London: Saturday 6 August

After a 10 hour sleep, I thought I was feeling a little better and we walked the short distance along the road to see the Royal Mews at last. It was a very hot morning so we were lucky to get there before the crowds and the Mews seemed to be open a little earlier than we had expected. The audioguides were good and the carriages were very interesting. We seemed to get around everything in less than 45 minutes. We were disappointed not to see some action with the horses - only seeing two standing in stalls. Still, it was an interesting insight into royal life and history.

  

  

We sat and enjoyed a milkshake each in a cafe over the road (refreshing in the heat), and as I was beyond going further afield, we just wandered along Victoria Place and a little further, looking at shops. I decided to try out 'Leon' for an early lunch (extensive GF options) and really enjoyed their Moroccan meatballs. Then it was back to the hotel for a rest, after doing practically nothing! In the end, David headed off on his own to walk to and tour Apsley House (the Duke of Wellington's home on the corner of Hyde Park). He had also hoped to stroll through the parks on such a beautiful day, but I just needed to stay still with my box of tissues. A terrible waste of our last full day in London, but all I could manage.

David arrived back after an hour and a half outing, having enjoyed Apsley House, and carrying a souvenir book so I could enjoy it too. I was feeling a little better but not that keen to make the effort to go out for dinner. But, before we left NZ, I had already booked the two nights for dinner at Jamie's Italian in Victoria, and this was our second night... It had been so great the first night, we looked forward to a repeat... I nearly got us lost getting there, with making a wrong turn leaving Victoria Station...

Sadly, we had a particularly disappointing experience at Jamie's this time - I guess Tuesday's meal reached such a high level, we were on the cards to experience the opposite... We ordered identical meals and drinks to last time. It started with taking nearly 20 minutes just to get our drinks (David was worried that the meals would arrive well before the drinks). We got water right away when requested as we sat down, but it was not cold and had no ice in it (we saw other carafes later had ice in them...). Once the drinks arrived, I wondered what was happening when I kept sucking three giant lemon pips up the straw from my Amalfi Collins cocktail (9 big pips was the total count in my glass). Our meals arrived and right away didn't look as good or as well-presented. David's looked kind of 'flat' and he said the chicken seemed dry and over-cooked, and my pasta was only warm, grossly over cooked and squishy, and the sauce was tasteless and just a puddle in the plate rather than coating the pasta. I had to ask for the additional grating of fresh Parmesan that our waitress had offered last time. The meal was not good! Luckily, the waiter was back in a minute or two to enquire how our meals were, and I told him why mine was not good (and how it had no flavour either - it was very bland) and he said that he too could see it was overcooked. He offered to have another one done in 5 minutes, and that is pretty much what happened. Someone else delivered it, didn't offer the Parmesan, and it still didn't look the quality presentation (limp parsley and still only a puddle of sauce) or even the quantity of my main on Tuesday night - it was still a bit overcooked. But it was hot this time, and had some (slightly salty) flavour (David hoped the chef hadn't spat on it...). It certainly wasn't something I would have returned for if we'd had it the first night. After that, I flagged the idea of having my intended second cocktail and dessert there, and we just wanted to leave. We asked for the bill (which didn't arrive) so eventually stood up and started walking out towards the entrance counter. Whereby our waiter rushed to the till and made up the bill which, thankfully did not include a charge for my main, nor a service charge. He was apologetic, but his service hadn't been great either. He made comments about the barman being busy, trainees in the kitchen... Make your own comparison with my Tuesday post... And other reviews on TripAdvisor indicate very mixed experiences as well...

It was a balmy 23C and we had a pleasant walk back to our hotel. In spite of the disappointing dinner, I was feeling a lot better. 

London: Friday 5 August

It was rather a wasted day today, not only because I was full of a cold - I actually managed to pull myself together to a certain extent (thanks to the Otrivine last night and the blast of air from my CPAP machine, I had a reasonable night and woke up around 7:39am). I thought I'd be staying in bed for the day, but David suggested using our free Golden Tours hop on hop off bus option (through our London Pass). This turned out to be both a blessing and a disappointment. At least today I did very little walking, or multiple flights of stairs. We sat on the bus, or waited for a bus...

