Streatham Hill / Stratford / London

We took a slightly roundabout route to Stratford this morning, not helped by the fact that we hopped on a train going in the wrong direction (my fault), so we ended up at Canary Wharf instead of Stratford and then had to hop on a train back to Whitechapel. The reason for the roundabout route was so we could try the new Elizabeth Line. It’s very impressive, as is the new station at Whitechapel. We did eventually get to Stratford and met a friend there for lunch. She and I first met on a Ramblers’ walking holiday back in April 2004, hit it off and have remained friends ever since.  It’s so nice meeting friends, chatting about each other’s families and catching up on news generally.  We passed a very pleasant couple of hours together before we parted company.  MrMacD and I then had to find an HSBC branch, which we actually managed to do, so we could pay in some notes that we’d taken to New Zealand with us, but which were no longer legal tender.  Fortunately, it was very easy to do, the teller just paid it straight into our bank account.

From Stratford we caught a Tube to Holborn and walked to Covent Garden to meet another friend and her husband.  We enjoyed strolling along admiring the buildings until we reached The Wellington Pub on the corner of The Strand and Wellington Street.  MrMacD, of course, had a pint of London Pride, I had a G&T.  We sat watching the world go by, giggling at some of the weird sights and marvelling at the number of cyclists.  There was a chap sitting at an outside table and at first I thought he had a weird contraption stuck on his head.  Then I realised that it was actually his hair and managed to get a surreptitious photo, although with a hairdo like that I rather suspect you want to be noticed.

We met our friends at Covent Garden Tube Station then walked to St Giles Square to a restaurant that had been recommended to them.  However, it was far to noisy to allow us to chat, so we moved on to Tottenham Court Road and found an Indian restaurant on a side road, where we had dinner.  It was an enjoyable evening, we caught up on each other’s news, eventually left the restaurant at 8:30pm and walked to Tottenham Court Road Tube Station to start the journey home.  We have one more friend to catch up with tomorrow, then that’s the London “friend catch up list” completed.  Phew!!

Unfortunately, I’m way behind dipping into journals and responding to comments again.  Apologies - I’ll catch up soon.

The blips show sights from the day.