Day 24: Sunday 20 April 2014

When I opened the curtains in my twelth floor room this morning I was faced with a cold, wet, grey London day.  I have been really so fortunate with the weather and this was the first really wet day that I have had.  Talking about wet weather, since when have gumboots become a fashion statement.  The first sign of rain and the pommy sheilas, sorry English lassies, are out wearing what they call wellingtons, probably expensive wellingtons, but what we would still call gumboots.

Grey morning in London

As the Imperial War Museum (IWM) is closed I decided to have a look at the National Army Museum.  It is located in Chelsea not far from the Thames.  I caught the underground to Sloane Square station and walked through part of Chelsea to the museum.  I think that I may have been walking through a "better" part of town.  Its hard to tell what the houses and apartments are like from the outside but the cars parked out the front told a bit of the story.  Numerous BMW's, Porsches and Mercedes were parked in the street and not your cheapies.  One place had a matching pair of 4 door Maseratis parked out the front.  Now, I am not really a car person but these cars attracted even my attention.


The National Army Museum is really the poor cousin of the IWM but had a reasonably impressive array of displays relating to the British Army from the days of Oliver Cromwell and his creation of the "Modern Army" to current day. 


I have been carting my coat around for three weeks without using it, however today it earned its keep.  I had a long but pleasant walk along the Thames along the Chelsea embankment, stopping at a little pub (The Rat and Pickle or somesuch) for lunch and a pint.  By this stage it was raining quite heavily but I was comfy and dry in my coat, with my Papa Bear Adventures cap on. 

Obligatory photo of London pub

Obligatory photo of London double decker bus

I continued my walk up Vauxhall Bridge Road, past the block of flats where Clair lived when she was in London in the swinging 60's and onto Victoria Station.  I had previously booked my train ticket to Bath, on the internet, but I still had to print the tickets out at a British Rail station so I did that whilst I was at Victoria station (why am I still surprised when things that I have done on the internet actually work).  Then hop on the underground and train back to Kensington High Street and the Copthorn Tara.


There is wi-fi all through the hotel and dear reader I am sitting in the bar drinking large glasses of Heineken as I put this all together.  Contrary to previous experiences this is actually a hotel bar that has a bit of character and people drink at.


Dinner tonight was in one of the hotel restaurants.  They have a couple of restaurants and one of them, Bugis Street, specializes in Singapore/Malaysian dishes.  So dinner tonight was in Bugis street and very nice it was as well, accompanied by the appropriate bevies.


I am back in the land of television in a language I can understand, so after watching a couple of episodes of Family Guy I was sleeping the sleep of the innocent.