Saturday is market day in Notting Hill and it was elbow room only down Portobello Road – we bought a few tacky souvenirs to toss out later. Bond Street was very lively on a Saturday and people were packed in the streets like a packet of frozen peas. In the Tube, people were pulling others in so the doors could close on the train. 1,065 million people use it each year!

We treated ourselves to an amazing exhibition of artisic goldsmithing at the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square. If you get a chance check out Kevin Coates on the net. They were the sort of treasure people would marvel over when Tony Robinson digs them up in a thousand years.

And then, that was it. Last day, last blog, last photo. The holiday, the tour, the road trip, the wedding announcement, the engagement announcement, the endless B & Bs and hotels, the eating out, the giving directions to tourists, the churches, the Dales, the Moors, the cliffs of Mohr, the ruined castles, the forts, the fairy forts, the stately homes, the cottages, the museums, the galleries, medieval festivals, fringe festivals the wildflowers, the rain, the fog, the drizzle, the wind, the sun, the pebble beaches, the fishing harbours, the cities, the food, the good times, (such a good time, I flattened the battery on my watch) All over.. Lucky I wrote it all down and drew a few sketches and took the odd photo to bore a few of you later.

Back to work next week. Going from soft & fizzy blog to hard and busy, slog.

Arrive Brisbane Monday night. See you soon. Ta Ta , Tooroo!

I must be becoming like a local. Two people asked me directions today. I was able to help a Pakistanii couple find Christies in Old Brompton Road and direct a man to Trafalgar Square. It’s a pity we have to leave in a couple of days. I could start driving cabs.

A slow stroll over the Tower Bridge led us, after the coffee shop on the other side, to Borough Markets, a maze of food stalls under the railway bridge. The selection of food was vast from all over, but we managed to limit ourselves to just lunch, seeing we are down to counting meals left on one hand! While I was buying my Thai seafood curry, Sharon spied Tony Robinson of Time Team fame, so I introduced myself and we had a little chat about the series he is making in Australia shortly for the History Channel about walking. I asked if he is doing Fraser but said Brisbane was as far north in Queensland he was going! He invited me to accompany the team for a week in Scotland for a dig on Skye, but said I had a Seafood curry to eat.

We walked down the road, past the Globe Theatre to the Tate Modern to spend an hour which turned into three – a mixture of painting, sculpture, photography and installations on display in the old power station. Good stuff! The Milleneum Bridge heads directly across the river from the Tate towards St Pauls and being low tide, I decided to join the mud larks on the bank and do a time team on the “beach” Gee, you could have some fun there given time, Tony, a couple of mates from Dorset, and a big bucket – pottery, clay pipes, glass, bones (people?) nails, tiles, you name it. It was scattered everywhere.

A couple more hours were spent in the Portrait Gallery. A string quartet was playing in the 18 th Century gallery and I found a few John Singer Sargent portraits which were good. After an Italian dinner in Leicester Square I found an art shop on the walk down Charing Cross Road and stocked up with a few pressies for myself. A most enjoyable, sunny, “arty” London day. We’re going to miss this place.

Chislehurst Chalk Caves are massive and have been around since the Druids and if we are to believe the guide who told all the ghost stories he could summon, it’s haunted.  But the most interesting part of the cave system, once a mine for chalk, is that during WW II it was home to 15 000 people who paid a penny a night and sixpence a week to stay there. It was good to see Kate and Jess again after Ireland. Kate took us around town in her Mini Cooper S, but my offer to drive was declined. Lunch at Shoreham, a pretty little Tudor town with a lovely churchyard. It was there that Kate explained the mystery of the skull and crossbones on headstones. Apparently they were put there as a warning to others that the deceased buried below died of the Black Death. A great day, very relaxing.

The British Museum is so huge, we’d need to live a year in this place to do it justice. Today my suspicions that the British were the greatest thieves in history was confirmed. The British Museum in full of booty – marbles, gold, bronzes, gold, urns, gold, mummies, gold, skeletons, gold, Easter Island statues, gold, totem poles, gold – the list goes on.

The rich stole riches from other cultures and put them on display and the became famous for their plundering, and the poor stole trifles from the rich who stole riches, and were sent to Australia.

We were pleased to see the Elgin marbles, that he removed from the Parthenon, seeing we missed them in Greece. They were displayed in a room especially built show them off to the public. It’s a pity the curators haven’t realised there is another building in Athens that would display them more truthfully. The Roman, Greek and Egyptian rooms ate into our day and the small bronzes, Cretan urns, Egyptian funerary objects and paintings from various robbed tombs particularly caught my interest.

We finished off our visit in the Mayan and Aztec room where square metre stone slabs were carved with intricate designs. They were fascinating and I took sketches and photos galore.

London is a huge, fascinating city and has so much to offer and I envy Tom who is about to spend a good deal of time here to explore.

Last night we took a tube to Leicester Square and saw an excellent play, A Dish of Tea with Mr Johnson, which we saw advertised at Dr Johnson’s House. Lots of wit, humour and history in a small theatre with good seats made for a great night. Sharon has certainly experienced a lot of her Boswell connections on this trip and the play was a highlight for us both. Boswell on stage! Theatres, bars, restaurants on every corner around Leicester Square made for a bustling and bright night.

We are off to Kent tomorrow to visit Kate, Tony’s sister we met in Ireland. She is taking us to Chislehurst Caves which we are looking forward to.

