goddesstogo

mg, don't I have a book of yours that's a walking tour of HH? I know I have somebody's. I'll check out the website too.

eigasuki

Really enjoying all your London adventures, GTG, and reliving the places I've been. So many still to visit on future trips. You're making me feel better about that when I see how many YOU still have on the to-do list!

Thanks for keeping up with your detailed and frequent posts.

Morningglory47

Yes, GTG, it's my Roger Ebert book about the walk on Hampstead Heath.

Assume you know we have a new Mayor here in Hogtown?

goddesstogo

eigasuki,
No kidding, I have a list taped up on the wall here and it seems that every time I cross something off, I add one or two! We've had a couple of lazy days in a row but now I feel we'd better get moving again.

goddesstogo

We had dinner last night in the home of the writer we recently met and we were joined by a friend of his. Our host lives about a half-hour's walk from us in a flat so tiny it makes ours seem palatial. Still, it was a pleasant evening with good food (although too rich for us these days) and good conversation.

Well, today we tried Golder's Green again and had lunch in a pretty bad restaurant. Not only that, they were OUT of gefilte fish, which was the only reason we chose that place (it was on the menu in the window). We've had such good weather since we've come here but this is the second time we've gone to Golder's Green and the second time we had a whole rainy day. So that's it. We give up. We came home and will stay in tonight and eat a dinner of the nice leek and potato soup I made yesterday and good bread. It's cosy here.

goddesstogo

Well, today was a beautiful spring-like day -- warm enough for just a sweater and no jacket. I really think there's something about SO and I going to Golder's Green that causes it to rain. We should rent ourselves out to drought-stricken areas.

This morning SO went off to the BL and I finally got around to doing one of the London Walks today and I chose the Hampstead one. I got to Hampstead a little early and browsed around on my own a bit and then went to the Underground station to meet the tour guide. I was a little worried that I might be the only one (I had a picture in my mind of the tour leader and I having to develop a 'relationship') but it was a pretty big group -- I'd say at least 30, maybe 40.The walk was two hours long and I think we covered quite a distance. It was very interesting and I took tons of pictures of the homes of famous people (John Constable, H.G. Wells, Keats, Tennyson, Ridley Scott) and moss-covered gravestones.

After that long walk I was happy to get on the tube which took me right down to the BL where I met SO. We had a glass of wine at a pub across the road and then went off to the Wellcome Centre where we had a very nice dinner and heard a good and funny talk by Robin Ince. I liked the dinner part of it too. Not only was the food pretty good but it was nice to chat with the people we were sitting with. You don't get to do that if it's just a talk.

We're going back there tomorrow afternoon to hear a physicist named Brian Greene talk about string theory and then my lovely SO has invited me out for dinner and to the opera to see La Boheme. Where should we have dinner around the Coliseum?

emily71

I did the LW Hampstead tour both in the morning and in the evening as a pub walk. We visited some lovely old pubs - The Holly Bush was my favorite. The tour also visited the Hampstead Observatory which is a lovely tiny Victorian observatory on the heath. On clear Friday and Sat nights there's a volunteer astronomer who will let you look through the telescope to see the nighttime sky(we saw Saturn's rings). If your in the area, I'd highly recommend it.

http://www.hampsteadscience.ac.uk/as...servatory.html

As for the walks, it seems the Walks get more crowded every year.

Thanks for the updates.

goddesstogo

emily,
I remember the Holly Bush. I even took a picture of the sign. I don't know why we didn't go to the observatory. Hey, now I feel cheated!

emily71

Was Richard your tour guide?

Perhaps it wasn't that popular or only geeky former astronomy club members like myself enjoyed it?

Morningglory47

I've done the LW Hampstead Walk as a pub walk, too. It was light jacket weather here in TO today, too.

goddesstogo

No, I don't think his name was Richard. I would have enjoyed the observatory. I'm geeky.

mg, what's happening with your email? I got an email from you last night selling me viagra. Is there something you need to tell me? Seriously, have any of your friends had similar emails from you?

