Sat 3 Aug - London, England

A walk in the park...s... A visit to an old friend of Di's mum.

Hans wandered out after breakfast as Di chose a late sleep in (in one more attempt to get rid of her cold). He was away for about 2 hours and this is how he walked.

In Holland Park, the birds provided a somewhat indignified appearance to Lord Holland. Hans thought that it was quite amusing...

The waterfall is part of a very tranquil part of Holland Park called Kyoto Park. A place for quiet reflection.

Parts of Holland Park are surprisingly rural and non landscaped in feel. It's early August, but it felt like autumn here.

This stretch of road is called Kensington Park Gardens and runs in a straight line between Notting Hill Gate / Bayswater Road and Kensington High Street. It is gated on both sides and contains foreign embassies and more.

Hans found the Finish and Norweigian embassies here, but not Swedish or Danish although he didn't look too closely.

Walking towards Kensington High Street, Will's and Kate's shack come into view.

They take the security very serious here. Even the act referred to is called "Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005".

The palace had this beautiful garden just outside, but it was closed for punters. Watch from a distance only.

Hans proceeded to circle the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens and this was looking back west onto the shack...

Lots of fowl in and around the Round Pond.

These guys huddling together was too cute for words.

A sign in Kensington Garden. There was no doubt what former inhabitant is most remembered.

Hans then started to make his way back to London Visitors Hotel on Holland Road, taking back streets and walking through Holland Park yet again.

By 11am we were together in the room and making plans for it afternoon near Battersea Park. We had a planned visit to an old family friend who has recently moved there and when we looked at the map decided to walk there as it was nice weather and we just "want to go to Chelsea".

As you can see below using Runkeeper, 11km later we were there.

So we set off around 11.30pm and went due south via Earls Court.
We arrived at the tube station and Hans had a "blast from the past" moment as he recalled this view from a London visit in 1981.
You see, opposite the exit to Earls Court tube station is Earls Court. In other words, the image above and the image below are directly opposite of each other. Hans came up to street level and remembered seeing that Pink Floyd had played at Earls Court just the night before. And he didn't know... Bugger.
Soon we were on Kings Road, Chelsea. Once home to London punk - Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, even some of the Rolling Stones boys hung out here.
But not now... It's posh and a bit boring. A French bistro had this fancy clock with hands spinning quickly backwards (almost impossible to capture on a small point and click camera), but the rest of Kings Road was very yuppy.
The Bluebird Cafe was clearly THE place to be as there was a queue outside of punters waiting for tables. We walked past...
Sid Vicious would be spinning in his grave if he saw this very "twee" tea shop with a royal baby theme in the window. Too much, too much...
As we moved eastwards towards Sloane Square it got a little better. This part of the streetscape looked grottier with a brothel doorway(!?), a shoe repairs and things shop and a punk clothing shop. But still...
Sloane Square had a few eating places and around 1.30pm we found a nice pub on a Kings Road side street doing a 2 meal for £11 deal. Pretty good value and based on the adverised "fabulous fish and chips" it was an easy choice, washed down with a beer and cider. Nice seat outside so Hans got started...
Di soon joined him.
Hmmm...not sure that this rings true...
But the fabulous fish and chips were true to label.
We continued our wander south towards Battersea Park, passing over Chelsea Bridge.
Our first time on the south side of London - and it appears all roads lead to Hammersmith. We see it as a destination for a large number of buses and traffic signs.
Battersea Park is lovely and we quickly voted it our favorite London park to date, ahead of Regent Park, Holland Park and Kenso / Hyde / Green Park complex.
Battersea Park has fantastic paths and a nice and wide promenade along the Thames, which appeared to be very popular.
Looking east towards London and Chelsea Bridge.
We noticed this small Peace Pagoda and liked the Buddha figures on each side but we could not quite follow the story of why it was here of all places...
We strolled further into the park and stopped at the centre rotunda area for a break. Free icy treats in the park courtesy of Costa coffee. We tried all three slushee flavours and Di collected a last sample for us.
 
We ate the slushee and listened to Chinese opera music (kindly provided by Hans iPhone and recorded back in Columbus Park, Chinatown in NYC). Very relaxing.
We zig zagged through the park further, around a lovely lake with paddle and row boats, and various duck ponds. We've said it before baby water birds are very cute. The ducklings were still fluffy and surprisingly unafraid.
 
We had arranged to meet Carolyn at her new flat at York Mansions opposite Battersea Park at 4pm and easily found it. We really liked the street where she is living. It runs right along the south side of the park where all buildings are known as Mansions and all have a nice and slightly different feel to them.
The front door to York Mansions, apartments 61-80, leading into Carolyn's apartment.
The new flat Carolyn lives in is huge and very light. Some 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and lots of space from what we could tell.
 
Carolyn had not been living there long so as in most house moves not everything ends up immediately where it should be, including this big wardrobe. Carolyn needed some muscle to move it and we agreed. It really went quite smoothly, we just had to take it slow.
 
Carolyn was busy trying to work out how to take happy snaps of the occasion with her new iPad.
Almost there...
Done. Now Carolyn can happily continue with her storing away. All good.

A well deserved cuppa followed by a nice long chat with lots of stories from our trip so far.

Carolyn also has a black cat called Oscar but he was camera shy. We'll get a photo on our next visit.

Time passed quickly and it was soon 7pm and we took our leave.

We had a very easy direct bus trip back to our neighborhood on the 49 bus. We really love London buses and every bus we've been on has been cheap, well driven and followed (what seems to us) a useful and interesting route.

We went a few stops past our hotel to Shepherds Bush to have a late dinner at the local cheap Asian place Chop Chop (we had laksa there earlier this week). The food we ordered was still good value (2 of us ate for £12) but not as good as the Laksa. The place is clearly is a local favorite because it was still hopping when we left.

A short stroll home in the cool night air and we feel we've had another big and enjoyable day. Blogging then good night.

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