Two Days in One Posting

How to celebrate 4th July in England? By meeting Jack in the courtyard of a bar next door to Ascot racecourse of course. A quick drink and an hour or so of conversation before Lucy and Jack headed off to a barbecue and we had to get back to Heathrow to drop off the first of our three rental cars, and get the tube into Central London to check into our first AirBnB apartment. We arrived 15 minutes after our promised 4-5pm window, and after a quick handover by friends of our apartment host Noel. We had to get into speed shower mode to head back out to a brasserie near Picadilly Circus to meet friends Marilyn and Ian, who we hadn't seen since 2012. Once again we arrived behind schedule, but then had a great evening of good food and conversation before saying au revoir at 11.30pm to tube back to our new temporary home near The Shard.

On Sunday morning we woke to hear rain pattering on the trees outside, so hovered around at the flat waiting to see if it would stop or get worse. Fortunately it almost stopped, so we walked to South Bank for a quick breakfast and brief exploration of this year's temporary exhibitions, artwork and food stalls. By this time the rain shower had stopped and we walked across Hungerford Bridge before getting the tube to Hampstead, where we were to meet Mike's brother Brian, his wife Carole and their son Nicholas for lunch later on. We spent about an hour wandering about exploring the houses along several of the narrow backstreets of this extremely expensive part of London before emerging at Whitestone Pond at the crest of Hampstead Heath. Mike's plan had then been to slowly meander through the Sunday display of paintings, sculptures and other artwork on display on our way back to,the restaurant where we were to meet the others.

To our surprise, the expected art exhibition was not there. Instead, the entire street was closed off to traffic and now featured temporary fairground rides and a sea of stalls selling wonderfully tempting multinational food preparations of hot savory dishes, bakery goods, cookies, ice creams, plus toys, soaps, craftwork, jewelry and a myriad of other goodies. We wandered amongst the wonderful cooking aromas wafting in the air, before bumping into Brian and Nicholas doing the same in the opposite direction. We walked back to join Carole in the restaurant.

After eating and sitting chatting, we all wandered back up the hill through the stalls to Whitestone Pond, then veered off down a sandy trail onto the East Heath leading to the series of ponds, some for fishing and others for year-round swimming. Having reached the bottom of the trail, we turned around to retrace our steps all the way back up to Whitestone Pond, then back through the fairground and food stalls a final time before saying our goodbyes at Hampstead tube station.

Jan and I decided en route to stop off at Coventry Garden to find somewhere for dinner; eating on a gallery above the piazza before walking the northern embankment of the Thames as the sunset lit up the City. The light was so good we walked back to the flat, grabbed cameras and walked back towards Southwark Bridge to take more photographs of The Shard and the architecture of the City.

 

 

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