Day 10

Our first day without taking a single photo. This probably gives you an idea as to what we did (or rather didn't) do today - touristy stuff. Nevertheless, apropos of yesterday's observations regarding the numbering system for buildings here in London, we went looking for the car hire agency to collect the car which had been pre-booked for us before we left Adelaide. As it turned out, it's address placed it on the road that the other side of the hotel was situated this was going to be too easy! Off we wandered up the road, and sure enough, we ended up walking up, and of course back down the other side to end up back were we started. The care hire company had an office right under the hotel, and used the car park (which we had noticed yesterday and made mention to each other that we could park there once we had picked the car up) to store and maintain their fleet. Another day's exercise completed.

The drive down to Cheryl's to pick up our bags (which the keen-minded of you will remember from Day 6) was, for the most part, uneventful. Only 2 wrong turns, and no major drama getting back on track. Found Cheryl's easily and packed the bags in the back of the capacious boot, and then came the tricky bit - a journey which had taken us 40 minutes and which should have taken only 30 minutes according to Google, then took close to 2 hours for the return journey. And I cannot lay blame at Julianne's navigating. Surprisingly, the traffic conditions have changed markedly since we last drove in London - more vehicles obviously, but also seemingly more frenetic and perhaps not quite as forgiving as I remember; however, after negotiating a few inadvertent re-routings and finding ourselves rather more easterly than we would have liked (and of course the obligatory jostle to get out of the way of an ambulance screaming up behind), we managed to limp back to the hotel. I must say we are both looking forward to getting out into the country tomorrow. We have quite a drive ahead of us - about 5 driving hours if Google maps is to be believed, and roadworks etc. notwithstanding, but that should be the longest day of driving, and we shall wend our merrye way back from the Lake District over the course of a couple of weeks.

What was nice (and this of course did contribute a little bit to our extended journey) was a bit of a diversion past the Maudsley Hospital to see where Julianne did her ENB650 training and where I worked, and then down Coplestone Road to try and see the flat that we lived in nearly 20 years ago. Think we may have spotted it, but not entirely sure - possibly number 98, we'll see when we get home.

Time now to try and get some sleep, with emphasis on the word 'try', as it is fast becoming apparent that English hotels are unfamiliar with the concept of cooling in any way other than opening a window a few degrees to let the constant barrage of traffic noises into the room. The weather outside is actually not too bad, but the small rooms and whatever other factors are at play make for fairly uncomfortable sleeping conditions.

Until tomorrow.