Walking in London

Today was my last day in London, and I’m now on the train home, whizzing northwards through the darkness. Thrilled by the fact that it had stopped raining, I decided to go for a walk in a park and set off from Westminster via Buckingham Palace (again!) towards Hyde Park. Just as I passed, a couple of cars came driving out of the palace gates; the first of them was driven by a sombre looking Prince Andrew. No wonder he is sombre after all the bad press he has had lately. I walked through Hyde Park along the Princess Diana Memorial Walkway to Kensington Palace. I noticed that it has a café along beside the sunken garden, so in I popped for a bowl of soup and a cup of tea. Well, I was very impressed! The café is beautifully decorated with a leafy, trellisy garden theme and the soup was delicious. Even the toilets had a Royal theme - the signs for male and female, and even the baby on the baby change sign - had little crowns on them, which I thought was hilarious.

Reenergised, I made my way out of the park and towards Piccadilly where I wanted to go to Fortnum and Masons. I wandered into a bit of Bayswater and noticed that as well as the elegant large white-painted townhouses there were also quite a few wee cul-de-sacs with mews cottages, which looked very attractive. I eventually came to Oxford Street and all the shops. As I turned off down New Bond Street to Piccadilly the shops got posher and posher. I’m not really a great shopper but had decided to go to Fortnum and Masons because the next time that I’ll be in London I’ll be with James, and he has an even lower tolerance for shops than I do. I ended up enjoying my visit more than I thought I would; I wandered around the store at a snail’s pace that would have been very difficult for James to accept, and after purchasing a few tasty treats for much more than they were worth, I went into the café on the 1st floor for afternoon tea. I had caramelised banana pancakes with chocolate sauce and some “Countess Grey” flavour tea which was so lovely that I bought some to take home. And then it was time to go back to Euston Station and board this very long train for the five and a half hours journey back to Scotland. Lots of time to read my book!