This and that

It’s been kind of busy here since the last time I posted. Last Friday I had coffee with a friend of mine at the city centre. It was fun to chat for a while and have a nice cuppa in a coffee shop I had never visited before.

On Saturday we visited the Hämeen linna, a castle which dates back to 13th century. It’s been ages since I last visited it and it’s been much improved over the years. We also visited the Military museum right next to it and it was also quite interesting. There’s some pics also on my Instagram on the right side of this page.

On Monday I had my bloodworks check and then we went to Ikea to buy some clear plastic boxes I needed. Now the things are finally getting along as I managed to clear one place, i.e. a cupboard I’ve been using as the quick storage when we’ve had guests coming and needed to stuff things. It was so full of things I didn’t have anymore space for ’quick cleaning’. Finally it didn’t take than just about an hour to clean it and now I have more space there again.

Yesterday I visited my friend M’s parent’s house. They live in the neighbourhood I used to live during my school years. We’d have met earlier with M but she went to the Steiner school (=Waldorf education) and I to the public so we only met when she came to my earlier workplace as my maternity leave substitute. So M’s parents have a huge garden full of roses since they are rose collectors. They also have a grapevine which has been growing well despite it being outdoors. Their house has been featuring in a Finnish children’s movies called Heinähattu ja Vilttitossu (Hayflower and Quiltshoe) as the siblings home. (You can see it in this video at 0:24.)

We had coffee at the garden and then me and M went for a drive and found ourselves in the city of Tammisaari about an hour’s drive away. We had nice dinner and did a little walk around the old city which was closing up at that hour and then we had coffee and cake at the restaurant on the wharf. Pics on Instagram again ->

Today I visited my friend Heidi and then came home. We had some leftover candy and as I was eating it the last crown on my upper jaw broke.. Of course the time was just past 16pm as I tried to call my dentist. I have his private number too and as it’s the first number on my contact list I accidentally chose it but disconnected right away since I thought he had gone home already. After a while he called me and asked what happened and after I had explained he said that he’d have a small window of time between patients in half an hour if I could make it and I said yes (since we are going to the summer cottage I wanted to have the tooth fixed asap) so hubby drove me there and I waited a bit and then Kaj took a look at the tooth and said he’d just file it because it was a crown and it’d be fixed with better time. I got a date with him in August when I’m back at work but I’m so relieved now. (Have I mentioned I f*love my dentist?)

I should be doing things to get ready for cottage life but since it’s been a chaos this week and middlest son is coming for his first free period off army I think we’re leaving to country side with youngest and eldest on Friday. I don’t yet know if we’ll have the car for the whole time there or what but we’ll see that too.

Now I’m going to watch some tv. Yesterday I watched the Old Guard from Netflix and it was all right. And a trick question; is that Karl or is that my dentist? 😉

KarlCl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning, books, baking and movie

I’ve been mostly offline, mainly because I begun to clean my bookshelves last Friday and it spread a bit. It took me three days to clear the books and organize the shelves and then I had to clear my writing desk and the chests underneath in order to get everything out and re-organized. It took two days..

Today I’ve been cleaning the ”boys room” which used to be first eldest and middlest son’s room and then middlest and youngest one’s room and now it just middlest’s. But since there were so many layers of history to go through it takes time to clean.

But now it’s all done! Now I only need to take the overflow books to the second hand center (for a big 2nd hand shop retailer) and get some clear plastic boxes for all the myriad of playing cards we have obtained from our travels… There’s some jigsaw puzzles too which some I’m keeping and some I’ll give to my cousin’s little boy. I used to do a lot of puzzles before we had kids but now the cat likes to sleep on them so it’s a bit of a hindrance.

I managed to listen to all of the Alexander Gregory stories by LJ Ross. The first two were read by Hugh Dancy and they were good but I must say that RA’s reading is on a different level all together. (Or maybe I’m just biased.) I also listened to a podcast about opera made by a Finnish actor Antti Holma. He is very funny and he lives now in NYC because his husband is one of the harpists in Met so he made a podcast of how to opera.

