Okay, this is London and we're shortly about to leave it to return to Portugal. Luckily I checked our tickets this morning and found that I'd booked us back on 20 November instead of October. Hoo boy! This is the kind of thing it's not fun or cheap to discover shortly before leaving for the airport. Meanwhile......
This is Edgar, who is one of the principal residents at the home of Llewellyn and Lucia in Hanwell, London, where we stayed. Edgar is very big. It is fortunate that he is mild-mannered and very well disposed towards guests. He never fails to attract attention in the pubs he often visits with his humans.
Next meet Hazel. Hazel is not small, except by comparison with Edgar. She too likes guests and encourages them to scratch her head when they're not otherwise engaged. The pair of them are permitted to make themselves at home on the family sofa, except when the humans are having a TV meal there.
Tigger is one of the two household cats. He is very outgoing, loves company and is liable to join humans in bed in night where the first indication of his presence can be needles in one's leg. Tigger's companion, Charles Brown, is somewhat camera-shy and declined to appear on the blog.
The humans and canines in the household are very fond of one another. The humans take the dogs walking twice a day. The dogs are exceptionally well behaved. This is generally true of the humans as well. It's surprising how many creatures can fit amicably on the same sofa.
Llewellyn is a high-tech sort of a person who possesses every manner of electrical wizardry, all of which comes together in ways that ordinary mortals are unable to fathom. He is often to be found on the sofa, issuing computer commands to distant pieces of equipment, which sing or dance accordingly.
Barbara was wont to make herself comfortable in an easy chair in the lounge over a magazine or a conversation. Although it is not evident from the picture, Llewellyn has done an enormous amount of work in the living room following the purchase of the house last December.
He is also an excellent cook and is often to be found in the adjoining kitchen, where Barbara now stands. From the kitchen, a long narrow garden leads some 50 metres to the River Brent, which joins the Grand Union Canal a little further along.
The house is brilliantly situated for bus, tube and rail. It's barely 15 minutes into Paddington on the Heathrow Connect train that stops at Hanwell station, 10 minutes' walk away - 9 if the park is still open.
Among the first things we did on arrival in London was to replenish our Oyster cards, which serve for all the above means of travel. And in four days we did a great deal of hopping on and off of buses. On several occasions, younger passengers offered us their seats, a gesture as kind as it is unsettling.
And we took a good many tubes (metro/underground)and trains as well. Lucia, here pictured beside me, commutes two hours a day into and out of central London - a journey that will shrink to a fraction of that time when the Crossrail project is completed in a few years' time.
Here we are outside the Royal Academy in Picadilly, where Barbara and Llewellyn had spent a couple of hours at the Bronze exhibition. I spent them in the nearby Hatchards bookstore, where I acquired a copy of Spell it out, David Crystal's excellent account of how English spelling came to be so complicated.
Church Street market is a stroll away from our old London lodgings in Maida Vale, once a favourite destination for Barbara on an off-day from her job at NBC. Strange how all the stall holders look and sound so alike. At least a dozen of them were selling suitcases.
John Betjeman's statue stands proudly in the stunning concourse of St Pancras International station, where the Eurostar begins and ends its journeys to the Continent. We watched one of the trains gliding in to stop beside us - still impressive, however many years on.
Equally impressive is the new concourse on neighbouring Kings Cross, similarly surrounded by smart shops and cafes. We refreshed ourselves at the Patisserie Valerie where the staff, as so often in London, were from the European mainland, frequently from Poland.
Richard and Penny, friends hailing from way back, have recently completed a project to establish an outside studio room at their Islington home, situated below what was once their raised garage. It's very smart, overlooking the courtyard that separates it from the house.
Access is gained via a passage which also serves as an artwork in itself. Richard and Penny are both interested in art and supportive of local artists. They are rightly proud of this particular project although, they confess, it cost them years of sweat and tears as well as lots of lucre. (Those rings are part of the art!)
Another outing was to the new Westfield shopping centre close to the BBC's vast old headquarters in Shepherds Bush. I fear that the great variety of upmarket shops will drain away custom from central London, as has been the pattern elsewhere. Why go into the West End when it's all available here?
Two old friends from SABC days, Malcolm and Gary, have recently moved to Eastbourne, where we went to catch up on old times and admire their new quarters. Our admiration was sincere - they made a brilliant buy - and we liked the local pub just as much. Time to head to the airport. Enough unto the day!
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