face, and much of that happiness and peace will be because so many of you have breathed life into my old-and-getting-older life.  Our lives are like great spider webs with lots of “avenues” which we have traveled, and we are that accumulation of all those human experiences which define us.    SALUTI E GRAZIE and a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS.  I believe in a Power greater than all of us who deeply loves and cares about us.  May we be grateful in our peace.

Thomas Moore   email:  TMooreSr@me.com    Telephone:  801.791.9918

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