They went round by the Tottenham Court Road to buy a piece of waterproof sheeting to put over the Psammead in case it should be raining in the Past when they got there.

For it is almost certain death to a Psammead to get wet.
The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty.

Women were selling roses from big baskets-full, and Anthea bought four roses, one each, for herself and the others.

They were red roses and smelt of summer--the kind of roses you always want so desperately at about Christmas-time when you can only get mistletoe, which is pale right through to its very scent, and holly which pricks your nose if you try to smell it.

So now everyone had a rose in its buttonhole, and soon everyone was sitting on the grass in Regent's Park under trees whose leaves would have been clean, clear green in the country, but here were dusty and yellowish, and brown at the edges.
'We've got to go on with it,' said Anthea, 'and as the eldest has to go first, you'll have to be last, Jane.