London town

Wednesday 21 May - taking advantage of Ian's absence I decided to go to London to see the Vanity Fair exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I arrived in the city at around 11:30 and walked to the gallery via Buckingham Palace and St. James' park. After a few hours at the gallery I had a bite to eat and made my way to Notting Hill to visit another smaller gallery, Flow, which was featuring a show on bookbinding. After walking around Notting Hill, very posh by the way, I made may way to the Tate Britain to take in some lovely Rosetti's and Constables as well as a nice collection of Blake's work. Since all the galleries were now closed I took another more leisurely walk through St. James' park where the flowers were all in bloom and they had set out lawn chairs for public use. On my walk back to the station I got a steak and ale pasty for dinner and made it home by 10:30. A very successful outing.

Portsmouth (the original)

10 May - This weekend Ian and I went to visit Emma and Dave in Fareham. It was supposed to rain and the the day started out a bit dreary. We took the smallest train ever (2 cars only) to Fareham and met Emma and Dave who took us to Gosford to catch the ferry to Portsmouth. The ferry only took about 4 minutes to cross the water, the picture is of the old part of Portsmouth from the Ferry. Once in Portsmouth we looked at the old tall ships and walked around the shopping center (a really nice mall with excellent public toilets, they even had complimentary mints). We had lunch outside of a pub as the sun was starting to make an appearance. After lunch we walked around the old town and visited the boardwalk area then headed back to Fareham. It was lovely to see the ocean and I even got a tan.