I also started the Sandman audioplay (that’s probably the best word for a comic turned into an audiobook) and it’s very good. I love Neil Gaiman’s voice as the narrator, he was so good in reading ’The Ocean at the end of the lane” too which is one of his best novels imo.

On Monday when it was a bit less windy and more sunny I managed to finish ”Milkman”, a novel by Anna Burns sitting outside. It was a hard read. Actually in the middle I just leafed it through so I know what happened. I seldom leave a book unfinished because I think you can always get something out of a novel but boy this one was hard.

As middlest son left to the army I inherited his root. First he said he’d dry it but I said I’d try to bake some bread with it and so I did. We went to movies on Friday to see ”Parasite” and I bought a book about how to bake with a root. On Sunday I took a bit of the root and on Monday evening I finally started the dough and yesterday baked a lovely sourdough bread. It’s so good I’d eat it all alone.

About ”Parasite”: I really liked it. It’s one of those that sink in later. A great movie, very Oscar-worthy and a globally touching story. In the movie theater we had our own row, there were some people on other rows but you’d only buy tickets for two people and then there’d be two empty chairs between other people but since we were just three and there were not many people we sat together. (Sorry for the confusing text.)

Now I’m going to watch some tv. I started to watch ”Stateless”, an Aussie serie in Netflix and it’s very good about paperless immigrants and a woman who’s escaping a cult ends up in the same detention centre. It’s very interesting and it’s also got Cate Blanchett in it who I think is the most beautiful woman on Earth and my fave actress. Some of the New Zealand-made Netflix series have also been very good, I especially liked ”Wanted” and not only because of Deano (*blushing*). He was also very good in ”The Bad seed” but I don’t know if that’s on Netflix since I watched it via our public broadcast company YLE.

But now Sirius needs some scratches and I need coffee and knitting and tv 🙂 CU.

Working from home

I’ve been working from home this week. I thought I couldn’t because I’m an assistant librarian and there’s not so much for me to do from home but my boss had thought about it and suggested I’d begin to put up our library’s blog which has been a long-discussed project and so hubby drove me to my work last Monday and I picked up a laptop to go and then he came and drove me back home. We had a short briefing with my colleague (she lives quite literally next door) and I also had a chat with Tuija in the office, she was  the only one there. There was also four of our doormen since their boss is a d**khead and doesn’t let them do other jobs the city could use them for, so they sit in the empty house without anything purposeful to do.

I finally managed to get the blog together yesterday but I’m not happy about the look and I think I need to tweak it still. I think mostly my unhappiness with it comes from the point that I haven’t been able to show it to anyone and have been alone on it. It’s a collective thing and I feel awkward doing the basic outlook by myself, I need mirroring and brainstorming. On Thursday I was so frustrated with the whole thing that I did a longish walk to the grocery store, it took me over an hour all together but afterwards I was in a much happier place.

On the other hand there’s been lots of good things too since I’ve been learning something new every day. I couldn’t get the laptop into my workplace VPN from home but with a little help from one of my colleagues I managed to get get over it and do something else instead so now I can do most things like I was in the library on my own workplace.

I like to be at home but I miss my daily walk to the metro train station and it’s too easy to let the working hours spread into the evening by ”I’ll just do this quickly” you know. I have never been great on working from home and I still prefer going to the actual work place and after working hours to close the PC and door and get home. also I get less reading done since I don’t have to commute. It’s not easy to pick a book for lunch because I could more easily just work through the lunch time and eat a sandwich or something by the laptop.

Now the government has closed the most southern part of Finland off of the rest of the country because people were swarming to Lapland and summer cottages to smaller districts which have less capacity if people fall ill and need ICU. How idiotic can people be? Einstein said it right:

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

Well anyways. This too shall pass. Meanwhile enjoy Richard in a nice jumper.

RA Daniel

My corona

I’ve had that song as an ear worm now for several days and it’s driving me crazy.

I’m still on sick leave all of this week. Next Monday I should go to work even as our whole house is closed and there’s no classes for adults except the Finnish courses for immigrants and their reading and writing lessons so we are quite alone there.

