London

And so we reached the final destination of this trip, one of our favourite cities - London! We love many things about London, particularly its proximity to a lot of lovely family and friends. A trip to London doesn't seem complete unless we see Michael and Helen and this trip they had extraordinarily generously offered to have us stay for the entire 2 week period. Fate intervened however, and some months ago they decided to put their house on the market, which meant that house guests weren't a practical option. Long story short we ended up doing the next best thing, finding a funky little house in De Beauvoir to rent just a short distance away. So instead of guests we were neighbours which worked out very well in the end as they were looking in this very area for their next house, so we road tested it for them. And it was good.

Local cafe on the canal path

This is a great little part of London, similar village feel to South Melbourne, a similar mix of lovely houses and left over dodginess, with gentrification still an ongoing process. You can walk easily to loads of nice pubs, local shops and such. And best of all there were at least two places close by doing pretty decent coffee, certainly the best we'd had since leaving Italy. Yet another sign of how much the London coffee scene has come along.

One thing we don't love about London is the weather. Now of course going to London for the weather would be like going to the playboy mansion for the conversation, you may not be disappointed but you wouldn't bet on it. So we didn't have high expectations, and had appropriate clothes with us for the cooler days. The operative word there being 'days', not 'weeks'. The weather was absolute rubbish almost the entire two weeks. It rained every day. Some days only a brief shower, but most a lot more than that. And it seldom got above 17-18 degrees, and then only briefly around midday. It was literally only a few degrees warmer than Melbourne most days, and often wetter. Even all the Londoners were complaining about how bad it was, so it was unusually crap.

A shop dedicated to umbrellas. I wonder why

But it mattered not. London was the main working period for me, and Gerri and Tara were intending to go do and see exciting things, spend time with Helen and her girls and such like, so the weather was just a minor inconvenience. I had very decent internet access at the house, so I was sorted, and Gerri had an Oyster card and a list of things to do, all good. There were in fact enough breaks in the rain for G&T to enjoy the local rose garden in De Beauvoir square, and even water play with Isobel and Pearl in the other local playground.

Water coming from the ground rather than the sky for a change

Gerri and Tara managed to get a few decently touristy things in over the weeks: a trip to the National Gallery to see all the dog paintings from the book "Dogs' Night"; the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs; London Zoo with Helen and the girls.

Have Oyster will travel

And Bocketts farm out in Surrey with Laura and Jonty - to watch pig races, ride on mini tractors and pat baby farm animals. G decided to leave Tara's brand new rain jacket in Laura's car, luckily that was our second last day in London so another did not need to be purchased. Tara did come home with 3 new pairs of shoes (2 for now, 1 for later), 3 pairs of leggings, 3 tops and a bazillion new toys, so she did not miss out on the shopping part of the trip. Tara (and Gerri) also got to experience some of London's kids entertainers - Sparky Songs, and Bravo Kids - a brand new idea starring Helen's very talented opera singer friend Zena - introducing children to opera and classical music.

Isobel and Tara getting into the fun at Sparky Songs

Tara loved the opera, just a bit loud when you are so close to the singers

Zena and Claire performing Rossini's "Cat Duet" - a purrfect kiddy intro to opera. These girls were a-maz-ing!

The first weekend had two major highlights: watching the Wimbeldon men's final live on TV at a sane hour, and Michael making an apparently rare foray into cooking with an awesome lamb roast. We felt very privileged!

Men's final in the background, lamb roast being prepared behind the scenes

Anyone into menswear can't be in London without at least taking a look at places like Jermyn Street and Savile Row, which I duly did. Not being a fan of the English silhouette I didn't get any suits on the Row (really, that's the only reason..) and my only purchase from Jermyn Street was a very modest one, but it's very cool to see so many iconic names in menswear in the one place. Oxford Street made for some more conventional shopping but even there neither of us ended up buying that much.

On previous trips we'd never really sampled London's restaurant scene beyond some local gastropubs, but now that Michael and Helen have babysitters lined up we decided we should all go for a decent meal somewhere. We ended up on the Friday night at Morgan M in the Barbican, for an awesome french inspired degustation menu. It was impressive, and not particularly expensive, two of our favourite restaurant qualities.

Morgan M. Yum!

My major accomplishment this visit to London, due to more time and a deal of luck, was managing to catch up with a few people I'd not seen in quite a while. My old Paris school friend Steven, who ridiculously lives in Gloucestershire, happened to have a meeting up in London during our first week, so I was able to meet him at Paddington and have a drink. And from my Oxford/Thame days Adrian, who lives somewhere equally ridiculous in the wilds of southern England was up in London in our second week, so we met near St Pancras (my favourite station in the world) at the British Library for dodgy coffee and good conversation. And finally my cousin Glyn, who is normally a little inaccessible in Rugby, was staying near to Thame and we managed to catch up on the second weekend when we hired a car and drove out to see my old school.

Lord Williams' lawn

Thame is a beautiful old town just outside of Oxford, with quaint Tudor buildings and surrounded by lush countryside and expansive (and expensive) country estates. The late Robin Gibb lived here, as you might have seen reported on his recent death. I expected to recognise a lot of stuff when we got there, but in fact things were no more than vaguely familiar. Admittedly I went to school there in the late Victorian era but I was a bit surprised my memory wasn't jogged more than it was. I did however manage to remember the old watering hole, the Six Bells, where we stopped and had a typical English pub lunch.

I was old enough to drink when I used to go here, honest

That night, since it was the 15th and thus our 'monthaversary' we had booked to go out to dinner. As we were just down the road from his original '15' restaurant, and because we're both big fans of Jamie Oliver's cooking, the choice of venue seemed obvious. I expected it might have been overhyped, but it was actually really nice, great food and service, albeit relatively expensive for uncomplicated fare.

And before we knew it, a few days later, our stay in London (and the trip) approached its end. We were briefly tempted to stay another week when Tim and Emma's next guests cancelled and they offered the place to us cheaply, however a quick look at the mind blowing cost of changing our flights home curbed any enthusiasm we may have had for that option.

And now we're home, more or less in the right timezone finally, and already the trip begins to seem remote, as they always do. We had some great times, shared with some great friends. We look forward to further great times at home boring the rest of our great friends with endless photos and dubious stories.

Ciao, and thanks for reading :-)

And inevitably on the day we left London the forecast was for sunny, 24 degree days...