Tuesday June 22: I was heading back to London for a couple of days before heading home; Louisa was unwell so I had lined up a couple of nights' floorspace with newlyweds Leonie and Laurent. The problem was getting there... my flight into Gatwick was 3 1/2 hours late and instead of disembarking at a respectable 8pm we were heading headlong towards midnight - 1am Denmark time.
So, I arrived in Gatwick at a quarter past 11, my luggage didn't show up for half an hour - luckily I could bypass the 'EU Passport' queue at immigration, there were big crowds all pretty annoyed that they were up this late (who knows how everyone got home) then I have to decide on what train company to use, while the ticket machines were busy rejecting my card, and the single ticket window had a 20min delay and passengers behind me are asking to move in front because they need the same train that I do (we all made the train)... I got to London Victoria at 12:45 am, to find that the Tube had closed for the night, and none of the taxis would take Visa. Finally I relented and got out some cash, grabbed a taxi and arrived at Leonie's house at 1am (luckily I wasn't heading to Louisa's - maybe 4 times as far). A most frustrating night - but the next day made up for it!
Wednesday: I was still a bit rattled and woke early when I heard movement around the house a bit after 6am. I got up to say hi to my hosts, plus I thought it might be an idea to try to get to Wimbledon... it turned out that Leonie and Laurent were also planning to skip work and get along as well! We left about 7 and with a brisk hike to Tower Bridge tube we got to the Wimbledon queue at around 8am... I was queue ticket number 4323. Not low enough to get into centre court but no problems getting a ground pass. We had a couple of hours to kill but it passed quickly with nice weather, good company from the queue neighbours, and people selling newspapers (including a free radio!) and giving out suncream and chewing gum samples. The whole thing was very civil and well organised.
We paraded across to the stadium complex - Leonie and Laurent had a couple of matches they were keen to see and I decided to settle in to Casey Dellaqua vs Pauline Parmentier on Court 17 - Casey had a shaky start but came good and took out the match. I then watched a another great match where a small Italian girl who was a rank underdog took it right up to her seeded opponent. I went for a walk around the grounds, had the strawberries and cream, watched some of the big matches on the big screen, and then finished up watching a bit of Sam Stosur in the doubles.
I had to keep moving though - I had a date with Louisa for dinner. It took us a little bit of time to find each other at London Bridge, but then we were off having a lovely Thai dinner just near Trafalgar Square. To top off what was already a magical day, we headed off towards the Wednesday Ukulele Jam, which was a hugely enjoyable dose of madness. It was great to meet all the guys and girls and belt out some tunes with them. What a day!
Thursday: My last full day was a bit of an anticlimax... I had originally hoped to be going to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, but their show was cancelled. I went to Greenwich, and saw the signs for the Cutty Sark but it was closed for repairs. I went to the Observatory (I had been there before) back in 1990, and just as I stepped into the room with the Transit Circle an alarm went off and everyone had to be evacuated. I'm pretty sure it wasn't me triggering the alarm! I did see the time ball drop. A programme listing in a newspaper said that there was a show at the Globe Theatre at 2:30 so I jumped on a train to get to Southbank, arriving just to find that the show started at 2:00 and it was sold out anyway. Exasperated, I went for a walk along the Thames riverbank, then back to Trafalgar Square - finally finding the plaque indicating where distances are measured from in London (across the road from the Square towards the river), and basically wandered around for a while... it was good to find a couple of neighbourhoods that aren't on the tourist trail. Finally I headed back to Leonie & Laurent's having decided that I'd had an awesome trip but it was probably a good time to be heading home. I contributed some Victorian wine bought from the local Threshers to dinner, and we settled in to watch some of Wimbledon and Euro2008 on the telly.
Friday: London still had a few hours with which to entertain me; I started with having a bit of a jam session with Laurent which was great fun! Then after packing all my gear I took my hosts' advice to go for a riverside walk to Museum in Docklands, where there were exhibits on Jack the Ripper, and Sugar and Slavery, and lots and lots of schoolkids. I picked up my suitcase from Leonie's, and feeling that I'd been around long enough to be on top of things I assertively swiped my Oystercard on the bus... before the bus driver told me I was heading in the wrong direction. I made it to Heathrow, and checked my bag through to Melbourne. I had budgeted the weight of the suitcase to be around 19kg for the journey which worked fine - until Leonie asked me to carry a couple of books, CDs and small items of clothing back to her family at home. I had a little bit of trepidation putting the suitcase on the scales - 20.0kg exactly!
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