All the museums, theatres, schools and libraries are closed as of today until April 13th(?) but since I work for the city we’d find some substitute work if we can’t go to our workplaces. At my work we are planning to get ready for the summer as our library will be getting an interior make up with some refurnishing and there’s lots of things to get rid of or clear and the book depository in our cellar should be re-organized too. (I just can’t work there because of my work-related asthma and it’s a shame since it’s such a meditative place to be.)

Atm I’m not very keen on getting back to work especially since my boss sent a message yesterday about the three of us should work out how to do our jobs in our minuscule library and not be on the same space all of the eight hours. I wonder how that will work out.

Hubby is working from home and youngest one too.. except now he is chatting with his friends. Every hour or so there comes a message from their teachers about homeworks. Yesterday he crumbled about English teacher wanting to have an online-class next Tuesday at 9am. It’ll do him good.

They’ve also got home economics, art and PE teachers’ lessons and homeworks in the digital apps which I find interesting.

Well, I’m planning to do some sewing or something and not just sit here. In the Finnish message board I visit was panic still going strong and it gets tiring. I’m not very panicked since all of this will pass. One way or other.

 

Considerate people

Last Saturday I went to movies with youngest son to see Jumanji : The Next level. As we waited for the movie to begin people were on their phones, just like I was. In a while the lights went off and we saw some ads. Or would have seen but for a man sitting near me. His wife sat next to me and then him and he was reading news on his phone in the dark theater.

I politely asked him if he’d be so kind and turn the phone off and he answered saying ’It’s just the ads’ and I said that yes but the light bothers me and then he finally gave up. That’s also when the movie begun in earnest.

I just don’t get it. Why do you have to look at the phone when the lights are already off instead of getting ready to enjoy the movie?

I wrote about this in FB and said that I remember the good old days when cell phones were new and in the movies people actually behaved. I remember when someone forgot to silence the phone and the phone rang and all (we) others shouted ’Give them our regards’ and the other time when someone got really angry and threw their neighbors phone towards the screen. It was awesome.

Sometimes I miss those times.

 

 

Closer to Christmas

It’s been a busy week again but luckily it was a short one.

On Tuesday I met a friend over coffee, she had a training day here and had a moment to spare before getting home to Jyväskylä. It was really nice to meet her and we selected a nice lipstick for her before we had to rush to the trains.

On Wednesday we had a Christmas thingy for all our clients which was quite fun except I had to take part to two meetings. Between them I made a Christmas cracker with couple of grannies and little kiddoes.

The other meeting was a Union thing and it was at the union house which caused some problems for me since I get symptoms of sick building syndrome easily (I got sick with the syndrome at my work and nowadays I use inhalator when I’m at work). It was also a long meeting, over two hours, because of people votings and economy things.

On Thursday I was so tired  that I had a crying fit when I got home. Part of it was due to a grumpy hubby and a teenage son having a discussion but luckily they solved it quickly. I went to bed early and slept almost 12 hours.

Due to Finland’s Independence day on Friday we had the day off work and it was nice. Youngest son went to a trampoline place with his friend and I just watched an Finnish comedy series and did my bujo. Later I listened to the Independence day ball while making the gingerbread dough and baking chocolate and banana muffinses. The Ball at the Presidential palace is the Thing here, people watch it and discuss the gowns etc. Here are some of the nice dresses, texts are in Finnish. Recycling has been a hit this year, The first Lady Jenni Haukio had an old dress with small changes on and a cleaning service company owner had a jacked made of mops and a member of parliament had National Museum’s banderoll made for a dress.

One of the traditions in Finland is to light two candles to the window. It dates back to the civil war time when the two candles meant a safe house for the White side. Since my mom’s two uncle’s were jaegers (trained in Germany) I find it even more important to hold on to that one even thou people think Whites were slaughters because they killed Reds. Reds otoh would’ve wanted Finland to become part of Russia but civil wars always hard, even harder than the other wars where you have a common outer enemy.

