LONDON CALLING
With some time on our hands thanks to the sail issue, we decided to take a week away from the boat. We had previously done a drive around the Provence area nearby which was great. What wasn’t so great was the navigation, so I suggested London. I hadn’t been to London since 2004, and Tony had some friends we had seen back in Corfu to visit. We let them know we were coming and they gratefully offered us a bed for the time we were there.
We arrived at Leytonstone Tube stop, heading from Heathrow just in time for our usual 5 o’clock ritual. Our hosts Laura and Gill were lovely and had dinner on the go and drinks at the ready. Life is very compact in London. We soon filled any spare space in their two up two down house where everything has a place and a place for everything! Extras are not encouraged and I learnt a new meaning for the acronym STD - Shit to Dust!
Tony and I took a walk to a shopping centre which was part of the Olympic Park precinct and wandered about one day. The next day we went to Hampstead Heath, a large park in the middle of the city, for a walk with some friends of Laura and Gill. The park is around 800 acres and has natural woodland and parkland and an old grand home Kenwood House along with a view of the city from Parliament Hill (this is one spot I recognized from lots of movies). My fan girl moment was seeing the actress Emma Thomson walking past us like a normal person, who would have thought!!
After walking for 2-3 hrs we caught a red double-decker bus into the city, as you do, and continued our walking along South Bank. We then went on a mission to walk to Gill and Laura’s apartment they let out. Don’t ask me where that was, I got lost after we crossed the Thames, but when we got home that night my watch told me I’d walked around 16km.
The next day we were off to visit Gill’s sister and brother in Tunbridge Wells. We caught the train down to Mel’s lovely home where we spent the afternoon chatting with Graham and continued at dinner with his wife Honour. Tony has had a connection with the Davidson family since 1987. He and Gary were travelling around Europe and through friends ended up staying with Dan & Maureen (the parents) for a time while they were working. So, it was great to have the chance to spend some time with them.
The last night in London was spent at Gill & Laura’s “local” pub. It was a great night, meeting their friends and one or two Aussies. We thank them for their amazing hospitality and are gutted that they are coming to Perth in February while we are not there!!! Very bad planning indeed. Our short interlude was over, we flew back to Marseille at the end of a great week.