Bank Holiday in London

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Today was Bank Holiday, the last one before Christmas. We are not sure why England has all these bank holidays, perhaps it’s just an excuse to get people into the shops for a spending spree so bank managers can rub their hands with glee on Tuesday.
Our youngest daughter was lucky to get the day off from her Manchester postie job so she was able to spend time with us all but it means a late train back for work on Tuesday. What an excuse to get into the big city of London. We had to see her off. So off to London we go. We won’t get many chances to get to London this time so we had to take every opportunity.
We chose Covent Garden as our preferred destination. As we exited The Tube we were enveloped by the crowds of people all milling around watching the street entertainment that was on offer. There was a great mix of living statues, comedians, musicians and jugglers and acrobats. Kerbside cafes were doing a brisk trade. Inside the old Covent Garden Market Place opera singers and musicians were entertaining the lunch time crowd. We found a table, ordered lunch and began to soak up the wonderful atmosphere that is London on a Bank holiday.
While we are in the UK we will be attending a wedding and one of our tour party needs shoes and a shirt. Oxford Street seemed to be a good place to visit. On the recommendation of one who knows it was suggested we try Primark where there are some great bargains. So, in pursuit of this shop, we joined the thousands of late afternoon shoppers all heading in different directions along Oxford Street. On arrival we were greeted by wall to wall shoppers all scrabbling for the best bargains. Try as we might we could not find what we needed in the correct size. The £8 shoes and the £5 shirts would have been just the bargain we needed. It looks like we’ll have to try somewhere else another day.
It was soon time to say our farewells to our daughter as we headed for Northwood and she headed for Manchester. We’ll catch up towards the end of September when we near the end of our travels. Our day out in London was great. We did not go with a great list of things to see, just wandered and talked. We did find ourselves at Marble Arch, the first time we have been there.
Tomorrow we are on a mystery trip thanks to our other daughter and her husband. The only instructions we have are to be ready at 10:00am with comfortable shoes and our passports. Who knows where we are going to end up? It is a mystery to us.

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