A foggy day, in London town -- and some unexpected occurrences whilst writing this blog

It be foggy on Westminster Bridge this mornin'



I had just gone down a few minutes ago to nap and fire alarm went off. Now I'm wide awake, although I haven't slept since 12:00 pm yesterday. Stayed up all night, doing what I can't even remember. Caught up on bbc shows, read news headlines. I don't know how that divested a whole night, but it did. Watched the sun come up while drinking tea and eating toast and left my room by 8:00. Walked across the Waterloo Bridge to the Maugham Library, my college's library on Fleet Street.

(fire alarm is going off again; like seriously? Fuck it; I'm not going out again).

So, here's Fleet Street (a notorious Dickens setting for his odd-ball lawyers).



(Okay, I guess I better go down; the noise is horrible).

(Okay, less people outside this time. Are they testing us? -- Will they come out a second time, 2 minutes after we last turned the fire alarm on?).


The rather large Maugham Library:




I returned some books at the library and picked up Rosseau's Confessions for a clarse on Friday. Continued walking down Fleet Street, turned right and down to the Embankment.

(Fire alarm off again; they're insane).

(Well, clearly they must be having problems with the system. Went downstairs again. A hand full of people this time).

So, anyway, I walked down the Embankment. Really foggy this morning.






On the far left you can see, barely, the london eye.



Weird Angle. Self-explanatory, I suppose


On my way home. I go across Westminster Bridge from the Embankment and then walk past the London eye to here. The path on the right I walk up, then turn right, past some fancy eateries, some more turns, and I'm home.



Enough pictures. So after this, I went home, dropped off heavy bag, and went to the tube, took the Bakerloo Line four stops to Picadilly Circus, picked up the Picadilly line to Knightsbridge, and had me some tea and scones at Harrods. Was sure to get there before lunch time rush. It is so much nicer there in the morning. Not as many people around. I've never been there when it's been so quiet.

All the fancy foods. It's so weird walking in there, because there are people starving in other places in the world, and Harrods has fancy wrapped candies and hunks of meat hanging from ceilings; lobster that costs more than an average family's monthly rent, cavier that -- oh, don't even let me go there. Stacey knows about the Cavier. And, in case you read this Stacey, the lamp in the lunch room in harrods is still swinging back and forth -- and the lady (the same lady who waited on us who was horrid then and was doubly horrid now -- she insisted there was no more strawberry jam -- and you know how I hate raspberry jam -- until one of the other waitresses told her that there were many in the back and handed me two) -- the lady sat me right under the damn thing.

So Harrods was great.

I must admit, I like the fancy things. I realize the stupidity of it, while I also adore it. I tried to find fancy stationery to write Abby on but they weren't fancy enough. :0 Seriously. It was like -- buy shit for 12 pounds for 10 pieces of paper. Uh -- no!

So, what after Harrods....ah, yes, back on the tube to Regents Park. Decided to loiter about there. Did -- immediately got bored, and scared about the hefty ducks that I swear are going to attack me! There are a lot of them, and they're big. Seriously, Stacey.

So went over to The Volunteer, had a pint of....something, it was a lager, that's all I need to know, and read Rousseau. And steadily as I read, and drank, his confessions started to become more interesting. A correlation, mayhap?

I love The Volunteer. It is a quintessential English pub, and during the week, day time hours, it is hardly full. They sell tea as well as alcohol, and have lunch specials. Really great food. Pub food in England is the best, I've often heard it said. They also play cheeky music, and no t.v.'s.

A man and a woman were canoodling at the table next to me. I don't know where I come up with these things, but I instantly thought that she was a call girl and he was a client. It just seemed that way. Maybe because she was hot, and young, and he was a business man, well dressed, pudgy (to put it lightly), and rather older. And they were in a pub, at 1:00 in the afternoon, on a Wednesday. But they seemed really into each other -- whether each were truthfully so, is up to others to guess -- like myself, who find it more interesting to make up sordid trysts about other people than read Rousseau. It's a lot of fun; it feeds my cynical irony. (I actually don't quite know what cynical irony means, but it sounds like something I would have).

(The maintanence guy was just here. Let's just say my shower hasn't been working quite properly -- draining wise -- and, uh, he took care of it).

A group of guys talking shop on the other side of me at the pub. Beers, sandwiches, talking about a presentation, I think. I wasn't quite so interested in them. -- I did read 50 pages of Rousseau.

(The maintenence guy had a Cockney accent, like Alfred Dolittle in My Fair Lady. Just. Sometimes stereotypes do come true. -- And, clearly, I can't spell maintencence).

After pub, quite tired, and a bit wobbly, so take double decker home, forty minute drive, pick it up only a block from pub. That's practically where it starts; ends at my stop. Goes through Oxford Street, Picadilly Circus, past Tralfagar Square. Probably the best bus to take to see all the sites. And it goes past The Phantom of the Opera theatre. -- Phantom, this Thursday? I think, why not. Haven't been in three years.

So now I'm off to Mcdonalds. Dinner.

Oh, and here's a picture of my dad, so you can go stalk him.