Can it really be our last day in London already? Not fair, I say. Amy and I decided to walk to Portobello Road and scour the stalls for treasure. This is a most fascinating section of road that hosts a flea market every Saturday, complete with street entertainers, crepe stands, stalls filled with vintage alligator bags, antique lace and more old silver than you can imagine. And, you might even spot the occasional movie star. We hiked through Kensington Garden and wound our way through a maze of tiny streets. The weather was glorious. We spent hours dodging Italian tourists, peering into cases of estate jewelry and people watching. Amy even found a couple of tiny lead farm animal miniatures to take home to live on her kitchen window sill. I bought a beautiful jacket that I planned to wear to dinner and the theatre that night.
The late afternoon found us back at our hotel for a quick shower before walking to meet our new friend Catherine for dinner. You will remember that we found Catherine in Edinburgh a few days earlier. It was Catherine's birthday and we all met in the bar at her hotel for a toast.
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| Jody, Catherine the birthday girl and Amy |
After cocktails, we toddled off to a local restaurant for a quick dinner and then hopped on the tube to our respective theaters. Amy and I had chosen to see Driving Miss Daisy, staring James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave. It was brilliant. There is nothing more I can say about it. We could not have asked for a better end to Amy's first trip to the UK.
Sunday morning was going home day for Amy. She caught an early flight home and I met my friend Kathleen for the second half of my trip. And now, to explain who Kathleen is. Think back to 1962. It's a convent boarding school and two girls become fast chums, trying to stay one step ahead of Sister Edward. Sometimes we won, sometimes Sister Edward won. But wait. Now, it's 2011 and, thanks to the internet, we meet up again. Let's travel together. So, we board the Eurostar, travel through the Chunnel and voila, we are in Paris!
Thanks to our Cameroon Cabbie and his Top Ten Cameroon Hit Parade CD, we arrive at our hotel to find a little bit of paradise. We are in a beautiful little boutique hotel three blocks from the Eiffel Tower. After a quiet dinner at a tres chic Italian bistro, we walked the few blocks to take in the evening in Paris.
This is glorious! And, our room has a wee little wrought iron balcony from which we can see the Tower to the right and the full moon to the left of us.
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