3rd week in London. 11-18th of April
This week we tried to accomplish a bit of “school” at home, but mostly we enjoyed spending time visiting London with Belgian friends who were here Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We covered quite a lot of ground during those three days!
I’ve successfully had groceries delivered – saving my back a great deal of strain, trying to carry enough food home from the supermarket to feed a family of five. I certainly enjoy walking to the store, but I covet those little baskets on rollers that some people have…
I’ve spent some time searching on-line for tutors for the children. If you follow my middle school homeschool blog, you’ll see, I feel like I’m failing miserably these days at home education. It’s time to call in the outside help….
We still enjoy visiting Kensington Gardens daily, especially the Princess Diana Memorial Park – it’s awesome, even the 12 year old enjoys it.
But the highlight of our 3rd week here has definitely been the visit of our Belgian friends. Belgium is just across the channel – less than 2 hours to Brussels on the high speed train. They came by car, which is not so bad if you have a large group. They parked the car at a hotel on the outskirts of London and easily navigated the city by public transport. They showed us Portobello Road (fabulous little antique shops, colorful row houses and apparently a fabulous Saturday market) – just think of the movie “Notting Hill” – it was filmed there. I kept thinking I might see Hugh, but we must have missed one another….
On Wednesday we visited Camden Market, which in one book about London says it is among the Top Five of things to do here. It’s fabulous, I admit. Huge, a great variety, something for everyone. The strangest thing we encountered was “Cyberdog”. This is an odd retail store where everything is “rave-like” neon, the lights are dim, there is massive rave music blasting, and the items looks like they are from the Jetsons or sort-of outer space. You’ve got to see it to understand. We ate dinner that evening in “Chinatown” of Soho. On Thursday we walked around St. Katherine’s Wharf, took a city bus for some sightseeing, walked Oxford Street shopping area, and then took the tube back to Hyde Park.
That evening, I served a meal at our apartment. I haven’t told you yet, my friends are caterers and own a beautiful banquet hall in the countryside of Belgium. They are professional cooks…and I invited them over to our temporary apartment for dinner? What was I thinking??? Well, actually, I have known them for over 20 years, and they are fabulous, fun people, who were happy with the pizza and pasta and salad that I threw together with my limited equipment. It was a fun evening and probably the only time we’ll have guests here at our apartment, in this absolutely fabulous location.
Our weekend could not have been better. Saturday we were homebodies. Sunday, we went to Palm Sunday service at Westminster Abbey. Shocked at the fact that there were only about 30 people attending the service, we were actually moved to the smaller church just adjacent. It was still splendid. After the service, we lingered the streets near Big Ben to cheer on the London Marathon runners. What a great atmosphere. We were delighted to cheer for our own Jason Lehmkuhle, a Minnesota runner who was the first American finisher!!
That evening we discovered Holland Park, a great park of Kensingon & Chelsea. It has great soccer fields – Jonah played his first pick up soccer games, and he was beaming. An adventure park is located within its borders which included ropes courses and zip lines. I was surprised that it had no entry fee.
Our 3rd week in London – and we anticipate our big move for next week!!
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