London - Days 1 - 3 - 28th - 30th August 2023

After the chaos, grief, and worry of the last week, we got up at 5 am Sunday morning to get an Uber to Tuggerah to fly to London. We flew with Eastern China Airlines, and they were OK, but the flight wasn’t direct… in fact, we landed at Eva’s place 36 hours after leaving Bateau Bay - which included a 6-hour layover in Shanghai. We were wrecked but it was 8am Monday (somehow) and we decided to push on and fight through the jet lag.

We jumped into Eva’s new little Ford Fiesta and drove the 20-odd minutes from Worcester Park to HamptonCourt. None of us had seen it before and there was a food and wine festival on, so that’s one of the reasons that Jen booked us in for this day.

The sun was shining, and we spent an amazing few hours wandering around the castle, checking out the maze, eating treats from food trucks, and soaking up the atmosphere of this incredible place. It was Bank Holiday (it ALWAYS is in the UK) and there were thousands of people out and about. It was a great afternoon.

We then got back, and everything caught up with me and I was crook for about the next 12 or so hours - I think the final airline meal did me in, so I went to bed early.

After a huge sleep, I felt semi-human, and we decided to be Ted Lasso fans and check out Richmond. We got the bus - all buses in Greater London are now green-powered - to somewhere and then walked through Richmond Park to the quaint little town. The park was filled with Fallow Deer, and they weren’t too bothered by all of the humans walking around. We then had a great coffee and club sandwich at a little cafe before finishing the walk past a gorgeous stretch of The Thames before arriving at Richmond Green. I turned around and there it was, the street and pub (PrincesHead) that Ted and crew drink at. It was pretty cool.

We had a quick drink in the pub before we got the bus back to Eva’s for a good dinner of salmon and mash. A few drinks, a bit of TV and we were crashed out pretty early again with about 17000 steps on the pedometer.