Last day of London sight seeing

We planned a fairly easy day today but it didn't quite work out that way.

Just to catch up I'll tell you that we hopped on the train to Redhill yesterday to visit my 90 year old aunt. Boy! if I'm in half as good shape when I'm 90, I'll be doing well. Michelle was looking forward to meeting her and she wasn't disappointed. My aunt, always a beautiful woman, looked amazing. In her fashionably modern sweater and beautiful white hair, she smelled so good when she opened the door to us.

Sue and Aunty Katja

Although she relies on her walker (zimmerframe) to get around she is full of jokes about the junk she carries around with her in the storage compartment and full of stories about her life's experiences. Michelle thought she might be reluctant to speak of her time in several concentration camps during WWII but she was very down to earth about that period and continued on to tell us many stories about her subsequent life and work experiences. Sitting in the sun room of her beautifully furnished and spotlessly clean bungalow she served us up a lovely cake and tea and we were amazed that 4 hours slipped by very quickly. As always I was really sorry to take my leave of her and regret very much that I don't live closer and could visit her more often. Unfortunately her two daughters with whom I spent time as a child, were both out of the country yesterday.

So...on to today. On our way home last night we bought tickets on-line to go up The London Eye for 10.30 am today. The tickets are cheaper if you buy on-line but you need a printer to print them off so we had to go to an internet store that is close to the apartment. We were hoping that if we got there early in the morning (they only open at 10) we'd miss the crowds and we seem to have been successful although once we started lining up to actually get on, we noticed that we hadn't beaten the hoards by more than a few minutes. It was a very grey and cloudy day today which you will see by the photos but the clouds were high up enough that it didn't interfere with the sights.

A grey day at the London Eye

An empty compartment of the London Eye

I'm not sure what they call the "compartments", "bubbles", "cars" whatever...the containers that you go up in, but there were about 22 people in ours and plenty of room to move around and take photos without other people getting in the way. The wheel does not stop on the way round and you just get in and out as it moves very slowly. At the bottom it meets the platform for long enough that two people with equipment go through every "compartment" checking for bombs between every group of people and we also had to submit to a very quick check before we got on. The complete circle takes half an hour and so by 11 am we were out of there.

Big Ben from half way up on the London Eye

Statue of Bodicea in the centre

Big Ben and Houses of Parliament from the top of the London Eye

Round building is new Hotel

Front right: Charing Cross Station

Back tall column: BT tower (where my mum had her gall bladder attack)

Left centre: Nelson's Column (white with black top)

Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square

St. Martin's in the Field, Trafalgar Square

Looking down river, Charing Cross Bridge

The new London Bridge

For some reason a single man in the next compartment

They call the pointed highrise "The Gherkin"

Looking down river

Looking straight down to the ground

Although we had some things planned for the afternoon we decided, as we crossed the Westminster Bridge back to the bus, that we had time to take a short river cruise so that Michelle could at least see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

We hoped aboard one of the many boats and I actually got a seniors discount for the first time on this trip. The journey down river took about 45 minutes and the trip back only about 15 minutes but as you will see, Michelle took some nice photos despite the weather.

One of the river cruise boats coming out from under Westminster Bridge

A different cruise boat

Westminster Bridge and London Eye from up river

The Milenium suspension bridge

Old Buildings converted to condos with St. Paul's in background

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Reproduction of original Globe Theatre (with thatched roof)

Old docklands building converted to condos (flats)

Other buildings with new covered portion in the middle

Another old docklands building

She is always taken with the new glass buildings alongside buildings that are hundreds of years old. When you are up on the London Eye you really do get a better sense of how much the older and much smaller buildings are being crowded out by the new glass towers. Some of those old buildings are so gorgeous but it is hard to appreciate them because the view of them is never from a proper distance where you can take in the decoration at the tops and/or the roofs, but you are always looking at them from the sidewalk right out front.

Here you see the small old building right next to monster glass tower

Anyway, coming back up river from Tower Bridge it was very chilly and neither of us were properly dressed for the occasion. When we hit the Embankment again which is right around Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, we were right back into the thronging masses and so we jumped aboard our favourite Number E-L-E-V-E-N bus and headed back towards home. We had to call in at the bank, which amazingly went very smoothly..you know the fun I have with banks here... and the young receptionist gave us great directions to some eateries away from the main road where we found a relatively empty pub and had a fabulous lunch. One Fish and Chips and one Steak and Ale pie....both excellent!!!

