Monday 5th

Well, we set off to find Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre today. After catching the wrong train twice we travelled through central London to Cannon Street station, then we walked down to the Thames to find that it was low tide, so I climbed right down to water level and took some great photos of London bridge which used to keep falling down and also of some very large river barges sitting high and dry. I was amazed at the current as the water was still running out. Later in the day when the tide turned I would have been standing at least 6 metres under water. We continued on our way heading towards the theatre and walked across Southwark Bridge to the Globe, only to find it was closed for several hours so took some good photos of the outside and we will have come back another time to visit the interior. We continued our walk across the Centennial Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral which was the focal point during the London blitz and is what upheld the British morale as everything around it was destroyed by bombing. Once again I got some great photos. Feeling a bit peckish we stopped off at a Japanese Sushi Bar for lunch where the various dishes arrive on a conveyor belt which Jill found interesting as she hadn’t seen that before. We then set off for Westminster Abbey. When we came out at the Westminster station we were right next to the Houses of Parliament, an absolutely magnificent piece of architecture. We walked around this building for some time taking more photos and also a photo of Cromwell for the history buffs. Westminster Abbey is directly across the road so we decided to go inside and have a look around. This building is just over a thousand years old and is just dripping with history. As we walked around we saw where the Queen was crowned, the various Royal weddings were held, then went on to see where the early kings and queens were buried as far back as 1066. We saw where Queen Elizabeth 1 was buried and where the executed Queen Mary was buried and how Queen Mary’s son, who succeeded Queen Elizabeth 1, made sure his mother’s tomb was of equal stature to Queen Elizabeth 1 who had her executed. We continued on and saw death masks of various nobles and the clothes they used to wear. There was even an original sword from the 4th Century that was over 2 metres in length and looked extremely heavy. Although we couldn’t take photos inside the place we did manage to take some photos of the ante rooms. This is a place that was so interesting and full of so much information that I think we might have to visit it again. It was getting close to peak hour when we left, so we grabbed a tube and came back to the hotel.

We decided to download our photos to the iPad, which we hadn’t even looked at yet and the technology gremlin struck again and wiped all our photos away!!! So we now have no record of what was a very interesting day. Damn technology!! We won’t download any more photos until we have caught up with Shan again, to find out what went wrong.

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Yes, we are back and have some catching up to do!

Let’s go back to Singapore. We came over on an A-380 Airbus, a double storey monster, the largest passenger plane in the world. It was full and although we were in the centre, we were very comfortable and the time went quite quickly even though it was a 13 hour journey. We landed early at 6.50 pm and were met by Ant, and boy were we pleased to see him! Negotiating the rabbit warren that is Heathrow airport would have been rather interesting otherwise. Ant took us on an express train to Paddington station and then we caught a London cab to the hotel. Pleasantly surprised by the hotel. Our apartment though small is very well laid out and new, with everything we need. The staff are helpful and friendly. There is a supermarket across the road from us, so we went and got some basic food while Ant was here and then he left as we were feeling very jet lagged. We awoke around 4 am next day and decided our first priority should be to find an Apple store to try and work out why the I-pad wouldn’t charge. Ant suggested we go to the Regent street store, so we headed off on the tube for the first time and got off at Piccadilly Circus and then walked up Regent Street, an architecturally fascinating street until we reached the Apple sign outside the store. The first technician identified it to be the power cord and so we left with a brand new £31 international power cord and the hope that all our woes were over. We decided to walk the length of Regent Street and then up Oxford Street which is the hub of the shopping world. After some lunch at a small eating place, we ended up at Marble Arch which is at the top end of Hyde Park. Mum found the hotel where she had stayed with her Mum and Dad back when she was 16 years old, but she didn’t really recognise anything inside as it has been modernised. We then walked down Park Lane and Mum showed me where she used to work 43 years ago. As we were getting very tired from all the walking we had done, we jumped on a red double decker bus and headed towards the hotel. This was the route Mum used to take from work, so a trip down memory lane for her. The bus dropped us off quite a way from our hotel, so we decided to walk back home. On the way, Mum found the basement flat she used to live in was about five minutes walk from the hotel and she hadn’t realised it was so close.

Got home and plugged the I-pad in to find that nothing happened, so immediately phoned the store and made an appointment to see a technician on Saturday.

Friday we got up, (still haven’t got the time clock right yet) caught the tube to Euston station then boarded a country train to Northampton to see Shaun. After a 1 hour journey Shaun met us at the station and we walked through the town until we came to a church cafe where we had a cuppa and Shaun had some breakfast. We spent the day just catching up with all his news and walking around Northampton. We also saw the theatre where he is working and had a walk along the canal where people live on their canal boats. Shaun had to leave us at 5.30 pm to start work and we caught the train back to London without any problems.

Next day we returned to the Apple store to find out hopefully what the problem was. Craig had assured us it was something simple. To cut a long story short, it necessitated us getting a completely new replacement I-pad. Unfortunately we lost all our photos and gizmos that Craig had installed but the guy did manage to connect us to hotmail. That done, we decided to do a round trip on a tourist hop on hop off bus, much like in Singapore, as the weather was beautiful and sunny and 25C and forecasts were that it was soon to change. London is sure full of history! So much so that I ran the battery flat on the camera half way around! We decided to just get an overall view of London first and then we can pick out places to return to in the future.

Shaun came down on Sunday so we met him at Victoria station and took a short stroll to Buckingham Palace, then walked up Pall Mall to where the guardsmen parade before going to the Palace. We then went to Trafalgar Square and Shaun showed us the Collisseum Theatre where he performed in Tosca last year. Feeling a bit thirsty by this time, we then had morning tea in the crypt cafe of St Martins-in-the-fields church and then did a tour around the National Portrait Gallery. We continued our walk around the city and ended up at Covent Garden, then off to a Pub for lunch where we had a traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and a pint. Time was now getting on so we caught the tube to Shaun’s place in Chiswick, where we settled down to configure and set up our I-pad once more. He managed to do everything except install mymorton.net so will do that when we see him next. He heads off to his next venue which is Norwich and we will see him on Thursday.

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Back in Business and ain’t it Grand!

Shaun is wonderful (and typing this) and has fixed all of our technology problems (till the next one comes).

In the meantime, here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

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Technology Woes

So it appears that technology has got the better of our traveller’s, and there is a minor problem in that they can’t charge the iPad. Got a message this morning from the man with two names (aka – Shaun) that they have arrived at their Hotel in London, Safe but exhausted.
It would also seem that the technology woes are more than tech support in London could handle, so it will be off to an Apple store to try to figure out what is going on… (my bet is it will be something simple!!!) In the short term this means no more blog unless they can remember how to do it on their phone (hint hint).

We would like to apologise for this temporary outage and ensure our avid readers that normal transmission will resume as soon as possible. Thankyou for your patience.

PS – When you post comments, they won’t appear until I approve them. This is a safe guard against spammers. If you would like to have your comments appear faster, then you will need to register and  log in before you reply. Otherwise you will need to wait for me to get a round-tuit.

PPS – To register, click “Log in” at the bottom of the Right Hand Side of the main page. On the next screen, click the “Register” link. Once registered if I know you and think you are trust worthy enough (flattery and bribes go a long way) I will make it so your comments will appear straight away.

Have a nice day 🙂

Craig.

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