Continuing On...

Friday, October 12

We had difficulty sleeping last night and were up early to shower and do sink laundry.

News on TV of the VP debate, Lance Arnstrong doping - and we saw news anchor, Louise Minchen - who we met during our Spain and Portugal trip while she was on holiday with her family 6 years ago.
She looks even better than she did then.  Her little girls must be about 8 and 10 now.  How time flies.

Other news in the UK is of Jimmy Savile, a BBC presenter now deceased, who apparently was a serial pedophile.  A statue of him has been taken down and a "coverup" is being investigated.  He raised millions for charity and it looks like many just turned the other way as a result.  This story headlined the news broadcasts the entire time we were there.

We all had breakfast at the Union Jack before taking the underground tunnel to Buckingham Palace.  From there it was a relatively short walk to Harrod's for shopping and looking.  Mostly looking.  We visited the memorial for Princess Diana and Dodie Fayed, men's shoes and the Food Court.  That was amazing.  Of course the prices were extremely high, so I just bought some tea and candy for the girls so they could say they had something from Harrod's, other than the aprons Grandma Warren got all of us many years ago.

 I rather enjoyed the underground experience.  It was a long and steep escalator down - and then another long and steep escalator down to the trains.

After Harrod's we took the tunnel to Trafalger Square.  Then back to Waterloo Station and Boots where I got a hair straightener.  There is a large shopping mall in the station.  Our hotel was right across the street.

Tonight was the first gathering of our tour group and we were met by visitors from Scotland Yard and Sweden.

At dinner Gillian encouraged us to mix with the others, so I sat with Kevan (spelled the same way our nephew spells his name) and Phil, plus Barbara and Bev and Yvonne and MJ.  Dinner was lamb, potatoes, vegetables and apple pie for dessert.

One officer had his family with him that included his young daughter (Courtney) and even younger son.  They were charming and MJ and Courtney became fast friends, especially when Courtney gave MJ lessons on how to use her new phone.