Excursions in physics

“It is a basic reality of physics that you can’t control a three-axis tumble using only two thrusters!”

We stroll through a damp capital through Chinatown (for sweet pork buns) to the river, where we board the RB1X and motor to Greenwich. The city floats past.

I haven’t been to Greenwich since a school trip in the seventies, of which no memory remains except the souvenir ashtray that sat on my windowsill for a decade.

The Maritime Museum is full of interesting exhibits and informative galleries. Nelson and commerce and slavery. There are plenty of interactive pieces for the young (and young in mind) to play with.

Then through Greenwich Park and up to the observatory. We don’t go inside, but Claire queues for a photo op on the prime meridian. Winding down the back of the hill, we pop into a sloping, blowsy Garden, lined with flowering camellias and other exotics. There’s a splendid view over the river towards Canary Wharf.

We spend a happy hour clambering through, over, and under the Cutty Sark. Improbably, the boat is propped up in a hole, floating stolidly above café and a display of figureheads. There is a latticed skirt of rain-spattered glazing around the ’waterline’, through which we stare up at the soaring masts and rigging.

Then, barely a stone’s throw away, is the domed entrance to Brunel’s foot tunnel under the Thames. We descend, walk under water to the other side, emerging in the Island Gardens. Claire purchases Fruitellas and we retrace our steps under the river to the south shore to catch the boat back to Embankment.

We descend into the cosy darkness of Gordon’s Wine Bar where they sell huge trenchers of assorted cheeses, washed down with wine, port, or sherry. It’s so busy that we don’t get a seat, but it’s a proper alternative to city eateries.