28 July 2010 London to visit niece and final tour

Mick Lyn and Whitney (Kristen's husband)


Mick and Kristen (Lyn's niece)

Lyn Mick and Kristen


Kristen and Lyn


Some strange things are seen in London. He's making money playing tunes on a Witches Hat


This man is giving away free publications


St Martins Church in Trafalgar Square


London has it's protesters - these are protesting against the Afghanistan war, Britain has lost many soldiers there, and continues to do so


Lyn went to Carnaby St and didn't see Twiggy


No 10 Downing St. You can't get near it now.


Decent looking crash barriers in Westminster


No problem seeing these vans


How do they do this? Boat in a bottle in Trafalgar Square.




The only thing on the agenda today was to visit our niece, Kristen, from Australia, who is over here working at the London School of Economics (LSE). Kristen is Lyn's brother's daughter.

Since our weekly passes had expired, we bought a day pass each to cover our travel for the day.

We met Kristen near the LSE and were soon joined by Whitney, who Kristen met and married whilst working in Canada. Kristen is a busy girl and a daughter of whom her parents are, justly, very proud!

We hadn't seen Kristen for several years and it was a lovely reunion. We hadn't previously met Whitney and Mick got on with him famously sharing their life's stories and history.

After an all too brief get together with coffee and sandwiches, Kristen had to get back to work and we said our goodbyes.

We then decided to have one final look around the city of London and decided to catch buses of which there were many. An advantage if this is you don't have to ascend and descend hundreds of stairs as with the tube. After a solid week of touring London our legs and feet have just about given out.

We went to Carnaby street to have a look and found it a very trendy place to buy clothes if you happen to be a size 6 to 8, otherwise forget it.

We then went up to Oxford Circus to take in the bustle, then another trip down to Westminster to have a close look at Big Ben, although that is a bell, not the tower as some people mistakenly think. The tower containing the bells, is known as St Stephen's Tower. The bell first rang in 1859.

After breathing it all in for a final time we headed home to Plumstead for the last time.

There is some bad news though.

During the evening Lyn had a rather nasty fall when tidying our attic accommodation in readiness for moving on and almost fell down the stairs. (There are 40 stairs up to where we sleep). Mainly because of the shock, she was very upset for quite a while and was worried that she may have damaged her knee replacement. She hit the door with her shoulder also which had a large welt across it.

After Mick had calmed her down we set about checking if there was any permanent damage and luckily, apart from a few scrapes and bruises, there appeared to be no permanent injury so she was very lucky.

Sadly, we say goodbye to London today as the hectic pace has finally caught up with us both.