London Aug 10, 2011

We have had an excellent last several days in London. We are in our home now and (mostly) have our things sorted out. We got lucky in that the last few weeks we have enjoyed the company of several friends. We had some photographer friends of Kjrsten's over for dinner on the weekend. We also had the a jolly breakfast at "The Breakfast Club" in SoHo with some friends from Texas. It is good to hang out with friends from America and share in the fun, excitement, and quirkiness of London.

 

I took Monday and Tuesday off to make for a long weekend. We went to Bath on Monday. It is about a two-hour trip each way via metro and train. It is a beautiful, smaller city with a Roman history. The girls enjoyed the Museum of Fashion and the Roman baths, and of course ice cream. On our way home the train goes through the town of Clapham. Unbeknownst to us some looting had started up around London and in Clapham and other outlying areas. We had no idea from our view of the city and station from the train. Then we get home and hear all about the riots. Tuesday we were due to meet up with the photographers to model for their workshop. We had some concerns about the looters and the state of affairs, but all we could gather was that it was mainly in the "bad parts of town" where there are lots of jobless youth (and apparently no discipline). It was a beautiful sunny day and we were to be with a large group during the day so we didn't worry too much about it. We had a lot of fun having our pictures taken by a large group of people from all over the place. Our girls were digging it big time!

 

After that we went for a stroll in the park and the girls played on the playground. It was a beautiful day and so there were lots of families and kids about. At around 4:30 or 5pm we decided to grab some dinner and head home. At the restaurant they warned us that they might close early because the rumours were that the "west end" was going to be targeted and they were gathering about 10mins away. We didn't want our meal disrupted so we left for home.

 

The metro line to our home was "severely delayed" due to some malfunction and we didn't want the hassle of taking a longer ride home so we got off at the center junction and went to dinner. It was very pleasant, many shoppers and a few coppers on the street. Then we walked up through a really posh neighbourhood and caught the bus the rest of the way home.

 

The attached photos are of our day yesterday. (sorry no burning buildings)