2803 in London

Horse Guards


Big Ben

Today was a Monopoly day. We braved it and took a bus to Westminster and we got it right. We are getting to be expert at the Tube so we thought we'd branch out and try the buses. Do any of these places ring a bell?
.Pall Mall
.Picadilly
.Park Lane
.Mayfair
.Bond Street
.Oxford Circus
.Regent Street
It's a long time since I've played Monopoly but these names jumped out of the map. When I worked here, I travelled by tube to work so don't believe I ever got a picture of the London map in my head. This time, with all the walking I've done the map is firmly imprinted but in the process we've had an overdose of car fumes. Cars, buses, taxis and constant sirens from police and ambulance and there ar eso many people around everywhere we go. Steve thinks it could be mid-term break for schools here. We've shared many spaces wirh groups of French students and Japanese as well as Canadian schoolboy rugby players. In our hotel there are many Germans and Americans as well as some Spanish speakers. This is only March. Summer would be unbearable in terms of walking around. There are many frenetic shoppers on Oxford Street and Picadilly in particular. I saw a woman buying a Rolex watch for GBP 13,000+. That's almost a deposit on a house.

Houses of Parliament, Boadecia's statue, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's Church where Sir Walter Raleigh is buried (don't get this as he was beheaded - thought he'd be in an unmarked grave - will have to check that history again). Whitehall, St James Park and Captain Cook's statue, Horse Guards, Admiralty Arch, Buckingham Palace seen from the end of the Mall, Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, again. On the way back we walked up Picadilly, Regent Street and then Oxford Street. I tried on some clothes in some of the shops but they really are for under 30s. I really shouldn't have bothered as I was absolutely tired out and poor Steve waited around outside the shops trying to look interested in passing life forms.

In Westminster Abbey we walked on Dickens, Lewis Carroll, D H Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, and the rest I can't remember just at the mo, and dipped our lids at the Bard looking down at us from a wall.

Tomorrow we will have an R&R day doing washing and packing up some things we have to post. We meet my cousin, Alan Jenkins, in front of the National Gallery for dinner and then we are going to the theatre.