loving london

Here I sit, waving a tissue doused in Karvol beneath my nose and experiencing a moment of deja vu. As I sniffle, snuffle and cough my way through the day I keep remembering London not that many weeks ago when I sniffed Karvol and snuffled my way around it's stately streets.

I have something of a love affair happening with London - living there, flirting with its history, relaxing in its glow, dreaming of it when apart. Being back in its embrace was comfortable and altogether delightful and I proudly shuttled Frank around the major sites as if I had never been away.

In truth, once I had us change Tube trains too early and another time I led us astray around endless streets before I remembered it really was too far to walk to our destination. Still, there was something homelike about being back in London, and in my mind I found myself retracing steps from those days when I was young, footloose, fancy free. Poor Frank found himself tagging along with my memories.

Not that we did not do fabulous things together! In a few short days we managed to fit in all the main sites plus a few extra outside of the city. And the time with my friends David and Ruth? Ah... another home coming.

So here are some of the places we went a-sniffling and a-snuffling:

The Natural History Museum, where the building housing the magnificent displays steals the show with it's even greater magnificence, inside and out! Incredible. So were the queues, but that's a whole nother story.

Like I said - there were some magnificent exhibitions inside the Natural History Museum. This slab of Giant Sequoia was just one.

Of course we did a whirl around the obligatory sites - who has been to London and not visited the Queen or Houses of Parliament, St Paul's or the Millennium Wheel? No one! Well not us anyway.

Then we dipped our toes in modern art at the Tate. I don't know, videos of jumping naked people or Sir Paul McCartney having sex aren't really my thing... and I can't quite see how they are art. But the squashed, suspended cutlery display was pretty cool.

Canterbury Cathedral with it's seemingly floating ceiling.

And the cute, cute buildings. Are they really real?! Apparently so.

Our friends David and Ruth took us touring in Kent for a day. I love Kent and all it's charming houses and gardens. This is Chartwell, home of Winston Churchill...

... and Stockney Castle Gardens.

Of course we saw so much more than this - but how to fit it all in a post I ask? The world is too large and wonderful for me to contain!