17 June 2011
Last night we had dinner with Marie and Damien at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant – great food and atmosphere! After that we wandered around the Covent Garden area and into Soho – there were so many people and so much going on. We ended up at Giraffe where we had yet another bottle of wine and dessert. Tubed home with the hundreds of other commuters going home after dinner, shows etc. Did you know that at Covent Garden tube station there is 192 steps from the station to the street? Needless to say we caught the lift! Also, Angel Station has the longest escalator in the underground.

Last morning in London and shortly off to our last breakfast here. Heading off today towards Brighton and have to go over near Victoria station to pick up our car. Think we will take a cab as don’t favour lugging our cases up and down stairs in the tube station.

Got away from our Hotel around 10ish and wheeled our (very heavy) bags along the street – havent bought anything but mine seems so much heavier and I had a devil of a time getting the zip done up. Didn’t have far to walk before we found a cabbie very happy to drop us near Victoria Station where we picked up our car a Peugot 307. Took a while to suss out the hand brake but eventually got on our way. I was stuffing around with the GPS – haven’t mastered it yet, so I was balancing a map book, my phone and a map the car people gave us – trying to guide Kev through outer London. Not my strongest point but we did get here and along the way I did manage to get the GPS (Mary) tour guide to tell us where to go. I couldn’t figure out why the arrow kept pointing back towards me until I realised Mary was trying to take us back to our Hotel. I eventually sorted it out but not sure what I did so will probably have another mission tomorrow. I was reminded of my dear friend Simon who did a similar thing in London with the GPS a few years back – it was only his daughter saying Dad didn’t we pass this point a while ago – which made him realise he was actually going around in circles! Simon you are not the only person to fail at techno class!

Our lodgings are very nice on the 2nd floor (33 steps and no lift) in a narrow little street in an area where there is little or no parking and we were very lucky to score one, a park that is. We were given a parking permit by the Hotel owner and had to stick it in our window. We lugged bags up the stairs and had to sit down to recover once we got here. Then donned our hats and coats and went for a walk. Very quaint little (not so little) place with lots of small shops and our area seems to house the hair salons – we must have passed at least 6 along the road from here. Lots of restaurants of all ethnicities and we won't have to look far for food tonight. We made it as far as the Pier but by then it was pouring down and we decided to head back to our room and catch up with reading and blogging.

Spoke with mike this morning – was good to hear his voice as we have been worrying about our Christchurch family in view of the continuing shakes.

Marie if that was pissing down you should have been here today! Driving, wetting, umbrella wrecking, hair messing rain. We loved being with you guys last night also. See you when we get back!