The Way of the Wombat

On the Tuesday that D-d and I were in London, we went to the Churchill War Rooms for about 3 or 4 hours, even though they reckoned it took about 2! Then we had a brief lunch in St James's Park, before walking across Horse-guards Parade to visit The Banqueting House. D-d wanted to visit it in particular because of her love of the Stuarts - Charles 1st was beheaded there. In fact we were both equally fascinated by the actors who were 'rehearsing for a court masque' - D-d had a chance to have quite a chat with one of them - a slightly surreal conversation where he was in character - and she fell into the role of one of the household of Lady Stanley which she portrayed in Labyrinth last month! I was mainly a fascinated onlooker...

However, I did not use my camera inside the war-rooms or the Banqueting House - I somehow never got around to it!

Here, though, is a picture of St James's Park -



That is about 5 or 10 minutes from the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and so on - a really lovely, quiet, space for everyone. On those rocks are some pelicans. We heard a couple arguing about whether they could possibly be real - he was convinced they were ornaments - even though they were flapping their wings...

We ate in Bill's in St Martin's Courtyard, in Covent Garden. As neither of us had come across this chain before it was something new for us; we were really pleased to see naked burgers on the menu - and were both rather sad that it was a bit early for us and we didn't have room for pudding! Early - because we then went to the theatre to see Matilda - which was wonderful.

Wednesday we went to The Wallace Collection - and, again, I left my camera in my bag. Excellent though - totally recommend it. I can confirm that The Laughing Cavalier is neither laughing nor a cavalier - but he has some rather nice clothing. We'd also recommend their courtyard cafe!

Thursday, and D-d was back home, and I went to the V&A. This time I took the camera out of my bag...


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And that, folks, is the last of the holiday posts...