I didn’t think I would ever be relieved to be back in a country where the language and the public transport system was comprehensible, but I was. The advise from the help desk at Pancreas Station was useful, thorough and mostly unsolicited. People were friendly and getting there was going to take less effort, and we were ready for it, but our renewed joy of travel was not to last long.
Thirteen degrees Celsius - Maximum! “It’s a mild Autumn” they all said, “It hasn’t started to get cold yet” We had to wear everything we had, in layers, something we hadn’t done since San Francisco.
Our hotel was right on the Thames near Pimlico, and with in walking distance of Westminster. The Irish owners were very friendly and had offered all the information we needed to know before we had asked. 
Unfortunately, Grosvenor Road, which passed within 20 metres of our bedroom, is a main access to London centre, and must be the noisiest road we have ever encountered, 24 hours per day. With little sleep we were now exhausted and freezing. We walked to Harrods to shop, bought a salmon roll and a Belgian chocolate for lunch, which we ate in Hyde Park.
Then walked onto Buckingham Palace, 
up the Mall to Trafalgar Square. 
Foot weary, we wandered into the warmth of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where The New London Singers were rehearsing Victoria's Requiem for the evening's concert.
Only about ten others were listening to one of the most beautiful sounds Del and I had ever heard, and it was free. We stayed till they threw us out, then sought out the warmth of the crypt, where we were pleasantly surprised to find a reasonably priced, popular café. Walked home via Downing street and Westminster Bridge. 
Discovered that the public was not allowed anywhere near No 10 anymore, as they were when I was last in London in 1980. With no double glazing on our hotel room windows we resorted to a bottle of Brazilian wine to get to sleep. Next day we caught a ferry East along the Thames, to Greenwich. Very cold and grey day, with buildings down the river disappearing in the mist(?) and the sky blending into the river, exactly like a Turner painting. 
Walked through Greenwich town and into the National Maritime Museum (said to be one of the top ten maritime museums in the world, along with Fremantle.) Fascinating collection of sextants and astrolabes, amongst so many other interesting displays. I really wanted to visit the ‘home of time’, Del was developing a cold, so she curled up in the café with a soup and I walked up the hill to the Royal Observatory. 
Unlike most other visitors who wanted to be photographed standing on the prime meridian, I headed straight for the Harrison clocks. Ever since reading Dava Sobel’s captivating story of the quest to reliably determine longitude at sea, I have wanted to see the series of four Harrison chronometers. Sat inside the ferry on the way back to London and walked up to Trafalgar Square to have dinner at a pub which served cheap ales and reasonable quality English fare and was warm and fairly quiet. We wanted to stay till morning, but we had to walk back out into the cold and return to our noisy room. Starting to wish we had gone to Spain
instead of London.
Unfortunately, Grosvenor Road, which passed within 20 metres of our bedroom, is a main access to London centre, and must be the noisiest road we have ever encountered, 24 hours per day. With little sleep we were now exhausted and freezing. We walked to Harrods to shop, bought a salmon roll and a Belgian chocolate for lunch, which we ate in Hyde Park.
Then walked onto Buckingham Palace, 
up the Mall to Trafalgar Square. 
Foot weary, we wandered into the warmth of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where The New London Singers were rehearsing Victoria's Requiem for the evening's concert.
Only about ten others were listening to one of the most beautiful sounds Del and I had ever heard, and it was free. We stayed till they threw us out, then sought out the warmth of the crypt, where we were pleasantly surprised to find a reasonably priced, popular café. Walked home via Downing street and Westminster Bridge. 
Discovered that the public was not allowed anywhere near No 10 anymore, as they were when I was last in London in 1980. With no double glazing on our hotel room windows we resorted to a bottle of Brazilian wine to get to sleep. Next day we caught a ferry East along the Thames, to Greenwich. Very cold and grey day, with buildings down the river disappearing in the mist(?) and the sky blending into the river, exactly like a Turner painting. 
Walked through Greenwich town and into the National Maritime Museum (said to be one of the top ten maritime museums in the world, along with Fremantle.) Fascinating collection of sextants and astrolabes, amongst so many other interesting displays. I really wanted to visit the ‘home of time’, Del was developing a cold, so she curled up in the café with a soup and I walked up the hill to the Royal Observatory. 
Unlike most other visitors who wanted to be photographed standing on the prime meridian, I headed straight for the Harrison clocks. Ever since reading Dava Sobel’s captivating story of the quest to reliably determine longitude at sea, I have wanted to see the series of four Harrison chronometers. Sat inside the ferry on the way back to London and walked up to Trafalgar Square to have dinner at a pub which served cheap ales and reasonable quality English fare and was warm and fairly quiet. We wanted to stay till morning, but we had to walk back out into the cold and return to our noisy room. Starting to wish we had gone to Spain
instead of London.
Next day visited Tate Modern, walked across Millenium Bridge and then to National Gallery. Took a long double decker bus ride from Piccadilly Circus to Portabello Road. Del bought some earings and things while I sought out number 147, where my great grandmother was living in 1871. We had to rush back in the Underground to get to St Martin-in-the-Fields for the evening concert of Vivaldi and Bach. We opted to leave at interval because Del’s cold was worsening. In the morning, the friendly staff at the pub looked after Del and later drove us to Victoria Station for our harrowing journey to the hire cars at Heathrow.
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