London with John

I spent three very hot weeks in Basel housesitting then flew to London to my next housesitting assignment, in Bounds Green, north London. It's 25 minutes from the centre on the Piccadilly Line, which is frequent and reliable, so a great location.

I spent the first two weeks revisiting all my favourite galleries. The Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens commissions an architect to create a temporary pavilion every year.

 The Serpentine Sacker Gallery, close by, had an interesting collection of very realistic figures

And from Tate Modern...

Saatchi Gallery had New African Art, and Dead: A Celebration of Mortality

The British Museum had a small but very opulent selection from the Rothschild Collection.

London was busier than I've ever seen it. Absolutely heaving. Oxford Street was best negotiated from the top deck of a bus.

Trafalgar Square was more manageable.

Piccadilly Circus-Leicester Square is a bit congested

 One of my favourite London views, from Tate Modern cafe

I did find a quiet spot I'd never seen before - a nature reserve a stone's throw from Kings Cross station. It was lovely.

There was a big bike race on, 100 miles, out to Surrey and back finishing along The Mall in central London. I went in to see the pros start off but had no idea that there had been a ride for the masses earlier that was just finishing. 28,000 people! I watched a small selection for an hour or so. Through Trafalgar Square and Admiralty Arch...

and along The Mall to Buckingham Palace

 The friendly London policemen look a bit different today, but are still happy to give you directions

Then John arrived and I retraced a lot of those visits with him, which was lovely, plus doing lots of other stuff including seeing the musical Miss Saigon in Soho then having a late dinner in Leicester Square.

 National Gallery above and V & A Museum below, in the amazing ceramics section

The weather was mostly dry, but we had one extremely wet day. Hard to tell, but that is John under the umbrella in Piccadilly Circus.

We went out to Ruislip to see the house I was born in and the school that John went to. It's not a bad area with some nice houses and still the lovely Ruislip Forest and Lido that John remembers

We also bought a ticket to stand up in the Yard at The Globe and saw most of the first half of Richard II before our knees got the better of us.

The view from outside The Globe is pretty nice too

We walked back along the south bank to Tower Bridge and crossed over that. 

London is a very spectacular place to visit and I never get tired of it. It was good to be able to share it with John this time.