We obtained our tickets just along the road, and got straight on their blue line tour, and quickly found ourselves at the Churchill War Rooms and Museum for a couple of hours. So far so good! What a fascinating place - the War Rooms were very interesting (to think the British and Allies' war effort was run from these rooms). And the museum was excellent too! We learnt a lot about Winston Churchill, his childhood (his parents thought he would amount to nothing and ignored him), the difficulties he initially had with just speaking and then public speaking, and eventually his attention to detail which won many admirers as well as causing some frustration for others.

We had lunch at the cafe there (a GF frittata and salad for me, quite nice), and then we headed out around 2pm hoping to continue our circuit on the bus.... ... From about 2pm we waited 20 minutes and finally got on a red tour bus. Luckily, overhearing someone else, I realised that not all the red buses took us back to where we started - they had two circuits, and the one we were on did not return us to where we wanted to go - near our hotel and at The Royal Mews. So, we knew we'd need to change buses soon... ... Well, the next hour was spent on the bus, mainly stuck in traffic and it had no functioning commentary through our headphones. Eventually the driver offered to stop and have all of us wait to get put on a replacement bus because of this, or to carry on to the Tower of London with no commentary - the latter being the popular option amongst passengers. Eventually we arrived, and I enquired with a Golden Tours rep as to the timing of their next blue bus - 10-15 minutes later, we were told. Well, 50 minutes later we were STILL waiting, along with an English family with a wheelchair. Never again!! Apparently they are meant to come every 30 minutes, but not in that traffic, which was apparently unprecedented (Murray and Lorraine had struck it too), but we couldn't help but notice that there was a constant stream of the two other companies (Big Bus and Original) at a rate of around 10 to 1 as a comparison.

An hour later, we were deposited in front of our hotel, and we were far too late to get into The Royal Mews as we'd originally hoped. We'd have to look at doing it tomorrow (it's not open on a Sunday, and that's also the day we move out to a hotel near Heathrow).

We had a drink (I'm enjoying the White Russians) and dinner. I was glad to have had a 'quiet' day, and to have learnt more about Churchill - I had originally intended staying in our room all day! Nevertheless, I was tucked up in bed at 7pm, and was sound asleep just after 8pm!

London: Thursday 4 August

I was not feeling well today, the raw beginnings of a streaming head cold. But, there were things we needed to see, so after a slow start, we were off on the Tube to the Tower Bridge Exhibition. This had been closed when we wanted to see it in 2009. The queue wasn't too bad at all, and with my walking stick, I was also offered the use of an elevator on a couple of occasions. The displays were interesting, and the views from the middle of the bridge and along the Thames were spectacular, including the views through the glass floors in some parts of the walkways. Jan would have avoided those, and Steve would have marvelled at the construction and the engines that lifted the bridge for ships to pass under.

  

  

  

Next stop was for lunch at Pret a Manger, beside the Tower of London. I found the GF lemon chicken soup very tasty and also soothing.

Then we went into the Tower of London to view a couple of things we'd missed in 2009 - the Medieval Palace towers, and the walk along the walls, also passing through the section describing the wild animals that had once been kept at the Tower. It was all very interesting and we were glad to have visited again. 

  

  

From the grounds, we were able to see the Tower Bridge lifting to let a ship under - that was cool.

  

Next we walked from Blackfriars, across the bridge to the Tate Modern's cafe for a drink and a break from being on our feet. Then we went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, where we were disappointed to find that we wouldn't be able to see inside the theatre itself because a special event had just begun and was on until Sunday morning. We ended up just looking briefly around the separate exhibition with an audioguide. It was well done and quite interesting to find out how drama was presented in Shakespeare's times, and what life was like for the actors and others involved in productions.

After this, we went back to the Tate Modern and toured for a short time with an audioguide - very useful in helping us understand some of the bizarre art we were viewing. We were surprised at how busy this was, and what a huge place - a great use for an old power station.

  

  

We were both tired after all this - I think the crowds are exhausting in themselves. I walked 16,900 steps today. No wonder I collapsed into bed when we got back to the hotel, leaving David to wine and dine on his own - I was beyond it.