Rosewitch, England was definitely one of my favorite places I have ever visited. My folks took me there when I was 14, and I remember bits and pieces the Crown jewels, walking amongst the Stonehenge stones (roped off now, vandalism), Stratford upon Avon. Time for me to take my own 14YO. Im trying to think how I can get over there for a whole summer, LOL. Dlynn, I could have worked so much more. I didnt really look at night time stuff and there was loads to do. Greece: cant help you, but shoot Yasou a line, she went a few years ago. LOL Annie! Teresa, well go together. I wanted to explore more cooking and food shops/stores but didnt get to. Terri, here is more a link to Pictures of England, a website pointed out to me by Denise. I started it on Bourton on the Water, where we stayed for a few days. Thanks Sharon, I was actually thinking how can I even come close to posting her quality of travel guides, I dont do the pictures she does LOL. We might have sat at the same table in the Cheshire Cheeses dining room! Sawdust still there, but we didnt make it to the cellar. I missed a lot of the British Museum. It has changed.check out the new atrium. I couldnt keep up with DH and DS16. Afternoons, when I planned museums, I crashed. Next time! Pam, lots of people did more than we did per day! Theater every night, more attractions, I cant imagine. Gina heh heh yeah I need another vacation like a hole in my head. Speaking of whichDH has another week off in August. Nooooooooo! Kathleen, DH says he took an average of 200 pictures a day. Yup. Me, I just buy the post cards or Google the images, same thing (DARFC from the photo bugs here) Cathy, thanks for giving me the War and Peace moniker heh heh. Next time I go with CF friends! LindaC, I know. Im still exhausted. Speaking of the V&A, did you know there was a Dale Chihuly chandelier in the entrance room?

Well, I do think the bride and groom are going up to camp for a few days before the wedding. But when the relatives arrive, they will be staying in the hotel with everyone. Both of our sons will share a room; our younger son is best man. The bride will share a room with her sister, who will be matron of honor. They had a favorite, very popular double campsite in Big Sur that they really wanted, but they needed 2 adjoining ones to accommodate the expected 50 guests, and they could only get one. (The whole family was online registering for those 2 sites the minute they opened them for reservations.) However, they had already put money down to hold their alternate site which is also beautiful. We will use it; it has gorgeous big redwoods and views of the river, I think. I wanted to discourage them from camping that week, picturing a bride full of mosquito bites and a dress crushed into their car and tent with all the equipment they would need, but they have it all figured out and this is what they want. We want them to be happy. (My brother is driving up, so we have enlisted their help in transporting the wedding dress to avoid their cramming it into the car with their camping gear.) The rehearsal dinner is also at a camp site, and the local camp vendor is going to cater it. I assume hamburgers or BBQ chicken. We will all arrive just in time to get to the rehearsal dinner as it is quite a trek to get there, even by plane. No one lives locally, which would have been a big help. The bride and her mother and our son are planning the locales, decorations, menu and everything. We are paying the bill. Hopefully, this will be the wedding of our bride's dreams. The reception is at their favorite restaurant in Big Sur.

A follow-up FWIW, specifically in re Tradesy. My gently used bags arrived (two different sellers). The aqua one arrived and is perfect, though smaller than I thought (my fault entirely, I didn't read it closely). The brown one arrived smelling quite musty/mildewy. It occurred to me that must be a very common problem with vintage luxury handbags ... I don't think LV has made this bag for several years. What was annoying was that the seller did not disclose any odor in the description (other sellers do). I am unusually sensitive to smells, but others agreed with me. Because the bag did not meet the description, Tradesy sent me a return mailing label and was willing to give me a full refund. However, the bag was much less than the 2 or three others available elsewhere, and I believe it can be cleaned. I renegotiated the price even furthere (a bit tricky since Tradesy does not facilitate this) and kept the bag. I will take it to a professional to clean. I've already greatly ameliorate the problem with vinegar . I'm happy but I do think the seller acted in bad faith; they had a dozen bags for sale and I doubt they were unaware about the problem. Of course now Tradesy shows up on every page I bring up and I have a "want" list with them that is pages long ..... someone created a monster.

Overall, a big factor has been media saturation. At one point, most people probably only knew what their neighbors' houses looked like. People who bought decorating magazines had some idea of what was going on in the country at large, but I don't think circulation of the higher end magazines was particularly high, and there was not anything on television like there is now. I have a collection of Architectural Digests from the early 60s related to the era of my house and it came out 4-6 times a year, and the prescription was very expensive. I figured it out one time in 2016 dollars and I want to say it worked out to the equivalent of $20 an issue or something like that. On top of it, although the houses featured were of well-to-do people and featured well-known decorators and designers, the houses were much more modest than those featured now and there was no real celebrity presence to speak of. (But still Rolls-Royce was a regular advertiser to readers). So the target market for arguably the highest end design magazine of the day was the same as the people who got their houses published, essentially. The median household income of the reader of AD at this time is $108,000. The median household income of the owners of featured properties is what, probably ten times higher? So sure, the average person is seeing a higher level of design, and is actually surrounded by it. I grew up in a small town three hours from a major (actually a minor) city. But a city with things like department stores. I had been born in that city and we traveled there regularly. When I was in high school I had several pairs of pants and some shirts from Izod. This is before Izod and Lacoste split. So they had the alligator emblem embroidered on the chest or pocket and on a belt loop of the pants. People thought I was wearing Garanimals. There was no brand recognition at all for anything "designer" at all. Most of my clothes, and everyone else's were from Sears. Now everyone has brand recognition of everything.