Tuesday March 27th

Man are my feet tired! We conservatively walked 20 miles today!

We stared off the morning walking from the hotel to Kensington Park, and then on into Hyde Park. ~ 6 miles and 2.5 hours later we had Brian's photo with the Peter Pan sculpture and a wonderful morning walk through the park. It was a magical misty morning in the park. I hope some of the photos turned out to show how neat it was for us and how it looked.

Then it was off to Southwark to where Brian's grandpa grew up. Despite misgivings about the directions we'd been given, we figured we'd give it a try. With the help of a really nice person who worked for the Underground who went out of his way to help us, we got there fine. We got to see Grandpa Dally's church (which is undergoing some SERIOUS renovations) and the school he went to as a child. We couldn't, however, find his pub.

Then it was off to the London Eye. The weather was hazy, but it was our last full day here, and we'd bought the discount tickets from the bus tour, and I had really wanted to go. The views were neat, but I can imagine how spectacular they would have been on a clear day. Probably because of the haze, there was very little line, and it was pretty neat. We ended up with a neat group on our capsule. Brian didn't have any bad problems with the height. He liked it a lot better than the gondola at Lake Placid!

At breakfast we heard one of the tour guides telling another American couple how to get to Westminster. We butted in to tell them that it was closed and the local guide said he'd been told it would reopen to the public after 2 pm. So after a nice late lunch on the side of the Thames beneath the Eye, we walked across the bridge to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. I still love the architecture there. Westminster Abbey was still closed, but I got lots of photos of the outside, and this time I was able to walk most of the way around for more photos. We did spend a bundle at the gift shop though, especially since Brian encouraged me to buy several of the cross-stitch kits. I plan to use the patterns from each to make one big patchwork one!

Next up we walked to Piccadilly Circus where we were to meet Hayden later to go out to dinner. We went to Fortnum & Mason for Deirdre and got her lots of tea! We also picked up several more gifts. Unfortunately, the store was undergoing a lot of refurbishment in preparation for it's 300th birthday later this year. We walked back to Piccadilly Circus for a snack and we grabbed seats at the statue of Eros to wait for 7 pm and Hayden. We had the card with the $700 credit get rejected at Boots, so we'll have to find out what's happening there. We waited until 8 pm and still no Hayden, so we gave up and went back to the hotel. I hope emailed and knows that we just didn't get it. *edited from that day's entry to add that Hayden got stuck at work and couldn't get hold of us. That'll teach Brian not to let me check emails!*

We stopped along the way back to the hotel at the Glouchester Station to take photos of the neat art exhibit that was going there. Then back to the hotel and a dinner of leftovers (quick and easy!) and start to pack for tomorrow. We decided to try and pack so we'd have one less bag to carry through the tube in the morning. We have 3.40 pounds left on the Oyster cards, so it seems like we judged that just about perfectly! While packing, I pulled a muscle in my right thigh. OUCH! We relaxed, had another long bath and went to bed early. I'm going to miss that bathtub! Okay, I admit, I have a real thing about long deep cast iron tubs!

Miles walked: ~20

Oh, and a wonderful silver vendor at a street fair refused to sell me one of the great Tesco/Sainsbury's reusable bags that I loved so much last time I was here. He refused to take any money for it, but gave it instead, and even dug me out a new one from the Comic Relief concert that was about a week before we got here. Double cool!