Greg and Deb's Travel Blog

A week today we will be halfway home, so today was partly about that. 🙁

We began getting organised for the next week of our trip, we go to Cambridge on Thursday and had arranged to leave one of our bags at our last London hotel.

Around 10:30am we stopped sorting out our luggage and went out for brunch. An Indian brunch, a bacon and egg naan brunch! Continue reading →

Today we spent the morning strolling through the north part of Mayfair.
We walked through Grosvenor Square and eventually to Mercato Mayfair, what is described as a hip market in Mayfair. It is in a deconsecrated church and now houses small niche eateries over two levels and about 3 bars. Continue reading →

We didn’t really have too much planned for today. A visit to a local market, watch the cricket on TV and then Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral in the afternoon.
Well, as the song goes, “2 out of 3 ain’t bad”. Wow. Who would have ever thought I’d quote Meatloaf!! Continue reading →

We left home at about 6:45am to get to Lords cricket ground. The test has been sold out for a while now, and we were lucky to have Reciprocal Membership Cards for the MCC.

We arrived at about 7:10am and the members queue to get into the ground was already very long. It stretched from the Grace Gates to around the back of the media centre in the east, maybe 300m. We had heard that the first members on the queue start lining up at around 4:30am. And they are old members. The queue was 99% white men. By the time the queue started moving it was over 500m long. Continue reading →

We were out of the flat around 9am and walked up to the Green Park underground to make our way up to Hampstead just north of London. Our train arrived and things went a little, not as planned! I got obstructed getting on the train and the doors closed before I could get on, Deb was already on board. I waved good bye as she sped away. I hopped on the next train, only a minute or two after Deb’s train left, hoping she was waiting for me at Euston Station.
I got to Euston and she was waiting for me on the platform, like something out of a movie really.  😀 Continue reading →

It was Windsor Castle day today, Deb had booked our tickets months ago and the day was here. We woke to very wet streets and rain. The first rain on our holiday that might have actually affected what we did. But it didn’t!
Our plan was to walk to Bond St tube station. Get the Elizabeth line to Stough and then a bus to Windsor.
We got to the tube station at 8am, a little ahead of time. Our train is on the Elizabeth Line a new line with air-conditioned trains. We walked into what seemed like chaos on the trains today with a suspension of services between Abbey Wood and Paddington.(technical problems at Paddington Court Rd apparently). It was causing grief everywhere. But not for us, our train at 8:24am was unaffected.
We left a couple of minutes late, I think a re-routed train came a few minutes before ours. Our bus at Stough was due a little after 9am. We waited and waited then waited some more. The digital timetable sign on the bus shelter all of a sudden had our bus arriving much much later, so we got an Uber. And 10mins later we arrived in Windsor at 9:35am, dropped off 30m from the queue for the Castle.
We were directed to our queue, they organise everyone based on your ticket entry time. We were in the first group for the day. The queues for later times seemed to stretch a long way down the road. We started to move in through security etc at 9:50am and were in the grounds of the Castle by 9:55am. Continue reading →

We got the Central Line Underground from Bond St Station down to Bank Station. Once out from the underground we let our phones get their bearings before heading off to The Sky Garden.
Sky Garden is London’s highest public garden and offers 360-degree views of the city. We (Deb) had organised our tickets a while ago, so we bypassed and long line of walk-ups. We got through security with no problems and then hopped in a lift to the 35th floor, where it all happens. Our lift got to the 35th floor, stopped, and then headed back down to the ground floor where we were met by a group of people in Hicks vests. Apparently the fire alarm had gone off and the building had to be evacuated. We were so glad we weren’t in the lift before us, I think they had to walk down from the 35th floor. Continue reading →

For a moment I contemplated titling today “A London Western”, with us having a late Indian lunch and seeing Oklahoma tonight, but I guess that wouldn’t be very “PC”, would it, so I didn’t. 🙈🤣

We had a bit of a lazy morning. I went out late morning, played a bit of Ingress, saw some sights and did a small shop, Deb only got 3 hours sleep last night, she managed to add one more while I was out! Continue reading →

Happy 1st birthday to our grandson Aidan. 🎉🎉🎉❤️

This morning we took a bus up the A4201, or Regent St for Monopoly lovers, to The Regent’s Park and Queen Mary’s Rose Garden. We walked in via the impressively looking golden gates into The Inner Circle. The roses were past their prime, but still very pretty. Deb had a lot of fun taking photos of many different roses. Continue reading →

We left the flat at around 10:30am and walked down to Green Park tube station and got a train up to Kings Cross Station.

Kings Cross Station

We walked from there to Amity’s home, Deb’s 2nd cousin, about a slow 20 minute walk away, it was very warm. It was really good to see Amity and she (& her flat mates) gave us a nice welcome. The rest of her family, Steve, Catrina and Eleanor all arrived shortly after. It was good to see them all. We sat in the backyard and talked for a while. Catching up on all the family news.
Around 11:55am we all walked down to Amity’s local pub, the Union Tavern, for an English pub Sunday Lunch. Continue reading →