Yesterday:

Marylebone High Street

Regent’s Park

British Museum

Literary Bloomsbury Walk

Today:

Camden Passage, Islington – antiques

Notting Hill and Portobello Road

Hampstead Walk

Moving to England – GPL2 wins – we’ll be likely living in Chester, Cheshire

All I can manage at the moment.

I arrived at London’s Euston Station around midday, and then took a cab to the Aspen Suites, where Mark and I have stayed before. I then took the Bakerloo Line of the Tube from Paddington to Charing Cross and headed straight for Trafalgar Square. Last time in London it was winter – the fountains were freezing over and the men were cutting up the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square. This time however, the sun was shining and there were crowds of people. I patted the lion’s paw at Nelson’s Column, which is becoming a bit of a tradition.

I went to the National Portrait Gallery and saw an exhibition called Gay Icons – which isn’t portraits of Barbra, Judy and Liza, but rather, as the brochure says: “this exhibition brings together ten selectors…each of whom is a prominent gay figure in contemporary culture and society [including Alan Hollinghurst, Elton John, Billie Jean King, Ian McKellan, to name a few]. Each selector was asked to name six people whom they personally regard as inspirational, or an icon for them.” It was a fascinating exhibition – I really love the National Portrait Gallery. I then spent a bit of time upstairs in the Tudor Gallery and saw all the famous royal portraits again – Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn etc. Had a spot of lunch in their cafe.

I then walked down Haymarket to Picadilly Circus.

Along Picadilly I had to stop into Fortnum and Mason – they beat Harrods hands down in my opinion. I bought a tim of macadamia biscuits – yum!

I then went to the Royal Academy.

They had a brilliant exhibition of J W Waterhouse, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. It was amazing. I couldn’t bring myself to buy the catalogue or any postcards because the printing process couldn’t reproduce the brilliance of colour in his paintings – they have to be seen to be believed. There is a wonderful cerulean blue he uses, especially in his rendering of water.

I then took a double-decker bus to the Royal Albert Hall:

The Albert Memorial:

I walked through Hyde Park and sat on a bench:

I managed to find the statue of Peter Pan:

Came back to the hotel, went out for dinner and am now back at the hotel watching a program where they are dissecting a crocodile.

Bed time!

I am currently on a train from Liverpool to London. Mark is staying in Liverpool a couple more days, while I will spend some time going sightseeing, with perhaps another trip to another part of England. I haven’t posted for the last couple of days because our apartment’s wifi wasn’t working. It’s amazing how dependent we become on the internet!

We spent the weekend in Liverpool and looking around the city centre, the suburbs and also the peninsula called Wirral, which is just across the river Mersey (we didn’t take the ferry though). Here are some sights:

These are known as the ‘three graces’: The Royal Liver Building, The Cunard Building, and the Port Authority Building. They dominate the waterfront. The clocks in the Royal Liver Building are the biggest in England (they even beat Big Ben).

A statue of King Edward VII.

The Anglican Cathedral.

Albert Dock. This is the home to the Liverpool Tate Gallery, among other things.

Barges.I love barges!

The Titanic Memorial (the Titanic was registered in the Port of Liverpool).

St George’s Hall.

Liverpool also has beautiful parks, gardens and woods (yes, woods in the middle of the city!):

Thanks to Selina and Andy for taking us on a great tour of Liverpool and the surrounds!

Liverpool is also the home of The Beatles, so we saw the entrance to The Cavern Club:

We also drove down Penny Lane, saw the “shelter in the middle of the roundabout”, John Lennon’s childhood home, Strawberry Fields, and the Eleanor Rigby statue:

We had just missed Beatles Day, but I bought a wig anyway:

It looks really bad on me!

Righto. Greetings from London! I tried to update from the Hong Kong Qantas Club Lounge but their wireless was playing up. Here’s a pic from Hong Kong though:

We arrived in London just after lunch on Friday afternoon (London time). The flights were good. Very happy with the service in Premium Economy and we were fortunate enough to be seated in the Business Class section, which means those great capsule seats! We took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station and checked in at Hotel Indigo. The weather is warm and a little cloudy, in the low 20’s (Celsius).

That’s the hotel in the background. We freshened up after the twenty-one hours on two flights and then went for a walk through Hyde Park. I had been to Hyde Park before but, because it is so large, I hadn’t seen all of it and there are some really lovely wild areas, which was unexpected:

We wandered down to The Serpentine (the big lake in the middle of Hyde Park), rented some deck chairs and watched the paddle-boats, ducks and swans. Lots of people passed by too – it’s summer here!