On the way home we stopped at Marks and Spencer. I've already had the packet of lox I mentioned in an earlier blog but oh M&S do such wonderful desserts that I'm afraid I set a very bad example to my child and had to buy a Mocha Chocolate light as a feather yummy thing and a chocolate eclair for tomorrow.

Our agenda for tomorrow is to pack up as if we were leaving for good, except of course we are now off to the Czech Republic. However, when we get back we're only here for one night before picking up a car and heading north. We are staying in small hotels while we are in Prague and Karlovy Vary but we think they both have internet available to us so we'll try and keep you posted even if it is without photographs for now.

Thanks again for all the positive feedback. Your responses to the blog have made it a lot of fun for us too. On to Prague!

Done like dinner!

(photos to follow whenever Michelle can find time)

Tonight I am absolutely shattered after another day at the museum. It was pouring with rain today as we set off for the Victoria and Albert museum so we decided to eat lunch there. Michelle had a write up which said that this was the best of all the museum cafeterias and we can now certainly confirm that it was good. We both ordered roast pork, roast potatoes, veggies and gravy and as the guy piled it all higher and higher we realised that we could probably have been perfectly happy sharing one meal. It was amazingly good considering the number of people going through the place and better than other restaurants at which we had paid much more money.

The entrance from the subway and the foyer of the museum was swarming with people so having picked up the floor plan we headed for the top floor to try and get away from the crowds. That worked pretty well and I hope you all enjoy the pictures of the amazing pottery from around the world. We were absolutely staggered by the number of pieces and you can see that the cases housing the exhibits run from one end of the room to the other. Michelle took literally hundreds of photos and she'll have trouble picking the best ones.

Shelves of China

(This is just a quarter of what was in this room.   This is only half of the row of shelves and there is another row behind it.  There were at least 6 rooms like this.)

 Lovely Dinner Plate

 Large Decorative Plate

Panel of Tiles - Bull Motif

 Serving Platter

Panel of Tiles - Urn Motif

From there we made our way down the floors. We saw many different sections and I'll leave it to Michelle to label them so you have some idea although we haven't made any notes so can't be too specific. I just loved the tiny Japanese carvings with so much detail and also enjoyed the beautiful furniture. Roger has taught me to appreciate good wood working and some of the pieces are exquisite.

Table Sue Really Liked 

 Statue of St Peter

 Information on Japanese Netsuke

 Netsuke Man

Netsuke Cock 

 Netsuke Man Riding a Horse

Netsuke Beast

At 4 pm we'd been walking around for 3 hours and I was starting to feel a little tired so we headed back to the cafeteria for our afternoon tea. I just hope that all this exercise is taking care of the extra few calories. Previously we've both had a cup of tea and shared a piece of cake but today it just looked too good to share. The cafeteria is divided into several rooms and here are the photos of the room where we had tea.

Stained Glass Window

(This was the room we had our tea in) 

Second Room in the Cafeteria 

Third Room in the Cafeteria

After another hour I just couldn't stand it any longer. The lower we went in the building the more the crowds increased so we headed for the gift shop and decided to call it a day after that.

Although the exhibits in the museum were absolutely wonderful I found this gift shop quite uninspiring and ridiculously expensive, more so than others we've visited, so I headed for a seat outside while Michelle continued to wonder around. Outside on the benches I ran into the other walking wounded and felt a lot better after a man at least 20 years younger than me said that this day was more tiring than a day at work!

When we got outside it had stopped pouring and seemed quite a nice evening so we decided to walk down to Harrods. Well...I've run out of words to describe the crowds but Harrods was the worst yet. Michelle wanted to buy a Dr. Who toy so we literally fought our way through masses up to the 4th floor. For those of you who don't know, Harrods covers a city block and the 4th floor is divided into toys for boys, toys for girls, designer clothes for children and who knows what else. It was totally nuts and Michelle kept saying "no way would I ever bring my child here". In the end we couldn't find what Michelle wanted and so we got out of there as fast as our little feet could carry us.