OK, now I've just gotten used to asking clerks in stores and servers in cafes where the toilet is (instead of the washroom which is what we say at home). But yesterday I was in the cafe at the leisure centre and I heard a mother tell her little boy to "go wash your hands in the toilet". It was just a little weird, I must say.

alihutch

It must be odd for you gtg, but the thought of peeing in the washroom seems a tad strange to me

Morningglory47

GTG, e-mail was hacked. Sorry...I'm dealing with it.

goddesstogo

Ah, but you can both pee and then wash up in a washroom. It's a room with several pieces of equipment in it, one of which is the toilet (along with the sink).

The washroom is a whole room. The better analogy would be if the mother said to her little boy "Now go pee in the sink". Now THAT would be weird! (And gross.)

goddesstogo

We had a very nice and very interesting day today. We tubed down to Westminster station so we could go to the Cabinet War Rooms. Of course, the rooms, the maps, the equipment, etc., were very interesting but it was the little personal items that I found so touching, like the sugar cubes that one of the officers had been saving in an envelope. He put the envelope in a desk drawer and forgot about it, and it was found years later. Or the recording of Churchill's secretary's diary entry describing what it was like to take dictation from him (difficult). We also saw a very touching propaganda film about war-time Christmas in Britain. It's interesting to think that the little children in that film would be in their 70s or 80s now.

After that, we walked along the pond side of St. James Park, beside the little chalet there and the bird pond and then through the Horse Guard Yard to Whitehall. From there we had a very long walk -- down the Mall to the Queen Victoria Monument and Buckingham Palace, through Green Park, throughout the Mayfair area including some sweet little streets in the Shepherd's Market, on Curzon Street (we passed by a movie theatre there -- is there something about that I'm supposed to remember?) and along till we found ourselves on Berkeley Square (and now I've got that song stuck in my head). Then we walked along New Bond Street and Old Bond Street which, I have to say, makes NY's Fifth Avenue look a little shabby. We carried along to Piccadilly Square then along Pall Mall back to Trafalgar Square just in time for the long overdue dinner and concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. It's such a lovely church and there were candles at the altar, on all the window ledges and at the column bases, so it was very pretty when they lowered the lights.

So it was a long but interesting day but now we're two tired tykes, so off to bed we go.

goddesstogo

Good morning and happy Halloween!

I hope you remembered to turn back your clocks last night. We didn't, but that's ok -- we don't have to be anywhere by any time today.

Another interesting day yesterday. I took SO back to Hampstead and we did the walk as near as I could remember it. I know I forgot bits but at least he got to see more of the town than the high street. We also walked a bit further up the street and went into couple of very nice little art galleries. We had a sandwich lunch in Gail's Cafe. I'm pretty sure it was Gail's Cafe we ate in in St. John's Wood too. Is it a chain or does 'Gail' just own a couple of them? Anyway, Helena Bonham Carter was there buying bread or something. I didn't recognize her though I knew she looked familiar but SO did. Anyway, lunch was first, then the long walk, then walking in town again, shopping for seafood in the weekend market and veg in the beautiful greengrocer shop which just happened to be next door to an old fashioned tea shop. And it was tea time so of course we had to go in for tea and (for me) cake. It's the kind of place we don't have at home, with loose tea in pretty pots, tea strainers, extra hot water, etc and a selection of gorgeous pastries brought to the table on a big tray so that you can choose the one you want.

SO made us a wonderful dinner at home -- pasta with the shrimp and squid we'd bought earlier in the day -- and then we went off to meet jamikins and bikerscott near Borough Market for a great little pub crawl. We started with a glass of wine in a cell at the Southwark Tavern, then moved on to the The George, and then a third one (the Bunch of Grapes, maybe?) Anyway, it was lots of fun, especially since it was the night before Halloween and lots of people were out in costume. The tube and the streets were packed with witches, mice, devils, axe murders and people with gunshot wounds to the head!

Today will be a lazy day at home and a trip down the street for lunch and the library.

alihutch

Ah, but you can both pee and then wash up in a washroom. It's a room with several pieces of equipment in it, one of which is the toilet (along with the sink).

The washroom is a whole room.

I know, I was kinda making a joke......and being literal.

goddesstogo

(This is me stupidly not getting the joke. Sorry!)

tarquin

I am enjoying your London reports, a reminder not to overlook the interesting places in your own country. But, next time ask for the lavatory - toilet is considered a bit Essex.

Josser

....toilet is considered a bit Essex.....

It's funny that we think that "toilet" is rafeened like "lounge" and "pardon" and our Seppo mates think that it is quite a naughty word.