London 2013

He lived here a short time

Deb Proudly in front of our apartment

This pub is the only 1 in Britain on both sides of an ally. I can testify it is also twice as loud as it was right under our bedroom window!

 

 

 

The auctioneer for theatre tickets!

Our look from the Hungerford Bridge as we walked to dinner

This is our third year to visit this great city. Our location on Craven Street, by far the best. We are steps from Trafalgar Square, near the center of the theatre district and the tube allows us easy and cheap mobility.

The benefit of repeat visits to the city is a lack of urgency to see everything at once! We made our way to the Soanes Museum on Monday morning, after a few right and wrong turns , we circled Lincoln’s park to find the museum closed on Mondays. Well at least we knew how to get there. We then popped up to the Dickens’s museum, a very informative display and well worth the time. At dinner we walked across the Hungerford Bridge, a block from our apartment and had dinner atop the OXO building, a great view and an evening that was clearing. At about 7 pm helicopters started flying and hovering about a mile away. I mentioned this was not only loud and disturbing but also unusual. We had not seen this even at last year’s Olympics. At 7:30 pm there was an audible cheer, the announcement of the Royal birth was official. I suspect that the helicopters were from William’s helicopter squadron as a stream of them hovered at 5-minute intervals for the next hour, over St Mary’s hospital.

We did try to see The Book Of Mormons, no tickets were available but there was a lottery at 5:30 pm the day of the performance. Quite a happening as over 100 people hoped to be 1 of 21 tickets drawn. The MC was hilarious, we were unsuccessful but entertained.

We already had tickets to The Curious Incident of the dog in the night. Curious was fabulous with a remarkable set and acting.

Radcliffe in The Cripple of Inishmaan, was obviously professional, the second act fortunately salvaged a very weak first act.

Many of the theatres have been updated and are far more user friendly but retain their charm.

We also took the tube out to visit Kew gardens; in spite of spending 3 hours there we only saw half the acreage.

Catherine unfortunately had her wallet and phone stolen last week while at a local gym while babysitting. We made our way to Covent Gardens Market and found a suitable replacement wallet, final decision in this regard is still pending. In spite of my best efforts my suggestion of choice was of course found to be lacking.

The flat in which we are staying has fantastic location. The down side is that this damn city never sleeps. People party to all hours and as they complete their revelry, the street cleaners and garbage cleaners appear! With the heat wave and open windows, sleep is interrupted. Nevertheless we are convinced about the locale, we just need to be 100 yards down the street.

The trip to Heathrow on the tube is dead easy from the Craven street address, get on the tube at Embarkment, use the elevators at Earl’s Court (where we stayed last year) to transfer to the Piccadilly line and in 55 mins Terminal 3 appears.

The golf clubs were recovered after payment of 36 pounds, cheap when one considers the inconvenience of carrying them about, and another trip is in the books. Next year’s planning starts now!