August 9 Driving into London

The last time I tried to navigate John into London was at the end of our trip to Dorset in 2001, when coming east along the M4 inside the Orbital instead of turning north on Kensington Church Street and safely east again on Notting Hill Gate to Palace Court, I sent him right past Kensington into Knightsbridge and we ended up at Apsley House and that horrible multi-lane roundabout between Hyde Park and Green Park. At least then was before the congestion zone charge.

So this time, driving back from Suffolk with nothing so simple as a return trip on the M4, but first looking for Kingston Upon Thames from Leatherhead in the south to drop off our luggage at the Sturgess’, and then picking our way north by one of several alternative routes through Kingston and Richmond and New Malden to the Great Western Road, or Cromwell Road, or whatever it is, and finding Warwick Road, which is one-way, so if we miss it we can’t just turn around--anyway, we drove straight there. Of course. With 45 minutes to spare before the car rental place closed. Since we were right there, we walked on down to the Tesco for snacks and took the District Line from Earls Court to Embankment to eat our lunch in the gardens. It was raining, but that’s England. The trees offer some protection. This was new. We walked across Waterloo Bridge in the rain, taking in Parliament on the right and St. Paul’s on the left, and rode the Jubilee Line one stop to Southwark to wait for stand-by tickets for a fringe-theatre Mikado by an all male cast. We made it in, yeay! And it was the best theatre this trip.

And then we took the train from Waterloo to Norbiton and walked to the Sturgess’ house, before dinner with them at Tootsies in Wimbledon Village, and long talking, and now I’m so tired I must say good night, dear reader, as John wants to be up and at church on Exhibition Road by 9 a.m.