Melton Mowbray to London

Trafalgar Square by night

LONDON

After two terrific days and nights with Jenny and Stuart and the eucharist at St Mary's Melton Mowbray on Sunday morning for London.

Unfortunately after taking a lot of photographs at Melton and on our arrival in London, with clear skies, Ray managed to wipe them all off the camera in his bid to improve the quality of the shots. So the pictures in this blog pick up on our second day in London and by now the weather has turned rather wet.

So we are not able to tell in pictures of our first venture which was from our hotel in Westminster across the Bridge over the Thames beside Big Ben (where we thought of our nephew Ben having a birthday that day). The Houses of Parliament and of course Westminster Abbey all beautifully lit up.  We arrived at the Abbey in time for a Organ Recital by Alistair Reid from Coventry Cathedral. This was an outstanding performance. Then followed Evensong with a visiting Welsh Choir! The Dean conducted a fairly personable 'tourist friendly' Service - it was a great joy to be there. We conveyed greetings from the Diocese of Melbourne after the service. At a lovely Vietnamese restaurant afterwards our photographs disappeared into cyberspace.

Monday in London was full of highlights. We began the day as sardines on the Tube System and found our way to St Paul's Cathedral. The quality of the audio visual and tourist presentations and the state of the Cathedral  blew us away. Superb. After some time enjoying the spaces of the Cathedral we braved the cold and headed for the galleries.

First we visited the National Portrait Gallery and then on to St Martin in the Fields (across the road) for a lunchtime concert. St Martins is famous for encouraging virtuoso performers and yesterday was no exception with world class performances on grand piano and violin.

St Martins in the Field - Trafalgar Square

We spent the afternoon at the National Gallery - the building overlooks Trafalgar Square. The collection here is so large one cannot hope to take it all in or do justice to it in a few hours. We have selected the areas we would like to visit and we plan to return today to finish our selection.

Our plan for the evening came together when we were able to procure discount tickets for "Yes Prime Minister" which has not long been running at the West End, Gielgud Theatre. A beautiful venue for performance and we were in the second row from the stage! We had a great night and laughed until it hurt.

A quick trip from Piccadilly Circus on the Tube using our Oyster Card (marvellous) and we were back at our hotel.

Gielgud Theatre - London West End



Piccadilly Circus by night



Very London!