London and all

Big Ben from the Waterloo bridge

Well yesterday was our day in London.  On the bus by 8 am for the trip in, alight at the Houses of Parliament on the Embankment.  While the group had briefings in the House of Commons, I was
lucky enough to be able to take the morning and walk around all over the area, up and down the embankment.





Amazing, there are palm trees growing all over place.  And London is further north than we are at home.  Dawn doesn't happen until about 7:15 and it is dark by 4:45.  It was about 8 degrees yesterday and a mix of cloudy day, then turned very sunny in the afternoon.  What nice is that there aren't a large number of tourists, so it's easy to get around and not be too crowded.  It's been a long time since I have been here, and one thing for sure - the food and the coffee is much much better.

Templar Church just off the Embankment

This is the Templar Church in London, Scrunched in-between two other newer large buildings.  Atop is a gold ship with the Maltese Cross on the sail, and off the right on the sidewalk of the embankment is a silver/pewter griffin wearing a shield bearing the Maltese Cross.

I spent the afternoon in the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square.  Wandering around the rooms was a great way to relax, and get some quiet.  When I came out there were several events/performers going on - a food promotion/bbq by Nelson's statue, and a performer right in front of the steps of the Gallery.  It was quite funny because they both had PA systems and remote microphones so of course were competing loudly with each other.  The audiences were definitely amused.


Met up with everyone after their meetings were finished, and we all got back on the bus to head back through London traffic to Windsor.  Since we had a number of people onboard who had just arrived that day and had their luggage with them, the plan was to go back to Cumberland Lodge, let them check in, everyone have a quick change and then back on the bus to go to Fort Belvedere.  Fort Belvedere is the home of Galen and Hilary Weston, who were hosting a reception for us, as attendees of the Canada-UK Colloquium.  We were all really curious and intrigued to be going there.  As you can guess, the plans fell apart rather quickly.  London traffic ruled the day, and the first part of the evening.  It took us 2.5 hours to get to Windsor, so the bus took us straight there.  Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to take any pictures.  But it was pretty amazing.  While it has a long history, the most recent would be that Fort Belvedere was the home of Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor.  The room where we had drinks and the reception was the room where Edward signed the abdication papers. After abdicating, the Duke and Duchess continued to live there.  The Westons have lived there for 35 years and have fully restored it.  7:30 came, and back on the bus we got to finally return to Cumberland Lodge for dinner.  Dinner was over around 10, and it was time to fall into bed.

Today started a little later - catching up on jet lag, and feeling a little slow today.  But it was conference day 2, so meetings all day and catching up on work.  Am glad it wasn't so hectic. Just have to finish up with dinner, then early to bed.  Tomorrow is the last day here - I hope to be able to take the 'Long Walk' (a straight grassy avenue 2 miles long) up to Windsor Castle, but that will depend on weather.  Then off to Heathrow tomorrow night for the long flight to Singapore and Sydney.  Right now this is jet lag in training, lol.

Day 1 - Arrived in Windsor

Here I am.  In a beautiful old place called Cumberland Lodge.  Originally a hunting lodge for a Duke of Cumberland way back when.  Now a residential conference facility, academic retreat and educational charity.  Situated in the Great Park at Windsor, it is on the original grounds of Windsor Castle which is approximately a 3 mile walk away up the 'great road', a grassy thoroughfare for walkers and riders.  I am planning on going for a walk up there later and will take some photos.  The afternoon has turned sunny so it will be good to get out - leaves are still on the trees so it is a gorgeous fall day now.

 This is my room.  and the bathroom has heated floors and heated towel racks, and a great big cast iron tub.  May not come out.







The plane was pretty uneventful - got some intermittent sleep.  Heathrow makes Pearson airport look like a tiny place.  It is huge, but luckily it wasn't busy this morning so it only took about an hour through the airport, customs and baggage collection for our group.  We had pre booked a taxi service to pick us up and drive us to Windsor and he was waiting there, so off we went.  Since the airline fed us supper at 11:30, and only a coffee or juice and 'muffin' for breakfast, we told the driver we wanted to stop in Windsor for some breakfast/lunch before going on to the lodge.  At first he thought MacD's was a good suggestion - quickly disabused that idea.  So he took us to a local place loosely called a bed and breakfast.  A diner that served 15 different versions of english breakfast, combinations of: eggs (scrambled, omelette, fried), sausage, blood pudding, ham, bacon, chips, beans, toast (which was bread and margarine not toasted), chips, beans, black sausage, fried tomatoes, did I say chips and beans yet? a daily special, and of course tea.  Todays was pot roast beef, chips, beans, gravy and something green.  And they only use g.m. oil.  So I had to ask - general motors oil, grape mustard seed oil????  Nope, you guessed it - genetically modified oil.  yum.  So we had a very entertaining breakfast with all the local tradesmen.  5 GBP each, pretty good I'd say.  Tonight we've all decided we are going to the pub down the road - pints are needed.  But right now coffee is needed.  So I am on the hunt for some.

In the final rush!

Two days = 48 hours and counting down to departure.  A little bit of panic has now set in.  And the excitement is building.

Today was a practice pack - the good news is that I haven't stuffed the suitcase yet, and have already included my business clothes for the UK portion.  Bad news (for a while) was that I lost my dive computer and spent the better part of the day frantically searching for it in all the normal, right, safe places it should have been.  Of course, the longer I searched the worse it got.  Finally, found it!! Where?  Already safely put in my carry-on in the secure inside sleeve.  Phew.  Maybe I should put stickers or something when I do stuff like that.  My goal is to finish this task tomorrow night.  Any bets?  I have one - I bet I will unpack it all on Tuesday morning, rearrange it and pack it all over again.  Obsessive, I know.  All under the very watchful eyes of DOG.

The biggest dilemma I have right now is what to take to read.  The reality is that while e-readers are great, there often isn't power charging available on planes, so they run out of juice when you need them most.  So traditional reading always a good bet.  But what to take?  Most of what I want to read is on my iPad.  Haven't actually purchased a paper book in a while.  The great thing is with paperbacks is that you can read them then leave them behind for the next person.   Hmmm.

Getting ready to go

Received my flight package on Thursday, now it sinks in that I'm actually going on this trip.  We have been doing so much planning on what we want to do, finding accommodations and booking cars, but it still didn't seem real.  And yikes, only 10 days to go.  So much to do and now so little time to do it in.

Since I have to take two completely different sets of clothing with me - business and fall wear for the UK and casual summer wear for down under, I decided to do a trial pack.  So I got out my roller bag that will be the checked luggage, put it open on the floor in my closet and started to go around collecting some of the articles to put in it - dive gear, shoes, some clothes.  Came back into the bedroom to find my rather large (60lb) siberian husky sitting in the suitcase.  And she wasn't impressed when told to get out.  So that idea didn't work so well.  Can't wait till I do a real pack!

So the plan is - spend the first 5 days in the UK attending the Canada-UK Colloquium in London and Windsor.  Hopefully I'll get some touristy things done in between conference activities.  Then onto the big flight leg - first leg is 12.5 hours, 2 hour change, then another 8 hours.  And I will be on the ground in Sydney.  Warm, summery Australia.