A relaxing day today. After a ride to Westminster, we took the boat down the Thames under the bridges, past the Tower past millions of apartments where the docks used to be, past the Globe theatre, past the few pubs they have left perched above little gravelly beaches, to Greenwich. The Londoner giving the commentary asked us all if anyone could understand his brand of English. He was quite amusing. The Greenwich Observatory was up the hill so we strolled through the gardens where the trees were beginning to yellow and drop their leaves. We saw the time ball drop, took the obligatory photo of the feet in both hemispheres and spent an hour (Greenwich mean time) looking at Harrison’s, Kendall’s and Arnold’s clocks from the 1700s. Fascinating. Off to the Arts Theatre in the West End shortly. Will have to go and polish the camping boots.

While having breakfast, we met a young woman in a cafe. She had been looking over my shoulder at the sketches in my book and asked if I was an artist and when I said I just dabble, I had to explain myself. It turned out she was a sculptor which brought back memories of my efforts and my “dog’s head” in France. She takes books like mine when she travels and does as I do, sketch, doodle and dabble. She’s off to Prague to teach sculpture, bronzes. I want to be her pupil!

That inspired us to visit the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery. Sharon found the Joshua Reynolds painting of Boswell which made her quite happy. She slapped my wrist when I took a forbidden photo of her admiring it. The Gallery is too large for just our short visit so we confined ourselves to the Dutch Masters, some Elizabethan paintings, the Van Goghs and Gauguins and some Venetian artists. I took some sketches. no photos allowed!

We made our way to Fleet Street (I haven’t read a newspaper for months) and had a drink in The Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub from 1667. Terry Seymour, the man we met at Auchinleck House in Scotland, recommended we visit Dr Johnson’s House, the author of the first dictionary. The curator was quite surprised to learn that Sharon was Boswell’s ggggg granddaughter and insisted she write a message in the guest book.

We sat in St Pauls as the afternoon wore on and admired its grandeur. We’re off to the theatre tomorrow night, (please say this with a plum in your mouth) so will have a quiet day off the bike on the river to Greenwich. That’s the plan, anyway.

We’ve been noticing signs on the side of the road in Scotland, Wales and England advertising roads closed for the Tour of Britain for weeks but have not met them till today, their final stage like it was for us in Paris with Le Tour. We hired our own cycles from the city hire scheme and set off for our last stage, which because we are a little slower, will take a week. The Queen was still in bed when we passed Buckingham Palace and I don’t think she’d be too pleased with the number of people wandering around her yard. Westminster Abbey had a big queue so we headed through St James’s Park – I was in trouble from Sharon for riding in the Queen’s garden – then played a little Monopoly through Pall Mall, Mayfair and Bond Street. Into Marylebone, we stood outside a couple of houses Boswell lived in when in London. One is now a hair restoration clinic, the other the Polish Embassy! The hair clinic was around the corner from Harley Street. I wonder if they charge the same? Have to ask Warnie.

In Regent’s Park, at No 15 Cumberland Terrace, I stood outside the house Mary Lewis was nabbed for taking laundry that wasn’t hers. She certainly picked a nice area of town as the catalyst to begin her new life across the seas.

We found Cafe Lantana that Tom is planning to work at and it was very busy with tables full and a queue of 15 in the street waiting to get in. With dozens of other eateries nearby, it was a good sign. We got a couple of photos of the street for you, Tom.

We made our way to Covent Garden and wandered through the markets. We came across a bride about to enter the church. She looked anxious and was nervously adjusting her dress. She looked at me looking at her and I smiled and said, “You look lovely,” and she seemed to relax and said in her sweet English voice, “Oh, Thank you.”

We had a drink on a boat in the Thames and found another bike to ride home. The skies were heavy which soon developed into heavy rain for the ride back to Chelsea. Twenty kilometres and one day down!

We dropped the car off without too much drama and seeing we were earlt to check into the apartment, dragged ourselves across Hyde Park, past the joggers and loungers and strollers, past the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall – where was Eric Clapton and Cream? – to South Kensington where we refreshed with a coffee. From there, just a short stroll to our apartment which is quite comfortable. We strolled down the Kings Road for the essentials, a bakery, a supermarket, some wine and a bike hire station. Sharon found a few dress shops. Are they wants or needs? We prepared a a plan of attack to hit the ancient city, I just hope the ancient legs are up to it. We should burn a little fat this week if they are.

Jo’s mum took us on a tour of Sherborne, where her husband worked, the fields named in his honour and to the castle, which has lovely grounds. “It’s a ghastly building,” she said. We had fun in Sherborne. Stonehenge was on the route so we pulled in for a quick look. Impressive. We stayed at Windsor, not the castle, and walked, in the dark, down a country lane to a pub for dinner. The glow of the  London lights were in the distance. I’m not sure of prospects for internet for the next week while we are in London so this blog might be a bit irregular in that time. See you all soon.

We drove south towards the coast in Dorset to Corfe Castle through the Piddle Valley past the towns of Piddletrenhide, Piddlehinton, Tolpuddle, Alfpuddle, Puddletown along the Piddle River. Fortunately, the drive was short so we didn’t need a toilet stop. Corfe is in ruins but the family who owned it built Kingston Lacey which was bequeathed to the National Trust. In the glorious sunshine both places were terrific. I helped Daphne with some gardening after we arrived back. Need to get in practise for when we get home.