Yesterday eldest son came for dinner. He has lost his phone but luckily has an old one so he was able to use e-mail but then hubby bought him a prepaid. He is going to the Lost and Found to see if his phone is there since he forgot it to the ferry on Tuesday after a student cruise night..

I baked gingerbread cookies yesterday and I also made a mud cake with cherries, it was so good! It’s even better today. Hubby cleaned our sauna stove today and found a dead magpie in the pipe.. We were wondering of the slight smell some weeks ago.  I’ve been knitting and doing my bujo, I also ironed the washings while listening to the Stolen boys. Middlest son got a note from the army: he’s going to the medical tests in January concerning the air forces. I’m glad and worried.

 

 

Another week gone by

Well, almost at least.

Last weekend we had our annual summer ending party with our friends coming to our house to barbeque (we call it grill), eat well and go sauna and have a nice meet. We’ve been doing this since the mid-90’s with my hubby and it’s really nice way to keep in touch with old friends. Now our boys had asked some of their friends to come too so we had more young people than us ’oldies’ this time. It doesn’t matter since they are very polite and nice people too.

We are having a fall-flu going around. First youngest son was sick at home three days and on Thursday hubby came home in the middle of the day and stayed home on Friday too. I had horrible headache all day yesterday. Luckily it passed but now I feel like I’m not totally well. I hope I’m not getting it now.

On Thursday morning I attended to a sport group near my work place. There’s a big sports center which houses a swimming hall too and I have bought a 10-time sports group  ticket which expires on mid-January and I thought I need to start using it so I don’t have to attend to the groups all December. I took part to a dance-sport group called Lavis which is based on Finnish social dancing called Lavatanssit.  The dances include tango, twist, rock/jive and some old folk dance steps. It was really fun and sweaty so I think I’ll go there again.

Oh and if you didn’t know, Finns are huge on tango, it’s been a great hit here for decades. Finland even has a great summer weekend festival for all tango people and there’s annual competition for tango singers too.

Here is a pic of me and my colleague Sari at our work in the Adult education centre’s library, it was takes two weeks ago and I think it’s quite nice pic of us.

I almost forgot to tell you that I enrolled to a swimming technique practice in November, it’s organized for the City workers. I’m taking part to one class which is specializing on breast stroke since I use it most.

Now I’m going to continue to watch ’Safe’ from Netflix and knit my cardi, I need to begin the second sleeve tonight. I really like Amanda Abbington but why is she cast as a police officer again? Meh.

Enjoy the music ❤

 

 

 

 

 

Wild things

I’ve been so tired every day during this first working week that I have only been reading in the balcony with the cat in the evenings.

I’ve had fun in the work too. On Tuesday we stood two hours on the street to give passers-by our new study catalogue and it was nice. Most were very eager to chat with us and some cyclists even made a de-tour to come and grab a copy. Luckily the weather has been good too, not too warm but a bit windy but not rainy.

On Wednesday as I was trying to find a seat in the underground train I spotted a young man sitting with both legs up on the bench so I went to him and said ”Take your legs off the seat and let us people sit” and he did. Maybe I sounded like a mother since he didn’t complain.

On Thursday I received an e-mail from the Finnish blood donor bank and since I had time I went there after work. I got a nice nurse and we chatted all the time I was laying there. here blood donors don’t get any payment but we get a nice cup of coffee and different sandwiches, cookies and ice cream afterwards.

Yesterday I met my good friend Kristiina at one of the City museum’s called the Hakasalmi Villa which used to belong to a lady called Aurora Karamzin. There is an exhibition about Helsinki during the 1920’s and it was very good, funny and charming. It was inspiring and I’ve always loved the 20’s, my granny used to show me how to dance Charleston.

Later we had coffee in a small cafe situated in the museum’s garden and a little wild something ran from behind us to the nearby flowerbed. Ladies next to us asked if we saw what it was and we said that we had just agreed it was a yellow-necked mouse and we all laughed.

Well, now I’m going to watch Downton Abbey since the movie comes out in September and I can’t recall anything of Seasons 5 and 6.

