The flights were relatively uneventful. At Abu Dhabi I wrote 4 paragraphs about what had happened during that uneventfulness, so it’s probably a good thing that that didn’t save properly. And when we got up and boarded the plane after I wrote that, I left my handbag behind on the chair, so the uneventfulness nearly came to an end at that point. However, I realised what I had done just as I sat down, and the steward went back to where we had been sitting and found it for me. So… nothing happened. The flight was an hour late leaving Abu Dhabi, and an hour an a half late getting into Heathrow, so it was a little after 5pm when we got to the flat in Bow, in the East of London. We settled in for an hour or so, and then went out around the neighbourhood to find somewhere to eat. This was Good Friday, so there wasn’t a lot open, but there was some choice. In the end we made do with a kind of cheap British diner. It wasn’t bad. We were very tired by the time we got home at about 8pm, and although I tried to stay up until 10, I couldn’t.
Because of such an early night, we were awake again at around 5.30am, so after a cup of tea we went out for another walk, in the opposite direction to last nights’. We were quite excited to see canal boats, and in the distance the Shard and the Gherkin. We’re not as far from the central city as we had thought. We went back home for breakfast, then set out again at about 8.30.
We spent our first day wandering around London, marvelling at how familiar it all seems (“Wow, it looks like Dunedin!” “Wow, it feels just like Melbourne!” “Look, doesn’t that remind you of Fremantle!”) and yet quite unlike how we’d imagined. I didn’t expect the streets to be so higgledy-piggledy, nor so small, not the famous places so close to each other. We walked along Oxford St, then down Regent St, then found ourselves in Soho, then emerged into an area with big roads, very smart houses, statues and parks, and after a few more steps we looked up the road and saw Buckingham Palace! Earlier, starting from Charing Cross Station, we went up Charing Cross Rd and then to the British Museum, which was crowded, but so cool, and then we really just wandered. The plan was to get our bearings and see what was what around the place. But when we got home, a bit before 5, we were really tired. I tried to sleep but my legs muscles and feet were too sore. I had a bath and self-massaged my legs and felt better. We went up the road to the local pub, for a really nice dinner.
In contrast to the central city, the suburbs are exactly as we imagined, from decades of watching British TV. There are lots of terraced houses where we are, of varying degrees of gentility. Very livable. The flat where we are staying is one of many in a converted school building. It’s nice enough, but, as I said, no wi-fi, and I can’t get any 3G reception here from my new SIM card either. Grrr. So I’ll write these entries, then figure out a way to post them. Wish me luck!

PS - The pictures following this entry are really for the next page. I haven't found a way to change the order of the picture pages, so for now, they're just stuck here in the wrong place. Sorry. I'm sure you can handle it.