Londond the Grey

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London the Grey, the wonderful wonderful Grey......... A splash of colour would not hurt the decor.... Arrived from Zurich, checked into my hostel in Bayswater, obviously designed for midgets. Lovely and clean but spacially deficient.

Straight into Mark & Spencers for a cookie, salad and chicken stash then across the road into the Park.... Kensington... Hyde, can´t remember which. It was big, had lakes, monuments to Alfie and Vic, a small insubstantial palace that always looked more impressive on TV and a swag of tourists.

Continued along and saw Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park Corner, Big ben, Millenium Wheel and stayed out walking until midnight taking late night piccies of the sights and getting myself completely lost. Cutting across Hyde Pk in the middle of the night certainly opened up the opportunity to meet some interesting characters. Hello and run.....

Being a long weekend, London had emptied its minute inner city population even further and a smattering of tourists was seen but no locals. Nobody spoke English which was mildly entertaining and everybody had a map and camera.

For the first day there wasn´t much energy and I was a little disappointed. Then I found the markets in Piccadilly and all of the museums andthings improved immensely. Fabulous shopping, too much food. Tunrning into a total porker, as the charming Jack mentioned when we finally met for a vino. Nice to see a friend from Melb after a 2.5 year wait between drinks!

After the cost of the US museums, it´s wonderful that the London ones are free. Disappeared into the Tate Modern for two days and there were only two floors of exhibitions but they were fabulous beyond words. Dreams of becoming a full-time artist again. One floor was about the body and motion, particular faves of mine, so I spent a day there.

Visited Trafalgar Square, of course and happened to be there at the end of the Kingdom of Heaven Premiere and battled a swag of French students to shake the hand of the charismatic young Orlando Bloom, and yes he´s a honey. Also saw Jeremy Irons leaving the premiere, fave power actor 😊

Managed to squeeze in the Tate British and Portait Museums too, leaving the Natural History for my return on June 21. Didn´t go out and play much because of the price but went the Big red Bus and did a few mini pub crawls. Spent three nights in a total dive of a hotel and then out to Camden for a few nights., then escaped to Oxford.

Oxford, of course was full of students and tourist. Pretty, picture, happy, snappy time. Fabulous fuull hot breakfast served at the youth hostel 😊 Did a few cathedral tours, saw all the Harry Potter locations (not that I´m actually a fan) and enjoyed being in a smaller town for 24 hours but then it was back to the big city to wait until 10pm and a bus to Paris 😊

Could imagine living in London and being able to relax and enjoy the city and surrounding areas but as a tourist its one big, grey endless pavement... oh yes and spotted Darren Hayes from Savage Garden at M&S in Notting Hill......

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