London

We have not been able to find free wifi in London, but thought it was time we sent a blog anyway.

Firstly, thank you very much to the many friends and family who responded to our plea for comments about our blog and news from home, much appreciated.



Today in London is cold and wet, so we are enjoying a cup of tea in bed in our tiny room watching discussions about the election on TV. We had a very pleasant and uneventful departure/flight/arrival from LA to Heathrow. It is a lot easier to leave LA than to fly into it, and our expensive flights seemed to get us at the front of the queue and in and out of Heathrow before the border control people arrived at work!

We took the underground to Earl's Court and then found that neither of us had paid any attention to how to get to our hotel from there! Eventually we found a map on a wall and wheeled our bags along the streets of London until we found our hotel. There being very little to do, or even room to move, in our hotel room, we took very little time to get back on the underground and then headed for Covent Gardens. We found a nice sunny spot outside a bar (surprise!) and watched various buskers perform contortions and juggling acts. Ann said she felt rather like a mole, rushing around underground and popping up in random places, with no real sense of what London looked like.


That all changed the next day when we took the London Eye for literally a bird's eye view of London. For Graham, who has never been on a Ferris wheel, this was a real challenge! We did the 4D experience first, and we won't spoil it for anyone who might go, but it WAS 4D, and very clever.


It was a great view from the top. That's Buckingham Palace nestled among the greenery.

We wandered around Central London quite a lot. Graham reaquaited himself with English pubs - had to sample a few before he could conclude that they were as good as they used to be.

We found Primark (thanks Ed) and Ann stood in a queue for about half an hour to try on a pair of jeans! Fortunately they fitted and it wasn't a wasted effort. Meanwhile Graham located the men's department, tried on some jeans, and returned to wait for 15 minutes before Ann emerged from the fitting rooms! There were 25 fitting rooms, with up to 3 women in each and with up to 8 items! A once in a lifetime experience.

In the evening we went to see Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli. It was great, but being mindful of Keith's comment about children left in a lolly shop, we won't use too many superlatives. Suffice to say we thoroughly enjoyed the show, and navigated the underground and streets back to the hotel afterwards with no problems.

Today we have walked around in the wind and rain, visited Harrod's, and Victoria station where a couple of lines were closed and the crush on the one line running reminded Ann of the underground in Tokyo. We also returned to Covent Gardens for a genuine Cornish Pasty supposedly made in Cornwall.

Tomorrow is a big day as we have to get ourselves to a train, a ferry, a car, and then to the Fab Pad in the middle of Paris. Wish us luck!

;-) Ann-a-Gram