Saturday morning, London.

Mutterings continued.

Day two in London. Yesterday doesn't really count as I was so wiped out I wasn't making much sense.

I had great seats on the flights from Perth to Singers and Singers to London - middle row, aisle seats, behind a petition, no one in front of me. yay! The plane was 1.5 hours late leaving Perth; the flight from London to Singapore was 2 hours late, making the turnaround time from Singers to Perth also delayed. Leece sat with me at the airport as long as she could, which was nice as it can get a little lonely sitting in a departure lounge by yourself.

Uneventful (ie boring) flight from Sing to London. The movies were Van Helsing (which I hadn't seen but have now seen bits of about four times), The Stepford Wives, Garfield and some teenaged romance things.

The plane landed at Heathrow at 6.30am; there is a curfew and we had to circle a few times. This was nice as we could see the sun rise through the windows. We got through passport control pretty quickly - lots of questions along the lines of "Where are you going, how long will you be here, why are you here, etc etc?"

I caught the train to Kensington South (it was about 8am but felt like 5pm to me) and then transferred to the tube to Victoria. Shortage of staff at the Heathrow Terminal 4 train station meant that we couldn't buy tickets and had to buy them at the other end. I was expecting trouble but the misnamed "Assistance Officer" didn't bat an eye lid. They're also not very included to make you want to ask for any more assistance.

Got to the hotel - the Luna Simone in Belgrave St, Victoria - at 9.30am, too early for the room to be ready. I begged a shower, they were very kind, and I felt vaguely human again.

Went for a bit of a wander around the area to get my bearings, ended up at the Tate which isn't far from the hotel and had an organic ginger beer and a banana (no word on whether it was organic too). The gallery shop was closed from stocktaking, bummer, so will have to go back.

The hotel is just lovely. They've given me a double room for the price of a single (I hope!) and it's on the third floor. And there's no lift. *sigh* But it really is a nice room, great bathroom, view of Belgrave Rd and the fancy Park Hotel across the street. Thank the small gods I didn't have to carry my luggage up the stairs as I'd still be flaked out the second floor landing.

There were two American girls in the foyer with backpacks so big I couldn't work out how they remained upright. Not my ideal way of travelling, I must say. My ideal is for someone else to carry them for me. This has never happened.

The breakfast room was full of Australians, including a couple from Rockingham, which is just south of Perth. And a couple of Australian girls have just come into the caff. Time for the phony French accent, I think. Bonjour! No, je ne parle pas Anglais.


Had breakfast, rang Dad, Mum's doing well (taking her off the morphine has transformed her) and am now sitting in the basement of a cyber caff run by a no frills airline. The caff is no frills also - when I came in there was one other chap sitting in the gloom, apparently no one had turned the lights on. I found a panel of switches and began pressing them at random, figuring that either one or two lights would come on, or the whole place would go up in a bright fire ball. As it turned out, it was the former.

There are a couple of what I think are blocks of flats nearby with the intriguings names of Aubrey Beardsley House and Noel Coward House. I wonder if they are retirement flats for down at heel musical comedy thesps and artists.

This morning I'm off to the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker St (where else?). I also want to visit Covent Garden and Carnaby St but am having difficulty locating just where Carnaby St is - my Lonely Planet guide mentions it but doesn't say where it is.

I'd forgotten how different European keyboards are and I keep hitting the wrong keys when looking for the Shift key and have to go looking for the symbols.

After the trials of dragging my luggage up and down stairs at various tube stations yesterday morning, I've decided to take the sophisticated alternative and have the hotel book a cab to Paddington Station for me on Monday morning. Hauling your luggage through London streets and tube stations full of commuters who just want to get to work and would rather not have tourists clog up their city is not fun and I've decided, bugger it!, blow the expence and take the easy way out.

Time's nearly up - I only bought an hour's worth of cyber time (for £1).

Till next time...