By the time we got home I didn't even have the energy to make a cup of tea and so Michelle has been catering to me all evening. Tomorrow we are off to see my aunt so I doubt we'll have much to tell you.

A quieter, gentler place

On Tuesday Michelle and I headed off for Sandwich, a small but very old town on the east coast. This is the home of my friend who owns the apartment in which we are staying. If you are interested in golf you will know that there is a large championship being played there right now which means a lot of people and a lot of cars crammed into a very small place. As I understand it, residents are able to rent out their homes to visiting Americans for large amounts of money if you can be bothered to put your prized possessions in storage, have your carpets cleaned and otherwise turn yourself into a pretzel to satisfy US demands. Our friends obviously decided it wasn't worth it which turned out to be to our benefit as we had a lovely couple of days with them.

It was a lovely break to leave the crowds of London and head off on the train into the English countryside. The slow train to Sandwich tours the county of Kent and we were happy to sit for two hours and just watch it all go by, British Transport Latte in hand!!! Our friends met us at the station and we were soon admiring their lovely large old home and the many wonderful plates and artwork that they have been collecting over the years. The weather was cooler and cloudier than in London but that didn't stop us touring the village and surroundings on foot and we enjoyed seeing the old village, small shops and old buildings.

Quaint Sandwich House 

Old Town Jail

In the evening we had dinner at home and my girlfriend and I spent the evening catching up on the last 50 years. We were very close friends as children but have only been together once since we were 15 years old so we had a lot of details to fill in. We both agreed that it felt very strange to know that we had once been so close and yet today, knew one another not at all.

An evening goes by very quickly but we managed to catch up on personal and work history and to put our respective childhood memories into perspective.

The next day we opted for going to a local castle rather than going to Canterbury Cathedral. Although Canterbury is an important place from the perspective of English history we were happy to be away from the crowds. We drove to Deal, another small town along the coast, where we had lunch and walked the sea wall for a bit before going to Walmer Castle.

Beach in Deal

Walmer Castle 

Lumpy Hedges, Walmer Castle Gardens 

Water Lilies, Walmer Castle 

 Small a place though it is, even there we ran into Japanese tourists. Of course there are a lot of castles in England but it was an interesting experience for Michelle to see her first real English castle. Sorry...Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria isn't a real castle!! Michelle will post photos. We toured the grounds too which had lovely flower gardens before heading home to sit in the sun room with French doors out onto a small walled garden, olive tree and all, and enjoy a lovely English cup of tea. Those who know me know that I rarely drink tea in Canada but over here I am enjoying my cups of tea which to me almost taste like a different beverage. Michelle has already bought several packets of tea to bring back. After tea at home we went out to a lovely old pub for dinner and of course while I'm in the UK I can't resist the roast lamb.

Friday was the day of the grand reunion but we started off having morning coffee with a 90 year old friend of my mothers. We sat out in her absolutely gorgeous garden, small but wonderfully organised and quite delightful, and enjoyed cake that she had made especially to remind me of my mother.

Looking down the back yard 

Collection of Potted Plants 

Path up the Garden

 After a couple of hours my friend who drives a London black cab picked us up and whisked us off to the reunion.

My mother had a circle of friends when I was a child and all their children grew up together until we went our separate ways to different high schools. Over the years we heard about one another through our families but a few years ago with only few of the mums still alive, we the "children" had our first reunion. This was the second time we all found ourselves in London at the same time. We met in the home of the one "mother" who is still alive and the 7 of us had a wonderful time reminiscing and looking at old photos while Michelle put faces to the names that she had heard much about. The food was great as was the wine and there was a lot of giggling and laughing. Great for the soul, a lovely afternoon!!!

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned people by name nor have we posted pictures of any of the people we have visited. This has been deliberate. For those of you referred to in this blog, we'll be sending out photos to you once we get home.

Well, we are on to our last weekend in London. We are hoping for another couple of days of sight seeing and a trip to visit my ageing aunt if she feels up to it but you'll have to log in again to find out what we manage to accomplish before we leave for Prague on Wednesday. Thanks again for the emails and words of encouragement.

A big "thank you" to my friend Donna who drove Roger to the doctor on Friday after he had some eye problems and Steven was in Vancouver. One big box of English tea coming your way Donna!!!

Sue