This summer's trip is to the UK, London and Glasgow. Joshua will be at the World Bagpipe Competition in Glasgow on 18 August, and I wanted to be there this time.
I arrived mid-day on Saturday, 4 August, quite tired since I didn't sleep well at all on the flight, and took the Tube from Heathrow to London. Some of the lines were down, and I had to make a couple of train changes to get to Notting Hill. I was too tired to go and get a SIM card for my UK phone. I just went to bed after a late lunch.
Sunday morning, I decided to ring at St. Martin in the Fields, where I've rung before, and then go to Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory for the Anglican Ordinariate Mass. But another ringer came and announced the he had to leave at half past nine to help ring at Christ Church, Spitalfields. This is a tower I had not rung at yet, and I wanted see the tower captain, Alan Regin, so I rang some at St. Martins, then rang at Spitalfields. I spent the afternoon and evening with my friend, Katarina, in Mottingham.
Joshua arrived from Canada Monday morning. This is his fourth trip to Scotland, but he's never been to England. I convinced him to spend a week in London with me before heading to Scotland. So, here we are, doing touristy things in London! (I confess that I did drag him to one bell tower for a practice night and pub afterward.)
I arrived mid-day on Saturday, 4 August, quite tired since I didn't sleep well at all on the flight, and took the Tube from Heathrow to London. Some of the lines were down, and I had to make a couple of train changes to get to Notting Hill. I was too tired to go and get a SIM card for my UK phone. I just went to bed after a late lunch.
Sunday morning, I decided to ring at St. Martin in the Fields, where I've rung before, and then go to Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory for the Anglican Ordinariate Mass. But another ringer came and announced the he had to leave at half past nine to help ring at Christ Church, Spitalfields. This is a tower I had not rung at yet, and I wanted see the tower captain, Alan Regin, so I rang some at St. Martins, then rang at Spitalfields. I spent the afternoon and evening with my friend, Katarina, in Mottingham.
Joshua arrived from Canada Monday morning. This is his fourth trip to Scotland, but he's never been to England. I convinced him to spend a week in London with me before heading to Scotland. So, here we are, doing touristy things in London! (I confess that I did drag him to one bell tower for a practice night and pub afterward.)
We're staying at Pembridge Hall (Imperial College housing - summer B&B), the same place I stayed back in 2016. It's quite convenient for everything we want to do. I did have some trouble getting connected to the internet here, so I'm behind on blogging this trip.
Joshua's room
my room
Tuesday, we headed up to the RAF Museum near the Colindale tube station. They have aircraft from before WWI all the way through today.
They have a Lancaster bomber:
A Vulcan bomber:
And a Spitfire "experience", i.e. I became the kid and gave Joshua the camera:
There had been a Spitfire I could have sat in two years ago at the Flying Legends Airshow, but I didn't get to it. It turns out that was a replica. This one was real. It was built near the end of WWII, and didn't see any action, but became the personal plane of one of the Air Marshals. I saw a photo of it painted white, with all the markings, including the pilot's Squadron, family coat of arms, and his rank on the fuselage.
On the way back, we stopped at Selfridge's Department Store (the original) to look around, and ended up getting a snack at the Kitchen on the top floor. (You can seen quite a few photos of Seflridge's if you scroll back to my 2016 visit to London.)
1 comment:
Super !
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