Picnic at the Ambassador's Residence

Last Sunday, the American Society in London held a picnic to celebrate Independence Day at Winfield House, otherwise known as the US Ambassador's residence. The party was off by six days as Fourth of July was A) a Monday and therefore a proper work day in Britain and B) the embassy staff had to spend the weekend prior to the Fourth gearing up for the G8 summit in Scotland.

Winfield House is a beautiful Neo-Georgian mansion built in the 1930s by "poor little rich girl" Barbara Hutton, the heiress to the Woolworth fortune who numbered Cary Grant among her many husbands. It sits on 12 acres of private gardens inside Regent's Park in North London. During World War II the Royal Air Force used the mansion and grounds to house a balloon unit, and when Hutton returned to the house after the war she sold the now much worse for wear property to the US government for $1. It's been the home of the US ambassador ever since.

Sunday was hot, sunny and bright, with just enough humidity to push the heat into uncomfortable. We took the Tube, fairly empty for a Sunday, up to Baker Street, then walked past the Sherlock Holmes memorabilia shops to Regent's Park. The paths through the park were crowded and the mood rather festive - bombs may have gone off a few days ago but that's the last thing to stop Londoners from enjoying rare moments of shining sun.

To get to Winfield House, we needed to walk up a street that had been closed to car traffic. At the bottom of the street was a very large mosque. Standing on the corner was a policeman in his distinctive tall, rounded hat, white shirt and billy club. I couldn't help but be struck by the proximity. Was the policeman there to protect the mosque from hate crimes? Or the partygoers attending a very USA-centric event from extremists? Or both?

At the top of the street, there were more policemen/women. So there were concerns about the party, after all. I felt for the Met officers; I'm sure they had better things to do than babysit a bunch of Yanks. And it was HOT on the asphalt; I was sweating in my light cotton shirt and floaty peasant skirt. Those poor bobbies in their dark hats and kevlar vests, standing full bore in the sun.

Attending a picnic at a US Ambassador's residence is like boarding a plane: you must hold your own ticket, in your own name; your name is checked against your passport; your bag is searched; and a metal detector is the official welcome gate to the party. However, the food was much better at the end of this security process than it normally is on a plane. Instead of sandwiches made the day before and served on a tray the size of a paperback book, we were able to choose from hamburgers, hotdogs, steak, barbeque chicken, salad, corn on the cob, watermelon and ice cream. Oh, and crepes. 'Cause nothing says Fourth of July better than a crepe just like the street vendors back home in Paris make. Not to the mention that the chicken and steak were provided by Outback Steakhouse. At least the French had something to do with the American Revolution - namely, their help pushed the Americans into the win column. The Aussies, on the other hand...the connection is lost on me. But the chicken was excellent, even if sadly there were no Bloomin' Onions in sight.

We grabbed food and looked for the nearest shady spot. Luckily, there were plenty of grassy space under leafy trees, and we had prime people watching opportunities. My favorite sightings? Three young boys, tearing away, racing around the lawn. One was dressed in a homemade Uncle Sam costume, blue cotton tails flapping behind him. A young girl, about six, dressed in a flowery sundress, chatting with the two policemen armed with sub-machine guns. An incongruous but oddly sweet image. Too hard to put into words but the sight encapsulated all the things I felt: hope for the future as embodied by the young girl; joy in communication with others, regardless of accent; the sadness of seeing machine guns at a picnic filled with children, so much a statement of the current times.

We enjoyed wandering the gorgeous grounds of the Winfield House - even the port-a-potties were class acts, set in a wooded glade, with vases of fresh-cut flowers and posh hand lotion in the loos. Our d'oh! moment came when we were trying to identify the various state flags flanking the entrance to the house, and even competing with others trying to do the same: the task became much easier once we realized the states were in alphabetical order, and then we all fell down laughing when we saw the ID markers at the base of each flagpole.

The charge d'affairs (the new ambassador has yet to move in) gave the requisite speech of the day; because the date had been pushed back, what should have been a Anglo-American celebratory event now reflected the pain and horror of last Thursday. I didn't necessarily agree with the words; I'm not a fan of the current US administration. But I do hope the Fourth of July picnic in London goes on for another 111 years, and that the policemen who attend future parties will be able to relax their grip on the weaponry. And come enjoy the shade instead of boiling out on the street.