Here we go again! Once we lazily got up and got cleaned up we packed. We won’t get breakfast until later: I just won’t pay so much for a B&B breakfast, no matter how good it is. I won’t even do the coffee in the room since it’s instant here … no thanks!

When it was time to leave Dan asked the young woman at the door if she could call a taxi: it’s really too far for us to walk with our roller bags. Would we have walked with packs? Hm. I’m not sure, but I think I would have been willing since it’s maybe a bit over a mile. But anyway, she called. The service they usually use was full, so she called another and we were told 5 to 10 minutes. At over 10 minutes we started to worry so he went back in to ask her about it. She called again, getting no answer. At that point Dan decided to do what we had originally planned and ordered an Uber.

He was shown that it would arrive quickly. At almost the same time both the taxi and the Uber arrived. We hopped in the Uber and let the young woman deal with the taxi driver since he was late and hadn’t responded to calls. Then on to the train station we went.

Having had no breakfast we had a small bite and some coffee. Neither were stellar, but it was no biggie.

I loved that LNER texted me to say not only what platform we were on but where to stand to get in to our car. I wish all companies did that!

We barely had to wait and in to the train we went. We had reserved seats and no one was in them. Sweet! We got situated and I enjoyed some of the scenery but also occasionally just shut my eyes.

After about two hours we arrived. Hello again, London! We got off the train and stood a bit figuring out how to get to the hotel.

I had one route, Dan had another. Me being pushy we went with my route. I was wrong. Dan’s way would have been a much shorter walk. Sigh. When will I learn to let him deal with directions?!

We checked in early and our room was ready, so that was nice. We are in a basement room, but it does have a window so we can watch people’s feet as they walk by. Not that we have the curtains open in any case. This must be a fairly new place as it’s in very good condition.

After sitting a bit we went out to explore the area, and get a bit to eat for lunch. Turned out the “bit” was more than I expected — I thought the pizza slices would be half the size they were. I told Dan we could have shared. He looked at me like I was nuts. Go figure! (Poor shot of where we ate below.)

Then we walked toward Kensington Park. We went in and ambled. We even did a “Sunday in the Park with George” photo. (To those who don’t know, Sondheim wrote a musical by that name and Dan’s first name is George.)

Dan heard music and eventually I did as well, so we went to listen to a brass band play. Memories of muni band (although there were no woodwinds)! I will try and post a video later: so far it just gets stuck near the start and won’t continue to load. (UPDATE: Loaded!)

We then ambled more, ending up at Royal Albert Hall. We have good memories of attending a couple of concerts there, but nothing is happening now that is of interest to us so never mind.

We walked through a flower garden area, but the flowers were mostly behind fences so I didn’t take a lot of photos.

This is our first warm day in eons, and the first one that caused us to stop for ice cream. Well, I wouldn’t have stopped, but someone to my right was sort of pushing me toward the ice cream truck and what was I to do? So ice cream was enjoyed.

From there we wound up at Kensington Palace. Not that we knew that’s where we were going … these random walks just happen!

Finally it was time for some dinner. I ordered a veggie burger and couldn’t come close to finishing. I should have just ordered an appetizer! When will I learn? Can you tell the difference between the veggie burger and the meat one?

Because we knew we had some things to figure out for the next few days we got back to our room and did some research. I also began to listen to some recordings I am to study. And yes, I finished this blog entry.

Stay tuned to find out what we opted for tomorrow!

Cheers!