London Day Two

A twelve hour day yesterday, home late and too tired to do my blip. But what a great day we had! We visited an old friend who lives in Ashford, a 40 minute train ride from Waterloo. And what luck - one of our local buses goes right to Waterloo!

Breakfast at the station. The usual palaver finding a place without blasted blasting muzak. Pret a Manger was the favoured one, because their coffees are quite good. But the screeching muzak drove us out when we were half way up the stairs. Across to Costa, same thing - raucous screechy twangy yelly muzak. On a Sunday morning too.

I decided to go an tell a member of staff in Pret that I wasn't going to grace them with my business, and explain why. The young chap, Greg, was most sympathetic, saying the staff hated the muzak too, and have given negative customer feedback to managers, to no avail. He offered to turn it down, so we stayed. We had the chewiest, yummiest Danish pastry. And the (most delicious) coffees were on the house! Thanks Greg.

We met up with our pals and had a splendid day. I first met V in 1974 when we were both working in a hotel in Queenstown in NZ. We then flatted together in Auckland. We've kept in touch and have met up infrequently over the years. She and her husband R have completely renovated their house. I was most impressed with the building work R had done - the house had to be completely gutted and was beautifully finished.

We went for a drive to Sheperton Lock and had a walk along the river, choosing which house we'd buy if we won the lottery. Back home for a wonderful lunch of many courses and an excellent NZ sauvignon blanc. Promises have been made for V & R to visit us this year in Edinburgh. And for us to use their flat in Gdansk when they're visiting R's mum in the city.

We had a wander along the South Bank when we got back to the city, looking for a blip. I wasn't happy with any of the shots, but they'll have to do.

What crowds!! What litter!!

We walked to Westminster Bridge and back along the less crowded side to Waterloo Bridge, where we got our bus. It was dark by the time we neared home, and we got off the bus too soon, resulting in a longer walk than necessary. We were truly stuffed.