Freedom of Retirement

Bob picked up a last minute trip to England back in April which gave him a three day layover. I am really enjoying not having the limitations of a job and schedule and was able to travel over to London and meet him. We spent three days enjoying the city.

Having been there quite a few times over the years we didn't have to get to all the tourist spots and were able to take in some smaller, lesser known spots.  It is three months out to the Olympics but London is already looking spruced up and ready. The amount of beautiful flower beds around the city were awesome! It may have helped that we had sunny weather when we were there as well. We walked a few of the beautiful parks of the city and some of the smaller neighborhoods.

Since Easter was not far off there was an egg hunt around the city. Large eggs each uniquely decorated were placed all around the city for people to spy. There were 200 in all. We didn't notice this until our last day of walking around the city and then we found about 12 that afternoon. What a fun hunt for families to do in the city. They were in some unique settings and some obvious.

 One place we went where we had never been before was the Churchill war rooms. These were the underground headquarters during WWII. They were left in tact. Very interesting displays and full of first hand video accounts and recollections of people who worked there. Got me reading Warlord a book about Winston Churchill.

The other different thing we did was tour a restored townhouse that had been owned by the famous Punch cartoonist, Edward Linley Sambourne. The tours are conducted by costumed actors who invite you into the home as the person living there in 1800's.  Was hoping to get the maid of the house, but we got the wife of Mr. Sambourne. Interesting and different way to tour a home. The house is furnished as would be in the time and there were pictures covering the walls in most rooms, most of them drawn by Mr. Sambourne himself.