I'll try not to make this entry too long, but I have two days to cover. Saturday morning we went over to the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace (we ran out of time last month when we did the Palace so decided to use our re-entry tickets today). The Mews are the working stables housing the royal carriages and horses. It employs over 200 people, most if not all of them living on site. We had a guided tour and saw a small sampling of the carriages. It was interesting, but unless you're a horse person it shouldn't be high on your list of things to see in London. We saw the carriage that Princess Diana rode in on her way to her wedding, but the most interesting was the 245-year-old Gold State Coach that weighs four tons and uses eight horses. Gold is the operative word here. This coach is used for coronations primarily and was last used during the Queen's golden jubilee celebrations in 2002.

We then went over to Oxford Street to buy Gord a sweater. He ended up buying two at Primark, a store that we had heard had good prices. Well that is an understatement. His two sweaters combined cost us 14 pounds. But what a zoo! There were so many people in there, ripping things off hangers, pushing and shoving. I wanted to take a photo but it is not allowed. I asked an employee if it was always like this and he said yes, except that last weekend was apparently much worse. The checkout line was incredibly long but moved fairly quickly.

From there we walked part way down Edgeware Road where I bought some tea and spearmint to make Moroccan mint tea at home, my new favorite tea.

Now for our evening, I have to give you some background. A friend of mine in Utica, NY has a daughter who teaches at a university in South London. We have been trying to get together for the past month, but our schedules always conflicted. (Coincidentally we had been at the same performance of The Emperor Jones a few weeks ago but didn't know it until later.) Anyway, I was hoping to get together with them this weekend but it was a last minute thing and they had tentative plans to dine with some friends already. Well their very generous friends invited us to their home too and we had a wonderful time, so wonderful in fact that the time flew by. The food was delicious and abundant, the wine was flowing followed by the port, the conversation was lively, and suddenly it was 12:30 and we had been there 5-1/2 hours! Well they live near the end of the Northern line and the trains were done for the night, so we had to take a cab home. Thank you R and A for being such warm and gracious hosts. And J, J, and Z, I'm so glad we finally met. And thanks G for initiating it all.

Today I was feeling the effects of last night's partying, even more so than some of those memorable parties on Caroline Street at the home of J and P. And more so than that "margaroota" night and the dinner and a movie night up in Glens Falls. But I fear I may be getting a reputation now (which is totally unfounded, I might add) so I will say no more.

Gord and I went over to the Victoria and Albert Museum to meet J and M who were down from Manchester for the weekend. We had a nice lunch in the cafe. J is a museum professional who had spent two months at three museums in the U.S. back in 2004, and one of them was The Hyde. It was good to reconnect and catch up, and I look forward to seeing them again some time soon. Gord and I spent a little bit of time looking around the museum before walking home. It was a quiet evening.