We strolled along the pond in St. James' Park, past myriads of flowers, more swans, ducks, pelicans and geese than you can even imagine, past fountains and formal gardens and of course, plenty of rubbish bins.
Finally we founds ourselves at Westminster Abbey. Although the Abbey wasn't open, the gift shop was and it's never too early to do a little souvenir shopping (or so I always say.) We debated whether to stay for an organ recital later that afternoon. Regretfully (and probably quite wisely) we decided not to because we didn't want to have to try to find our way home in the dark.
We made our way to Big Ben and the Parliament Building and then we crossed the street to get a look at the murky Thames River. It was a good thing Rachel was such a stickler for crossing the street at crosswalks because I still wasn't good about looking in the right direction before crossing the street.
(she's such a good daughter)
We ended up heading back to the Picadillly tube station a little later than we had planned which left us no time for dinner so we just stepped in to a coffee shop for a cup of coffee and a sandwich to "takeaway." Best sandwich ever. Did you know that if you plan to eat your food in the shop you have to pay extra? But if you order "takeaway" it is cheaper? Yeah, I didn't know that either and it still doesn't make sense to me.
We got back to Grand Central Underground Station (Hounslow) with a little time to spare so we shopped in one of the numerous mom and pop shops near the bus station The area was populated largely by people of Middle Eastern descent. Among the couscous and falafel we found some juice and fairy cakes (little cupcakes) that we decided would serve nicely as breakfast along with some hot tea.
It was getting dark and our bus was due momentarily so we queued up behind all the others who lived on or near Cherry lane. With a sense of security that we knew what we were doing, we displayed our bus passes and hopped aboard the bus for the final leg of our journey home. As usual, we climbed to the upper level of the bus and took our seats. When our stop neared, we stood up and made our way to the stairs and watched in horror as the bus drove right by our stop without even slowing down. Apparently after rush hour the bus only stops if you push the stop button. Frantically we pushed the button again and again. No good, he wasn't going to stop until the next designated bus stop on his route. Happily the next bus top was only 5 or 6 blocks down the road from the hotel and we easily found our way back thru the dark streets. They are not very big on street lamps, these Brits (and the Irish aren't big on street name signs but we weren't to find that out for awhile)
We had expected that the other half of our English Adventure Team would have arrived by this time but they were nowhere in sight. We wondered and worried and hemmed and hawed and finally decided to do something about it. So we made our way down to the lobby to set our plan into action. Whatever that plan might be. Maybe borrow a cell phone from somebody and try to call them...(since we didn't spring for an international plan on our cell phones). Well, whatever our plan was, it soon became a moot point because Heather and Sara were just walking into the hotel as we stepped into the lobby. What exclamations of joy! What hugs of relief! And stories of adventure were excitedly exchanged!
