Tuesday 19^th August                  SALISBURY  -  HEATHROW  -  SLOANE  SQUARE

Well, here we are in London again! It’s been a rather long, and at times stressful day, but we managed all of the travel pretty much in the expected time frame, and are here in one piece.

We woke up just before 7, which was handy to give us a good start on the day. By the time breakfast was on at 7.30, we were both almost completely packed and sorted. After another lovely Chapter House breakfast, we paid our bill and set out to walk to the car park. Here we took a good twenty minutes or so to both repack our ports; enough to get down to one large bag, one smaller bag and one backpack each. We managed this, rather incredibly! Then we bade a fond farewell to Salisbury, and drove out to the north-east. We drove around Andover and Basingstoke, and joined the M5, which whizzed us along at a great rate. The whole trip only took about an hour and a half all up. Once we were off the motorway, I navigated us to the closest service station to fill up the car, then it was only a few minutes back to the Europcar depot. We gave them back the MG, and caught a shuttle bus to Terminal 2 at Heathrow.

We passed through some pretty villages - some with strange names. Our favourite was Nether Wallop!

On the M5 and heading in the right direction

Once we’d been deposited at Terminal 2, we were right near the lifts to take us to the railway lines. Unfortunately, something appeared to be wrong with the lifts, which took ages to come – there was a big line-up of people waiting, but eventually a lift arrived, and we were down on the correct level. We bought our tickets (40 pounds for both of us into Paddington) and found our way to our platform for the Heathrow Express. Here there was obviously a problem, with crowds of people spilling out from the platform. We spoke to one of the staff, and she said that there were holdups on the line. She looked at our huge trolley full of luggage, and advised us to go further along and come in to the second or third platform entrance. Excellent advice, I must say – we went to the furthest entrance, and there weren’t many people there at all. There was an announcement that the Heathrow Express) was delayed, and passengers for it could take the next train, as it went direct to Paddington anyway. The train arrived, and on we piled – and everyone in our carriage got a seat, very comfortably. I image further up there would have been lots of people having to stand! In about 15 minutes, we were whisked nonstop into Paddington.

We knew we had to take the Circle Line to Sloane Square, and had a bit of trouble finding which Circle line (City or District – who knew?!) but eventually sorted it out and arrived at Sloane Square at about one o’clock. I rang our host, and despite the difficulty of understanding him over the traffic noise (I could not find a quiet place to talk to him), he said he’d send me the information, which he did. We had about a fifteen-minute walk to the Chelsea Cloister Apartments, and were pretty tired by the time we got here, lugging our bags. We used the key code to get in and see our new domain for the next week.

                                            Living / dining area, looking to bedroom

                                           Lex trying to find room for groceries in teeny kitchen!

                                                     Rather cramped bedroom

It's pretty small (bijou, I believe is the real estate speak) but has just about everything we need. There’s one bedroom, a living area, bathroom (all small) and the tiniest kitchenette we’ve seen this holiday! (Possibly ever.) However, at $240AUD a night in central London, it’s a good find and much better than a hotel room. It has a portable aircon which works well, and quite a bit of storage space. But the real plus is its position – it’s only a ten-minute walk to the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum, and a sixteen-minute walk to Harrods! The river is only about ten minutes away – basically it’s a very good district. Another huge bonus is a Sainsbury’s Local grocery shop right next door. As soon as we’d got our breath, we walked there and got enough food for lunch and tea tonight. So handy!

           Dalou, 1873; Peasant woman nursing a baby. My favourite of all the sculptures.

                        It's so natural and beautiful. (My ABA friends will all agree!)

                   Lots of people out in the garden, and little children paddling in the pond.

                         One of the Plaster Casts galleries - and that's David on the right

   There were many casts of effigies of medieval tombs - this is Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  Reading a book into eternity - I definitely approve! Richard the Lion-Hearted is behind her.

                                            This is one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks

We came back, made some sandwiches for lunch, then had a bit of a rest. By 3, though, we were keen to go and have a look at the neighbourhood, so we walked to the V&A and had almost an hour and a half there. Lex went off to see the Architecture and the Glass, while I spent almost the whole time in the Sculpture (real statuary) and then the Casts (1800s copies of famous European works of Art). It’s the most amazing place. With another week to go, I’ll definitely be back.

                                               Lex's favourites:  Baccarat vase, 1860s

                                                Egyptian mosque lamp, c.1350

We met up at 5, and walked home. We’ve since had tea and can relax and plan our week in London.

     My favourite building in our neighbourhood is the fun and quirky Michelin Building, 1911. It was the headquarters of the Michelin Company for many decades, but it's now a restaurant.