TO LONDON

(This is from a handwritten journal September 15, 2016.)

THURSDAY

8-something U.K. time - landing London Heathrow.

Surprisingly, I'm not braindead.

Yesterday: Banana, 1/2 waffle, tangerine, grapes, grapes (not a typo -I'd written it twice) apple, cheese stick, granola.  Lots water. 10:30 meal plane - pasta/cheese, fruit, roll, salad and breakfast 2:30/7:30, yogurt, water, fruiT.

Laxative, vitamins, aspirin (2 muscle relaxers yesterday) oh, and glass wine.

Slept not great. Curled on seats. Uncomfortable on joints.

Charlotte Rampling genius 45 YEARS.

AFTERNOON

Menopause and London during a heatwave go together about as well as peanut butter and thumbtacks.

FRIDAY

(Pre-notes on getting around before leaving flat.)

Tower Pier (overhead Shoreditch to DLR Shadweel to Tower Hill to Tower Pier. Ferry to Westminster and Big Ben, Parliament, Victoria Embankment, cross Bridge Street (left to) entrance on Abdington Street, cross to Westminster Abbey.

12:30 Mass.

Walking tour from Big Ben/Parliament to Trafalgar Square:

Start Westminster Bridge - End Trafalgar Square:

National Galleries
National Portrait Gallery
Tea at National Gallery
Embankment Pier ferry back or Leicester Square Station
Cranborn and Charing, cross road at Leicester Square, north from National Gallery up Charing Cross Road OR Embankment Pier from Trafalgar square, Northumberland to Thames River and Victoria Embankment, turn left (pass tube station and walk east.)

Stumbled upon Horse Guard Inspection at Buckingham Palace. Swans and geese at St. James Park.  Lovely couple from Connecticut at Churchill War Rooms. 13 year-old brown labrador named Ben along White Hall. Cheerful guards posing with tourists at #10 Downing. DJ spinning at Trafalgar Square before tea at National Gallery. Good and damp day.

LATER

Churchill was a redhead. Passionate and a performer. A painter and writer. A romantic ("Clemmie") and lover of dogs. Bull dog - my fave. I think if he were born a woman he'd have gone into acting, like me. The war rooms were excellent.

SATURDAY
Only other notes for rest of week are more transportation notes and the following:

SUNDAY
Tour w/ Jenni (my step-daughter, whom I was staying with in a Shoreditch flat while she was on business.)

Golden Tours UK (use Viator going forward - guess I wasn't impressed.)

Bath, Jane Austen, Stonehenge.

tcl
8/28/18 early evening