Marylebone, Speakers Corner, Covent Garden and British Museum

One of tourists' LONDON MUST SEE spots is Speakers' Corner. My guests were rather scared by what they saw and heard. More on this Sunday when I'm not compromising my sleep. Either live your life or write a blog...

Good night!

Westminster Palace, Gaby's and 'Phantom in the Opera'

Wet Saturday...

November Rain... that would be last Saturday's theme song... Despite the frog-favoured weather, my friends and I had a great time treading the Royal Route.

Having met by Boadicea's Chariot, we walked past Portcullis Building housing The MPs' offices, continued along Whitehall with its famous landmarks, then did a quick photo-shoot with the  Horse Guards

 and a caught a quick glimpse inside the Great Methodists Hall:

 followed by a walk along Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square enroute to Westminster Palace. There, after being subjected to a detailed search on entering,  we hurriedly explored The Houses of Parliament with a local guide. As told by the guide, I only took pictures at The Great Hall, the oldest part of the Houses. 
This painting faces the staircase from the Great Hall to the next part of the building and I didn't manage to find out anything about it.

Facing the entrance is a huge stained glass window. A matching one will be installed above the entrance. It is a present for the The Queen from the MPs, if I remember it right.
It wouldn't be a problem to look around for much longer. Normally, I can easily interpret simultaneously, but it was a challenge to hear and follow Derek,  our Blue Badge Guide, as we were constantly chased by the next group whose steps along with the guide's voice made it hardly possible to hear him; not to mention to interpret for my guests.However, we were truly glad we went there.
Additional pleasure was to have proper scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam at the Houses of Parliament cafeteria!

Despite the rain, we marched ourselves further on, looking at more landmarks and taking more less then high quality pictures, as some of us were seeing them for the first time on their maybe 'once in a lifetime' visit to London! Not surprising... There are so many places to see!

The rain wouldn't give in, kept tormenting us. One of the two umbrellas, taken to scare off the rain, gave in very soon. Mine was barely enough for me with my 'omnipresent' small backpack.

We kept going, saw a lot, but finally took the tube from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square where we had the most satisfactory and affordable meal at the reputable 'Gaby's', who's been serving customers, including famous ones, since the 1960s! I'm grateful to my friend who'd shown me this brilliant spot!

You can buy sculptures like these:

 

City walkabout

The sky looks as if somebody left the window blind half way down. I'll show you later as I'm taking my friends on a little exploration of London, prescribed painkillers to numb the knee discomfort ready in my bag.

A friend invited me to join him when showing his foreign guests around London. After they visited The Wax Figure Museum, I met them and took to The City of London. We strolled along Bishopsgate and popped in St Botholp's Church where they were shock at the sight of a decently clad man reading a newspaper. Sorry, you cannot see that sight, I focused on the ceiling! :-)

 Old and new peacefully coexist in The City. The guests were surprised that there is so much buliding work going on and that there are so many changes made to this historic area. They imagined it to be left intact, like a kind of an open air museum...

 OK, we made a small diversion, to St Katherine's Docks and ate at Dicken's Inn too tired to go back to the scary pub of an encouraging name: Hang Drawned and Quartered.

 Dickens Inn - far right:

 View from the restaurant:

 Bus 15 took us to St Paul's. We peered in.

 Here we walked all the way to catch the tube at The Temple Station.

 We arrived at the V&A very ready for the Friday chamber music preceeded by hot beverages at the atmospheric Morris Room.

Listening to the music, I was looking at the items on display.

 A  few snaps on the way to the tube home:

Good night!

I'm sitting in a cozy flat, doing most useful things on my little laptop and still trying to get through to the hospital regarding the knee scan. It's either engaged or unanswered. It made my heart melt when last night a dear friend made a hugely appreciated effort to do the shopping for me and pay me a visit after a long day of hard work and substantial commute. There are good people around!

The friend brought me a special ointment made of  bee venom, and a knee support she has never used, but I just don't know whether I can make use of these things or not and there is no one competent I can ask.

It's rather windy outside  and the clouds are moving very fast 

I can see that the pigeons have consumed nearly all the berries from the tree by the greenhouse.


One day I wanted to take my friend to a little eatery in the London Theatreland, but I couldn't find it. Now, another friend, the one who shared the secret of this place with me some time ago prompted my memory and I googled this enthusiastic review by another blogger: http://www.meemalee.com/2010/04/gabys-charing-cross-road.html.