Friday, June 13th (Black Friday!)             Woolwich -  London

Robyn writes: This morning we realised we had to devote some time to some "business" - ie the non-fun parts of travel like posting things off, chasing money etc. After our usual tasty breakfast at The Great Harry, we came back to the room to finish packing up two boxes of souvenir-type books and other items we've acqired travelling around - our ports are getting so full and heavy that something had to be done, so we decided to send some home to my mum and dad for safe-keeping. This always takes so much longer than you'd think, but I finally headed off to the Post Office up the road to discover that the two boxes weighed 2.4 and 2.03 kg. So, I whipped a fridge magnet out of the second, to bring it in under 2 kg (which goes to Australia for 25 pounds - ouch!) and asked the man at the counter what the heavier one would cost. He said 75 pounds! I nearly fainted, and hurriedly took out some books to bring it in under 2 kg as well. Lex arrived and helped me tape them up, then he got back into the (long) queue to post them, while I went in search of a Western Union.

We needed this as we're waiting on a booking fee refund from one of our accommodations. It all sounds so simple....of course, it isn't! I went to the closest WU agent, but their computer was down and they directed me to another one. By now Lex had finished at the post office so we went to the other WU office and lined up....for 40 minutes until it was our turn. It took the nice lady 2 minutes to tell us that the payment was for UK to other countries only, and they couldn't help us. We only swore a little bit. We tried two more places in Woolwich with no luck, and by now it was nearly midday, so we looked up an easy to find London WU agency, and headed in on the train to Victoria Station, where it was located. We found the agency easily, there was no queue, all was going great....then the bloke informed us that the payment could only be collected in Australia. By me. Um. We said, in September? He said, no, it expires in 30 days. Bugger. End of story for today, resolve to email landlord and get him to change it. Several hours of the day wasted! By now it was after one, and I was starving, so we spotted a Wetherspoon's there at the station and flung ourselves upon them for lunch.

 Victoria Station, where we had lunch

Houses of Parliament

Once we were fortified, we decided to make a third attempt to revisit Westminster Abbey (to recap: it was closed on Sunday, then there was a memorial service on) so after lunch we walked the kilometre or so up Victoria Street to the abbey. Alas, it wasn't a case of third time lucky...by the time we got there, it was getting on for three o'clock and the queue stretched almost to the footpath! As it closes at 4.30, we figured we were not going to spend 18 pounds for less than an hour and a half in there. Instead, we visited the nearby St Margaret's, where Sir Walter Raleigh was buried after he was beheaded (it doesn't do to annoy kings, really!). Having paid our respects to him and admired the many other ancient graves, we went walking to see the sights.

 Lex not being allowed into Parliament

 

Me not being allowed into Downing Street

In something of an epic hike, we walked as far around the Houses of Parliament as we could, then along with the aim of seeing Number 10 Downing Street, where the British PM lives. This proved extremely difficult, as the whole of the end of the street is very securely fenced off with lots of police officers who are accustomed to having hundreds of tourists take their photos every day! We walked along past Whitehall and up towards the palace, seeing lots of landmarks along the way. In St James Park I had a lovely afternoon tea - we sat up on a garden terrace on top of the cafe and looked out over the ponds. Today was quite hot - around 27 degrees at a guess and really summery weather. Storms were forecast but none happened while we were in town, luckily.

 Paying respects to Captain Cook

 We went right to the top of Wellington's Arch

 Australian War Memorial

As we are English Heritage members, we got in free to Wellington's Arch, and took the lift up to the top for some great views. We visited the Australian War Memorial next to it - it's quite a clever idea - the big words which are the names of the battles we've fought in are made up of little words - the Aussie towns that dead soldiers came from. I spent some time looking for Emerald but no luck. (I did find Augathella though, and Cometville, which is what they used to call Comet!) Then we walked right through Green Park to the edge of Hyde Park where, footsore and weary, we caught the tube (very, very crowded) to Victoria Station. Then we changed to a District Line train (crowded) to Monument, walked underground to Bank, and got onto the DLR (we got a seat) home to Woolwich! All of this, of course, takes quite a bit of time - over an hour in all. We were very glad to get home at nearly seven o'clock! I can see how people who have to commute every day for work get really over it very quickly.

For tea this evening we decided to try out the restaurant here in the Travelodge, so we both had their 'meal deal' - a meal and a drink for 10 pounds. We both had a lovely curry then I had profiteroles for dessert. Very nice. Tonight England is playing Italy in the World Cup so the place is at fever pitch - I hope we get some sleep! (With any luck they'll all be at the pubs way up the road....)