London: If it was not for Westminster Abbey, the Albert Memorial, Museum of Natural History, the Horse Guards, West End, etc, etc, etc,…. you might conclude that London was just another big city and a fairly grubby one at that. The most jarring first impression was the bin-less garbage disposal which meant sidewalks were lined with heaps of garbage bags. Boris really should do something about it.
However there would surely be only one or two other cities in the world (if any) that one could leave after a busy week feeling that much was left undone. Certainly none that I have been to before.
After the intense experience of Chelsea Flower Show we had a late start and then moved up to our flat in Bayswater, walking up through Hyde Park to meet the agent. 
After our exploration of Hyde Park we met up with our agent and moved into 70 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater. Done up on the cheap, it was nevertheless spacious and very well situated.
The next day, Friday, I took myself off to Greenwich while Lyndal had a bit of R&R at the flat after putting in a big week of walking round the gardens. First, the clipper ship Cutty Sark, now rebuilt after all decks and masts were burnt out in a tragic fire some years back. Luckily Cutty Sark was a late era composite design with timber hull and decks on steel frames so the framework survived as well as the hull, otherwise she would have been a total writeoff.
Cutty Sark and her rival clipper ships like Thermopylae were built for the premium tea trade where bonuses were paid for early delivery of the new crop. In fact winning the “tea race” attracted great prestige for a shipping line and almost became an end in itself. Unfortunately for Cutty Sark her launch coincided with the opening of the Suez Canal and steamers soon captured the tea trade, so after a few voyages to China Cutty Sark moved to the Australian wool trade where she recorded the fastest time ever for a sail powered merchant ship London to Sydney : 72 days.
Then up the hill to the Royal Observatory to stand on the “0” degree longitude, the reference line longitude for international time and navigation. 
After that signal experience, down the hill again to the Maritime Museum. You could spend the whole day in this building and I only had two hours sampling the various displays, models, and artwork.
Then back home to the flat in time to join up with Lyndal and catch the underground to Victoria and the Victoria Palace theatre to see Elton John’s musical “Billy Elliott” – a great show with many fantastic dance scenes. Afterwards we hunted around for a decent meal without much success – eventually lobbing in to a Spanish style joint before heading home.
On Saturday we first went to Argyll Rd in Kensington to look at No 7 where Lyndal lived with her family in the late sixties. 
Then we got on the red tour bus
We then made our way to Embankment and Villiers St., looking for Gordon’s Wine Bar, an 1890 establishment which serves wine in the cellar, but found it packed – standing room only – so sought out another spot in the street lined with various eateries and bars where we could actually get a table and chair.
After a pleasant dinner accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine we visited Trafalgar Square, viewed Nelson’s column and contemplated immortality
Our objective for the evening was St Martin’s in the Fields, which once was indeed in the fields between London and Westminster. Rebuilt in 1722, it now stands next to Trafalgar Square. Here we listened the choral and orchestral performance of Mozart’s Requiem – quite a beautiful way to spend the evening.
Tomorrow it’s back on the Big Red Bus to see more of London