Brekky and a stroll, and a question for you...

It was really nice to have a bit of a sleep in today, and we woke up to a nice sunny day.

What better, after showering and dressing,  than to go out to our favourite breakfast place just up the road.

What!! The café was closed. Hmm

OK, let’s have a wonder around the triangle here at Crystal Palace.

We haven’t tried that store yet. Hmm, I really fancy and omelette and this store doesn’t have that on their very limited breakfast menu.

Hang about! That café that we had those nice pancakes is just up the road, let’s go there.

And we did and yes they do have omelettes. On the menu 

Yummy

I had a bacon one The man had a mushroom one and pancakes with maple syrup, what more could we ask for.

Later I put a shopping list together and we grabbed the granny trolley and headed out to the supermarket.

I’d seen signs touting a local food market and so we followed them, but were a tad, well more than a tad disappointed in the quality of their wares.

Then we did our usual…let’s take a different way back. So off down the road in the opposite direction.

It didn’t take long for The man to spot and recognise a local park that we knew. So it was a meander through it.

Ooo what's that over there.

Can you guess

Don’t cheat and scroll down to the answer at the bottom.

We also saw this really interesting fungi growing around the base of  tree

 Keep on scrolling down to find the answer to the question 

Answer is a bug house

Just a few thughts

Yes it is Friday AGAIN.

And all I want to say is TGIF.

It might have been a very short week for The man and me but we both feel as though we have worked hard all week.

OK it might have had something to do with having such a busy long weekend with our two very special visitors.

Said visitors have gone now, one back home to Lincolnshire and the other rather reluctantly back to New Zealand.

Isn’t it awful when iconic figures like Rolf Harris turn out to have feet of clay. How famous people like him use their status to abuse vulnerable children is totally beyond my comprehension.

I remember seeing him do one of his paintings in a promo at a local paint store when I was about ten years old.

I read an article about him and his family some years ago and his daughter Bindi made some comment about him hardly ever being there for her and her Mum.

And I wonder if the portrait of the queen that he painted some years ago will stay on display. I know if it was me he’d painted I’d want to hide it away.

A bit of a ramble ...

Where has this week gone?

Ok so I did start it in the middle after adding  day to the bank holiday weekend. Even so it has gone by very very fast.

I think I wrote the other day about a piece of masonry falling off one of the building The Man and I walk past every day on our way down to the train station.

So it happened, l

et me see on the 20^th so nearly ten days ago, and would you believe it, even though the rubble has been cleared away there is still a barrier fence around the footpath. Not that either of us would be very keen to walk below that building for quite a while yet.

Talking, well actually writing, about walking The Man and I will be trying to get back to St Katherines Dock on Sunday so I had better get my act together and check out the train situation for the weekend

And why do we want to go back there?

Well I’ll tell you it will be the day that the Round the World Yacht Race starts.

We saw the boats the other day while our visitors were visiting The Tower.

Sunshine and travel

Well, that was a bit of a culture shock having to get back into work mode after such a lovely long weekend.

You wouldn’t have thought it was going to be a nice day today.

It was very foggy and a bit cool first thing this morning and there was even a bit of moisture in the air when we left this morning.

The site I worked at today has no windows, so it was nice to walk out at lunch time and see that the weather had brightened up considerably.

Not only that, it was still nice and sunny when I left work this evening.

Back home in Taranaki  one of our older granddaughters is preparing to leave home.

Not a lot unusual in that you might think.

You would be wrong

In just over a week she will wave goodbye to her parents and siblings and board a plane and depart for a student exchange to France!

What an exciting time she will have.

Don’t worry Mum and Dad you have raised her well and she will be a credit to you and to New Zealand.

So It's goodbye from us and the too...

We weren’t particularly looking forward to today.

Why so?

Well our special visitors were on their way back up to Lincolnshire.

It was really fantastic to see them again, and to be able to play host and show them London.

We have crammed as much touristy stuff into the last few days as possible, and walked our feet off, and theirs too.

This morning we had a leisurely start, with a walk about Canary Wharf, which is where I work. Nice to be still on holiday. Then a run on the DLR to Bank, and on from there to St Pancras Staion.

And what a busy place that is.

We had oodles of time for coffee and to people watch.

So many of them coming and going .

It was sad when the time came to say goodbye, who knows how long it will be before we meet up again. But there is a plus too, as these two are so very happy together which kind of makes up for letting them go.

The Man and I weren’t ready to make the trip back to our base camp so we did our usual ‘let’s have a wander about’ thing.

The whole area around Kings Cross/St Pancras Station is undergoing a huge revamp. We watched children playing with the water in in the spouting fountain, a nice safe form of waterplay for even the smallest child.

We followed the signposts to the Canal Museum and spent an hour or so there absorbing the atmosphere and learning a thing or two about the network of waterways that were so important in moving goods around before road transport drove them into a decline.