The trip got off to a rocky start, when as we were preparing for departure to Heathrow, our 777 started leaking hydraulic fluid. We wait for about two hours with a planeload of very patient people until the mechanics finally took the plane out of service. We ended up leaving on another plane about four and a half hours late. We finally made it to the UK and the hotel around noon. I made a quick trip over to Sainsbury for my usual purchases before taking my nap.
Given the shortened layover time, Gail and I decided to meet in the lobby at about 5:30 and head out for a walk around the park. The time change to DST mean't it wouldn't get dark until 7:30 or so and it was an absolutely beautiful day.
We walked down to Kensington Park and thru the public gardens that sit beyond Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived at one time. There are signs everywhere that say DO NOT FEED SQUIRRELS, but after seeing how fat and friendly they were, I am guessing no one really pays attention to that.
We were shocked to see so much litter on the grass though so every time we passed something on the ground, we were picking it up and placing it in rubbish bins.
We stopped at Gloucester Arms for a round of brew. We were given the treat of getting to see a crazy man walk down the street in nothing but underwear and an overcoat with a drink in his hand yelling at everyone. One of the chaps in the pub said he was their local crazy guy.
As the sun started to set, we made our way back towards the hotel. We passed Partridges, a kind of high end gourmet grocery store. I love going in there. Gail, who flies this trip every week had never heard of it, so we went in and looked around. They have great pastries and cheeses, spreads, wine, etc. She got a meat pie to heat up for the flight home the next day.
We had planned to go to a place called Stanhope Arms for some traditional English food, but off the cuff mentioned a place called Ask, that I used to go to when I flew London during my Boston years. Gail used to like going there too and I hadn't eaten there in 10 years or so. We decided that was the place to go. They have great Italian food. Gail had a pizza and I had a mushroom and cheese calzone.
We wrapped up our day around 10:30pm or so and made our way back to the hotel. I ran into my purser Lisa and some of her friends who were on some of the other London flights (our base flies 3 a day this time of year) and joined them for a quick drink before retiring for the night.
Of course, we ended up being delayed the next day as our plane was late arriving from Miami. We ended up spending about 30 minutes sitting in the departure lounge with the passengers before our plane was ready for us.
On the flight over we had a cool guy in Business Class named Earl. He was scheduled to be a passenger on the way home with us and when he arrived, he had Cadbury Chocolate Truffles for us. They were very very good.
The delays really started to wear on us, but we were glad to finally get home. We do it all over again next week. Hopefully it will be another great trip, sans the delays.
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