Another blue
sky day in London where we headed out to explore...we found the house (on our street no less) where Edward Ardizzone lived
between 1920 and 1972. He illustrated the Tim and the
Sea Captain books that take Roni straight back to childhood. Past many Christmas
tree shops until we found Abbey Road – here we took multiple photos (as the
hordes gathered) and crossed the road (without taking pics on the crossing!).
We sighted a graf fox on the other side of the road – I had seen its pink
cousin on my jog earlier in the week!
Onwards
to Lord’s Cricket Ground (opposite the synagogue) and St John’s Wood Church and
Grounds where we appreciated their flowers, statues and Keep
off the Grass signs
before moving on through The Regent’s Park. We looked hard but couldn’t find
any tawny owls...though we did see herons, various ducks and all sorts of
interesting people. Unfortunately the kid’s playground was only for adults
accompanying kids so this had to be broken to Bray before he got too excited
about the adventures to be had there.
Past the mosque and onto Baker Street...221b The
Sherlock Holmes Museum...awesome! Then to Madame Tussaud’s where we decided the
entrance price was ludicrous so we carried on to grab a sandwich and eat it
somewhere warm.
Shoes were starting to be painful and the
rain began to fall so we scampered off in the direction of our place. Fortunately
the rain eased off and on the way we happened upon Little Venice (cute in the
dusky light) and the BBC Maida Vale studios, on past Warwick Avenue (photos and
some singing) to our place where we rested our feet briefly and had a cuppa to
warm up.
On the walk to Shepherd’s Bush in the dark we
passed football stadiums, a friendly cat or two and many well lit Christmas
housed and trees later we made it to our rendezvous spot with only a few
sprinkles of rain on us. Today Rawiri
turned 30 and Laura had organised a surprise gathering at Hell Pizza in
Shepherd’s Bush – a taste of home for the old man. He had organised a surprise
of his own for her too...he proposed when she got home from work!! He had
recorded a song for her and of course she said YES. So when we met them there
were two things for us to celebrate! We managed to find some cake and candles
on our walk to get there so the birthday was celebrated in style – with all you
can eat pizza so everyone was happy! A great night had by all – the new fiancées
and birthday boy (one and the same) especially.
Afterwards we caught the tube home because
our tummies were too full to walk and the rain had started to fall properly.