2019-08-16 07.37.03 - Copy
Sirius saw a new friend
2019-08-16 15.55.33 - Copy
The amusement park Linnanmäki. My workplace is almost next to it.
2019-08-16 15.58.19 - Copy
Two old villa’s. The one on the left is called Villa Kivi, it’s the local authors working recidence. Hubby’s aunt had her wedding there since she is a poet, it was a very nice place. The Blue Villa has a very nice summer cafe.
2019-08-16 17.42.14 - Copy
The Caretaker’s house at the museum’s garden. Now it serves as the work rooms for the museum staff.
2019-08-16 18.01.56 - Copy
A bright Dahlia at the museum garden.

 

Back in town

And city life. Schools begin next Thursday and I’m having my final holiday week beginning Monday, it’s early fall. And I wonder where the summer did go.

Two weeks ago hubby drove me and youngest son with the cat to the summer cottage. The drive itself went pretty well except of the cat pooping in her box ten minutes after we left home so we did a service-drive back and started anew. Everything went well until the last leg before arriving to the cottage when the car (Volvo hybrid) told us that it can’t load the battery and the a/c went off.. Hubby had a deep think and said that he can’t stay at the cottage and he’ll keep the car running in case it doesn’t start again. So we took all our things from the boot and he got on his way back to town.

About 90 minutes later he calls me that he had got to Heinola which is about at the middle of the route and that the car had finally given up and he had just got it to a truck resting park when the brakes went off. Luckily we have Volvo service so he called them and the car was taken to a car repair shop in a nearby city called Lahti and he got a rental car so he’d drive home.

Well, to make a long story short we are still waiting for our car but since the guys at Lahti couldn’t do anything it was taken nearer to us to Volvo’s own car repair shop on Thursday and there the (hybrid specialist) guy said that he’ll look at it on Friday so with any luck we’ll get it at the beginning of the week. He told hubby that the a/c fuse burning had caused and all-around short circuit in all of the hybrids electrical components. Yay.

At the cottage we enjoyed the warm weather until last Sunday, we had +34C degrees on Sunday and then it dropped to +14C on Tuesday and stayed there. My brother came on Wednesday and on Thursday we all drove home. The cat pooped again after ten-minute-drive but my brother has five cats so he just said we’d stop at the nearest gas station and there me and youngest one took the cat box to the handicapped toilet and cleaned her and the box which luckily wasn’t as bad as before since I hadn’t given her any food on the morning.

At the cottage we swam in the lake and the water was really warm, it was lovely. We did small tasks my brother had made a list of: we cleared all the small trees off the platform side which helps the wind blow to the shore so there’s not so many mosquitoes, I cut the black currant bushes and picked the berries so he’ll be able to build new supports for the bushes and then I uprooted all the fireweeds off my mom’s old veggie garden which only grows weeds now. Meanwhile Jimi played with the cat outdoors and learned how to throw darts. We also had some visitors; my blog-friend from a bit further with her son who is Jimi’s age and then my old message board friend who lives nearby. My brother also paid us a visit on the previous week on Thursday to Friday since he can adjust his work schedules as he likes to. It was nice since he loves to bbq (he is sort-of like a CEO in a German bbq manufacturer’s Finnish office) and also took us shopping with him.

Yesterday I was browsing the Net and happened upon this article in BoredPanda. As I scrolled through the pics I was stopped short with this one. It kind of reminds me of a certain someone, maybe it is his forefather. And now I wonder how Richard would look with a man bun..

Buzzfeed

I guess this is all from me for now. The washing machine is announcing again that it’s done and I need to get the load out. Sometimes I wonder why the men who tried to invent perpetual motion machine never asked their wives.

 

Finally

I’m at home again, have been since Friday morning. Hubby came to pick us from the airport at 1am even thou he had to go to work early in the morning. He is so sweet. Now I’ve been loading my batteries over the weekend and finished two books, an introvert after too much peopling so I decided to write something here too.