On the way back through Paddington, we stopped at the Victoria pub and had a pint of beer:

We also enjoyed the lovely garden squares in the area:

I’d like to extend a big thank you to all of you who have wished Mark and I well in this new adventure! I have to say at this point that Operation GPL is “likely, but not yet guaranteed”, but we’re pretty serious! We had the cats vaccinated for rabies a few months ago so that they would be “immigration ready” and  won’t have to have any quarantine time, so there’s a pretty solid indication. In all likelihood we will move in January of next year. We are not going to live or work in London at this stage – but I need to be close enough to have London day trips or weekends! There are two cities currently in contention, depending on Mark’s brilliance, which, as we all know, is unquestionable. I will have to follow up in another blog entry our reasons for the move, but for now I need to go back in time and take you through the series of events leading up to this moment. Here’s a summary of last Thursday:

8am Got up and had breakfast
9am Did computer-type things
10am Wrote some Postcrossing postcards
10:30am Had a chat to my friend Dimitra
Did other relaxing holiday-type things of the same variety as above.
12:30pm Mark and I had some lunch
1pm Got a odd-shaped freckle removed from my back by the doctor – ouch! (Yes – I have about five stiches in my back right now and a scar about 4 centimetres is beginning to form.)
1:30pm Got home and told Mark that my dressing needs to be changed the next day. Mark was concerned that he wouldn’t be here to do that as he was getting on a flight that night to London.
1:40pm Mark said “You could just come too. It would be great because then you could visit both cities and we can get a better idea of whether you would like living there.”
Scott said “Oh Pish Posh”
1:45pm We walked down to the chemist to buy a waterproof dressing for my back.
2:00pm Mark said “Why don’t we just see Arleen the travel agent across the road and find out if there’s any seats on my flight and how much it would cost…”
2:05pm Arleen found one last seat available and held it for us while we had a think over coffee.
2:15pm Had a coffee at the café and borrowed a pen from the waitress. Scott said “What time is the cab to the airport booked for?” Mark replied 7:15pm. Five hours. We make a list of everything that needs to be done. Some quick calculations were done.
2:30pm Scott decides to go to London that night.

We impressed ourselves with what we accomplished in the next five hours. There were cats to be booked in to boarding and taken to Dr John’s. There was a delicate phone call I had to make to my principal explaining my intended absence. We had to do a load of washing, pack, shower, contact the neighbours, put the bin out, tidy up, get the dishes done, confirm my flights, pay Arleen, get travel insurance, book the Heathrow Express and other train journeys, change hotel bookings, clean out the fridge. At the same time I was on the phone to my brother in New Zealand and my mum here in Melbourne trying to convince her that she probably needed urgent medical attention due to her encounter with the H1N1 virus (she’s now in isolation but at least is getting some much needed care!). Plus Frogdancer called forty minutes before the taxi was to arrive and we still hadn’t packed (Mark hopes he didn’t sound too preoccupied).

There were moments a bit like that dream you sometimes have where a task needs to be done in a very restricted amount of time and every little thing you do seems to take forever. At other times we looked at each other like we were mad for even contemplating this. Luckily we work well as a team, plus I still had all sorts of lists prepared from the last trip so I wouldn’t forget what to pack.

And here we are.

Tomorrow we are getting on a train. Destination: Liverpool (European Capital of Culture 2008, birthplace of The Beatles).

Signing off for now.

OK folks.

A few astute readers have noticed my Twitters about Operation GPL. Widget in particular has been making great inroads in terms of my cryptic clues – well done! Widget got as far as “Jerusalem” – but that was only the beginning. Jerusalem is a poem by William Blake. Operation GPL, as Widget knows, is “in the final line”. What’s the final line of “Jerusalem” by William Blake? Go look it up now if you want, before you read on.

There was going to be a heap more clues and hints in the lead up to the “Big Reveal” of Operation GPL, but I need to give the game away a bit earlier than I anticipated – for I am sitting in the Qantas Club Lounge about to get on a flight to London.

Yes – London, England.

Yes – right now.

Let me explain in the briefest possible terms and then I’ll elaborate more when I am in the “Green and Pleasant Land” – yes – there’s your GPL folks.

Operation GPL is our move to England.

We are moving to England.

Mark was in the UK for an interview in May, and now he has another interview next week, and we are likely to have to make a choice between two English cities. He was leaving for the UK this evening, and at 2:30pm today we made the decision that I would accompany him.

I will give more details of the stunning, some might say foolhardy, feat of planning that has taken place in the last few hours, but here we are, about to board a plane in less than half an hour.

I’ll try and update from Hong Kong, but if not, London!

Bye for now!

Now for some delicious recipes from Newnes Home Mangement.

Tired of roast leg of lamb? Had it with lamp chops? Never fear – Newnes Home Management shows you how to get the most out of a sheep – starting with the head.

If you garnish with enough parsley and mask well enough with the sauce, no-one will notice you’re eating a head!

Next time – look forward to a tasty Sheep’s Head Pie recipe!

Do I dare ask for suggestions for a caption?

Today I sent Cute With Chris this great Felt Foal Craft activity I found in Newnes Home Management. I suggested his readers could have a competition to make the best felt foal and the winner could get a photo of Orlando. Orlando is taking over the world!

I found this at Boynton.

It has strong links to Newnes Home Management (look forward to my series entitled “Cookery: Take One Sheep’s Head”) and reminders of childhood as well (thanks for adding butter to cabbage Mum!):

This one doesn’t need anything else!

What personal services will he providing down that dark laneway? Why is so little known about them? Why is he looking so expectantly? What’s with the odd pose? What’s he holding in his other hand?

Don’t ask. Don’t tell.

You Are a Lynx

You are a quiet observer of the world around you. Your wisdom comes from listening carefully. You’ve always been extra sensitive and aware. And it’s made it difficult for you to fit in. You see past people’s outward personas. You are able to penetrate a stranger’s soul. What you’ve learned about people is both beautiful and ugly. And you keep these secrets to yourself.

What Big Cat Are You?

Oh my!

Trust me, it wasn’t very scientific.