ARRIVING IN LONDON

Paddington Station is huge, under a big, high rooved shelter, maybe Victorian architecture, it was freezing! We followed the signs to the taxi rank and fell into a London cab, strange, roomy creatures that take passenger and luggage all in together! The cabbie was great, dropped us at number 55 Inverness Terrace to pick up the keys to our apartment. Then a short walk along the street found us at our ‘home’ for the next eight days.

The inside of Paddington station is cavenous,and cold, with not a bear in sight!

The end windows are adorned with ironwork.

We picked up our keys at no. 55

An early night was called for!

We were both pretty tired by the time we arrived, we were also hungry. So after sussing out our apartment, seeing what switches turned on what and getting a feel for the place, we decided on a walk down to the shops to see what was there. We found a small TESCO store and a bit further down the road we came across a local nondescript pub, The Prince Albert, the food however, was good. Michael had fish and chips and I, at last got my lamb shanks, it was really, really good, served with sweet potato and orange, a stunning combination the gravy was also orange flavoured and rich in flavour. It almost seems that we are on a British Pub Crawl and maybe we are. The pub meals are so good and reasonably priced. We stopped at TESCO on the way home to pick up some supplies to see us through the next few days. It was around 8pm cold, and had been dark for about 2 or so hours. We were both having trouble keeping our eyes open so decided to hit the sack!

I slept like a log for about 4 and a half hours then was wide awake, so decided to get up and catch up on my blog pages. Went back to bed around 4am, after Skyping the folk back home. Slept through until the alarm went off at seven thirty.

The view from our second floor window.

The sun broke through and the sky was blue, at least for a couple of hours.

Hyde Park is just at the end of our street.

Neither of us were too fussed about getting going this morning, I think yesterday knocked us out a bit.  The sun actually broke out this arvo and most of the snow has gone from the footpaths but there is still plenty around. We eventually got moving and out the door around half past twelve, down the end of our street to Bayswater road wherein lies Hyde Park! We turned right and very soon came to a quaint corner pub called The Black Lion, in we went for lunch, today we both had pies with vegies and mash. Then off to do some more exploring, we needed to suss out the local bus and train routes, so after perusing the maps at the bus stop we headed for one of the nearby rail/underground stations. Queens Way and Bayswater are the closest. We picked up some rail and bus route pamphlets, of a size that we could read without a magnifying glass!   Good news, we also bought Michael a scarf, to ward off the freezing weather, I didn’t even have to bully him into it. Stopping off at the office at no. 55 on our way home we discovered that there is a laundry on the lower level of our building. It is actually outside in a room no bigger than a toilet, there is just enough room for a dryer on top of a washing machine and there is a kitchen chair in there, I’m not sure why because it doesn’t leave enough room to open the door to the front loading machine!!!

The Black Lion, one of our many local pubs, where we had lunch today.

Michael, about to tuck into the 4 pie special. Steak and kidney; Shepherd's pie; Beef and Ale and Chicken and mushroom with mash, gravy and mushy peas.

And for me, Lamb and mint pie with mash, gravy carrots and beans.

We actually got Michael a scarf, with his gloves and beanie he's as snug as a bug in London's icy weather!!