On Sunday morning we, me and youngest son and my friend Heidi, found ourselves in London. I almost lost Heidi when we changed underground trains in Green Park as the  train left before she managed to get on board. So she took the next one to Southwark (luckily the only possibility) and I spotted her sitting in the car and called her from the door. There was only one man so I didn’t quite die on embarrasment. After we had stored our bags to the hotel (LSE Bankside, a dormitory for LSE students with very cheap accommodation during Uni holidays) we took ourselves to the British Library. On our way there we popped by Forbidden planet, mine and youngest son’s fave shop, and then we walked to the BL via Russell Square which did good after all the sitting on the plane.

At the British Library we met Heidi’s daughter Mira who lives in London. She had got a bit cold and was sneezing all the time. Inside we saw the ’Treasures of British Library’ exhibition which had beautiful old manuscripts (poor monks in their cold cloisters) and also Beatles lyrics and so on, very interesting even on youngest one’s mind.

From there we went to the hotel to see if our room was ready (it was) and then we had some dinner and went to bed.

On Monday we visited the Science museum with youngest one, Heidi went to visit Mira for the whole day. When we were back on the street we noticed the Natural history museum’s ads and went in to see their exhibition of volcanoes and earthquakes, it was interesting but a video of the tsunami in Japan at 2011 reminded me too much of the Thailand tsunami on 2004 where my cousin lost his family and I just tried not to cry. Afterwards we realized we had been there over five hours, made a quick tour to Covent Garden where we watched a man ride a uni-cycle and jongleur with knives, he was very good. Then we had dinner and went back to the hotel.

On Tuesday we visited the National Gallery and especially the impressionists. Oh yes, the Monet paintings were wonderful and I recognized Turner’s art because of the RA-film.. so one can learn things watching good movies.

After that I went with Jimi to Science museum because he wanted to change a gyroscope he bought since it was keeping a noise it shouldn’t have. Heidi was going to Mira’s again. When we finally got out of the Science museum I called Heidi and she said she was going to Mira’s later since Mira was so feverish she was trying to sleep so we agreed to meet at Harrods. My phone died after I had sent a message to Heidi that we were going to the pet supplies (what a joke!) and finally we met Heidi there. As I had anticipated my phone to run low on batteries I had the charger with me and so we spent about an hour in a corridor in Harrods. Then we walked a bit around Knightbridge and went to eat fish and chips to a pub and then Heidi left to Mira’s and we went home.

On Wednesday we walked to Postman’s Park which is located near St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’ve wanted to visit it for years, I saw pics of it the net some time ago and now I finally got to see it and it was just lovely. From there we took a underground train to Baker Street. Oh yes, the famous detective himself. There was a bit of a queue but finally we got into the small house and it was lovely. The shop was just as lovely.. Then we had coffee and took a bus to Oxford Circus where we met Mira who was better. We did some shopping and walked to the Forbidden Planet where I bought some books and Jimi got three Funko figures. Well, actually two are his and I got Bucky ❤ Heidi and Mira left to have something to eat as Mira was feeling not so good. We took our shopping home and rested a bit and then went for dinner to restaurant Zizzi at Southbank. Oh boy the food was so good! and they were really busy too but very nice staff. Back at the hotel I tried to pack my suitcase and then Heidi came with Mira, who had gotten a huge migraine and fell asleep on Heidi’s bed. Heidi did some shopping and in a bit after Mira woke up she was feeling much better and Heidi walked her to a bus and her boyfriend was at the other end of the bus route to get her home.

On Thursday we checked out and left our luggage to the hotel to wait and went for a walk. First we visited Tate Modern and took the lift to 10th floor and also browsed the 4th floor free exhibition. I have always walked through the Tate Modern’s ground floor because it has good shops. This time I found just a fridge magnet. We walked to the Blackfriars bridge and had coffee and watched a pair of swans and enjoyed the sun. Then we got our luggagge from the hotel and walked to the Waterloo station, did some window shopping there too and took a train to Heathrow where we were in really good time. We did some shopping, had dinner and I and Heidi found ourselves in Cath Kidston sale and bought handbags for both of us.

Our flight was a bit late but we managed to get home nicely, hubby drove us home via Heidi’s so she got home too with ease.

Nice trip and I love London.