Made it!

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Hey everyone,

We've made it to London and no surprises here, everything's very expensive.

Ailsa and I spent the morning luxuriating in the very warm sunshine in Hyde Park & Kensington Gardens. Only one of us had a hat, which we passed between us as sunburn seemed very likely. The park is inhabited by feral grey squirrels which are incredibly cute and not overly shy.

We spoke to a local who informed us that the red squirrles which are native to the area have been driven out by the grey ones and while he'd prefer to have red ones, the grey ones are better than no squirrels at all. The ground staff are understandably unhappy about the presence of the squirrels as they seem to really enjoy hoeing into the new growth and digging up everything that isn't well established.

This same local informed us that the black and white birds with the midnight blue tails and wingtips were magpies. They're very quiet and shy. Not at all related to our magpies. He was also able to show us how to spot an Oak Tree, introduced us to the dreaded (if you're prone to hay fever) London Plane trees and the Weeping Beech tree.

Wild Flowers spotted - butter cups, daffodils, bluebells(we think) and various daisies


Ailsa here!

The trip over was fairly good, although we didn't sleep much. (I had a few good hours between Singapore and about India.) We landed on what may turn out to be the best summer day the place has had for ages (according to our friendly bird-spotting local); warm, sunny, and Kensington Gardens was full of locals sunbaking, and stripping off whatever elements of clothing they could vaguely get away with to make the most of the sun. It was a fabulous day to wander about - purely by chance we saw the Albert Memorial, the Albert Hall (I never before realised how public and demonstrative was Victoria's grief at her husband's death), the Royal colleges of music compound (did you know there was a Royal College of Organists?It occupies another exuberant Victorian building emblazoned with terra-cotta-painted bas-relief sculpture), a few lovely churches, the Peter Pan memorial, and we believe we've figured out how to identify some trees (we accosted a local, wondering how we might identify an oak tree, please). Having decided (with difficulty) that it's time to retire my rafia hat, it's now time to buy a hat in London. They're predicting "22, so a few degrees cooler than yesterday" (we've just found the news channel). At the risk of going on about it, they're predicting the kind of cool, wet weather we expected (16, 17 degrees) by the beginning of next week.

Anyway, we got in at 6am, I used the British Passports aisle at immigration and waltzed straight through (I still have to wait for Brett, so it's not actually much of an advantage). Our hotel accepted our baggage but didn't allow check-in until 2, which suited me (I was planning on staying conscious as long as possible to join the "Greenwich Mean Tribe") but Toni decompensated badly, with the assistance of hayfever, chronic exhaustion etc, so she and Alex retired to a hostel around the corner for a few hours' kip and a shower. Brett and I wandered and grazed - hole-in-wall food, and a pub lunch. Acquiring a taste for English beer is going to have to be an ongoing project. Brett and I had a nap in the afternoon and woke to go out for curry with the others around 6 - a real shock to my system, but th others took care of the thinking, so I coped fairly well.

We're typing this out at 6in the morning, having been awake since 4 (we've planned, talked, channel-surfed and budgeted so far this morning) and now we're starving - it's got to be breakfast time soon, though. (21 minutes, Brett tells me.)

Today's plans involve some combination of some of the following elements; the City (banking stuff, cruise on the river), arranging Oyster cards for travel expenses, British museum, and whatever else seems a good idea while we have unseasonably good weather.

Norma, I hope you have a lovely birthday. EVeryone else, we'll post some pictures and things soon, when we've figured out the technology a bit better, and I hope you're all well and happy.

Talk to you soon,

Ailsa

(Sorry about the belatedness of this entry, I was having trouble getting my laptop to play with the networks here)

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Photos

Royal Albert Hall
Ailsa translates the inscription.

Grey Squirrel
Cute furry critters will feature on this journal if we can find them.

Buttercups?
No idea if you can recognise anything in this photo, the flowers are burn your eyes out yellow, this is just what the camera captured, no tweaking.