'Getting to know Great Britain in 18 days’ or ‘Sleeping in a sheep field can be an adventure too’ Day one Friday -Saturday 18 - 19 April 2014

After months of planning and of having our plans changed at the last minute, the day finally arrived for our departure. It was snowing. I puttered around the house,cleaning the kitty litter, organizing and tidying in general. Went to the coffee shop at around 830. Will, Jim, Cam, AF Ron, Wendy, Marleen, Dan, Keith and Ed. A nice group. Gave Will the books for Roy, gave Wendy her birthday present, had a bagel for breakfast while solving the problems of the world with the Whyte Ave Riff Raff. Everyone passed on their good wishes for a great trip. I told them all that I would send them a postcard.( I had the address labels already made up). After coffee went to grateful threads around 1130 and chatted with Marleen for a bit. She being a world traveller herself shared some of her fun times.

 Home for a smoothie to help clean out the freezer for Terrance. A few more domestic duties like vacuuming , changing the sheets on the bed, a bit more tidying. Shauna and Terrance came around 4  and Cam came at 430 sharp to drive me to the airport. Thanks Cam.

I met Margie at the airport around 5:10ish with no problem and we checked in.  Excitement under-lied all our activities: Security, dinner of a tasty quesadilla  and running into Jeanne while waiting for boarding. So exciting!

The flight left on time and Margie and I had separate seats. I sat with a very nice young man from Ireland who told me right off he was going to sleep the whole flight. Then we chatted bit. He worked for the Power line between Edmonton and Calgary. I agreed  that sleep was the best thing although sleep eluded me. I only got about 4 hours sleep  so watched movies mostly and checked the map to see where we were. Had a small bagel for breakfast. the flight was actually very good. smooth sailing as it were. Poor Margie Only got about 1 hours sleep.

We landed at Heathrow about 1130 and found our way to the luggage area. Went through customs and found our way to the arrivals area and, after a bit of confusion, got a day pass for the underground, the tube , the train in to London. Found our way to the train through a long tunnel and caught the train, the Piccadilly line ( how cute is that) our first underground ever,  ‘watch the gap’. The step up from the platform was sometimes very high, over 8 inches, how do people in wheelchairs do it. 

When we finally left the underground and were running above ground the weather was partly sunny and everything was green! Flowers were blooming and we were taking pictures like crazy tourists. Our original plan was to go to the Holborn and transfer to another line to go back to Holland Park but it seemed to take a long time and some people on the train were very nice and helped get there quicker pointing out where to transfer to catch the connecting train, the District Line,  to our bed and breakfast. After a bit of walking around stations upstairs and downstairs, there are not enough elevators or escalators in London train stations, we did in fact arrive at our bed and breakfast stop. Right beside the metro station and just down the street from Kensington park and two blocks from Holland Park. 
Of course when we first came out of the metro station we started walking the wrong way but hadn’t gone to far before we realized our error and corrected it.

We were a little sad about the bed and breakfast as it was old and run down and I had never stayed in one like it before. There were piles of old mattresses and things in the front yard which did not give us a warm greeting to start with. The lock on our door and the key to the rather dingy and not too clean bathroom was also not welcoming and something I had never experienced before. The room itself was an everything in one with old very soft beds, chairs and table with a tiny kitchenette and peeling wallpaper. The view of the backyard which pretty much matched the front yard. Needless to say we were not impressed. As we weren’t going to spend much time in it and were only going to stay in it one night, we made the best of it. After the lady in charge, Bea, who was very nice showed us the ropes we left our bags in our room locked the door and headed out to explore the neighbourhood.

Just down the street past the metro was our first pub , the Castle pub so we went in and had lunch of  and our first english beer beer. It was actually very good. So much for the beliefs that english food is bland. The waitress was friendly and

we chatted. After lunch we walked up the street and it started to really look like rain so ducked into a little shop and each picked up some postcards and an umbrella. Margie’s was a black pinstripe and mine was plain yellow. I wanted a souvenir umbrella but the shop did not carry any fancy souvenir ones,  just regular ones. Sigh. What to do with a plain yellow souvenir umbrella. Went back to the B&B wrote out our postcards and decided to go out with our bus passes.

In Great Britain they drive on the opposite side of the road than in Canada. Margie saved my life by telling me to look left and putting her arm out before I stepped in front of the oncoming traffic. They even paint “look right” on the road at crosswalks so that tourists won’t get run over as often. If only those tourists would look down and read the road.  We crossed the street  in safety and proceeded to find the Holland park. Mailed our postcards on the way. So green, so flowering, so lovely! We were again tourists with cameras taking pictures like crazy of the flowers, tulips, daffodils, blooming trees and vines. We wandered through the gardens enjoying the sunshine and the green to no end. The Japanese garden with its waterfall was another photo opportunity as was the tulip garden. Hundreds of tulips all colours and sizes. Really beautiful. We left the gardens and jumped on the 94 bus with our day passes and went to Hyde park where our father had, somewhere in the park, had a peanut butter sandwich during the second world war. 

We started out walking at Cumberland gate but turned back as Hyde park seemed to be just like Hawrelak park back home, grassy fields and trees, very nice but not what we wanted to see that day. The wind had picked up and it was quite cool out in the open so we walked back and saw a very tall statue down the road so walked toward it. The statue was very odd looking and we couldn’t figure out what it was until we had gotten quite close. A very large horses head was what it turned out to be, odd but interesting and beside it a fountain and a large marble arch which was what the area was called.  

Marble Arch. After a few photos we caught the bus back to Lancaster gate with the italian gardens and lake. We followed the lake and found an enchanting statue of peter pan with woodland creatures and fairies.  a few more photos and then we followed the lake and came to a path with a very large statue of a horse and rider. 
On either side of this statue, off in the distance, were a building on one side and something very shiny and gold on the other. We went for the shiny gold and halfway there we had a magical moment passing  under some trees in bloom. The breeze blew blossoms and petals off of the trees and it was like being in a warm pink snowstorm. The golden shiny building turned put to be the Albert memorial. The memorial is absolutely beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye thinking how much Queen Victoria loved him and he her. We spent some time there looking at all the statues and taking photos.

Decided when we were walking back that we would find a nice restaurant for dinner and hit the sac early as we had to go back to the airport in the morning to catch our ride to Windsor.  

We just missed the bus back to the bed and breakfast but there was the Swan restaurant right across the street so we went there for dinner. 500 years old and very good. again the staff were very nice we had food?Lazagna and food and another kind of beer.?.

Back at our B&B we both fell asleep pretty quick considering we had little sleep on the plane and had probably walked about 10 miles. Our first day in England was lovely.