Walked out the door to be greeted by a squirrel! From that headed to 221B Baker St. Had to queue for a bit but not as bad as what we saw later in the day. The house which had its rooms rented in the 1800’s was done with care for detail - set up as a genuine period house for Sherlock & Dr Watson. Was worth the visit just for the house with its creaky original floorboards. Then headed into Regents Park for look around. The gardens were all good, but the grass is basically all dead due to the current heatwave. We completely underestimated the size of this pretty but enormous park and got lost! Had to rush in the end to make it on time to our tour of Lords. The tour was excellent. Our guide, John, was informative and had a good sense of humour. We got to see through the museum, the Long Room, the away dressing room, the grounds and the media centre, all with interesting stories. My favourite was standing on the player balcony and then seeing the real ashes. Ian made a legend of himself answering questions. We then headed for Soho and found a quirky little bar - the Dog and Duck (just love the pub names!) a then wandered around this very colourful neighbourhood. Also found a bookshop called Foyles and nearly lost ourselves in the five storeys of books of all types. It’s been 35 for the last couple of days with heat and no rain for the last eight weeks and the Brits are dying - and their infrastructure is not coping. You cannot buy a fan anywhere! And most of the tube and bus lines don’t have air conditioning and they are dreadfully hot and stuffy.
