winding down

Since my last entry I’ve been based in a different part of London – Oxford Street. This is a must-see place for tourists, so as you can imagine, its busier than Metrotown on Boxing Week. And.. you can imagine how much this frustrates me! Arugh!! I’m getting good at the side-streets!

Last week my cousin Perdi was in town for a few days so I was playing tour-guide! It was quite fun getting back into the tourist mode in the City, while at the same time knowing my way around way better than ever before – no maps required and hours upon hours of walking! I felt a little bad with how much walking I made her do straight off the flight, but whatever, you’re only here while you’re here!! She got the grand tour of London, some yummy food and drinks at a pub – standard!

This past weekend I was down visiting family who live in Southampton, right on the south coast of England. It was a far slower pace weekend than most of my others have been but still a nice time. We spent Saturday in the ‘New Forest’ which is a chunk of land King John designated as ‘protected’ (ie for him) back in the 1200’s – which means some pretty big trees and untouched scenery. We were driving around looking at Art galleries an exhibitions – the one family member I was visiting is a fantastic artist so we were sussing out her competition! Sunday we visited a cool roman site called Fishbourne and then bumbled around the edges of Portsmouth were there is loads of water traffic to ogle at.

It’s now my last week in London and I’m amazed at how time has flown by. I feel I haven’t even scraped the surface over here, let alone started to use the location for Europe jumping – I had too many people to see and places and such to even consider the other side of the Channel!. Perhaps I’ll come back next summer and do more? We’ll see. I will admit, I’m starting to look forward to the comforts of home.

This final week is stacking up to be pretty busy – have quite a few dinner/drinks lined up as well as a trip to Betty Windsor’s abode (Buckingham Palace)… and somewhere in there I have to pack up 2 months worth of junk into my suitcases! Not gonna be fun!