After our return from Oxford we slipped even deeper into our pretend residents mode.  On Thursday after lunch at L’Opera, we headed to the National Gallery (free admission) to spend the whole afternoon.  We thought it to be outstanding and are unsure why we did not get there on an earlier visit.  Dinner at an Asian place near our flat.  It was not bad but not worthy of being mentioned.

On Friday we visited the Victoria & Albert Museum (free admission) where we had not been since 2010.  In addition to catching up on some regular medieval and renaissance exhibits, we visited two special photography exhibitions called “Light from the Middle East:  New Photography” and an exhibition called “Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock Photographs by Harry Hammond.”  The Rock Photo exhibition was great fun except that it was a reminder of the fact that I am racking up the years.  Yes, it was lunch at L’Opera again and dinner at one of our favorites here, Zayna (www.zaynarestaurant.co.uk), Pakistani and North Indian Cuisine, with Gail and Robin Edwards and Jacquie Martinez, great friends from my time working with the Maya Research Program in Belize.  I am scratching my head at how I failed to get pictures of our great evening.

Saturday saw lunch at a new favorite lunch and cappuccino place, Cocomaya (“Fine Chocolatier & Artisan Baker”) (www.cocomaya.co.uk) on Brompton Road followed by an all afternoon walk covering Green Park, St. James’s Park, Buckingham Palace and the other sites in the Westminster section of the city.  The evening saw us return to Ciros to enjoy an evening of music as well as the (cheeseless in my case) pizza and complementary stuff they like to throw our way.  Tonight’s server was from Serbia and had worked at Lake Tahoe.

Sunday was the most beautiful day of our 23 and we did more walking, enjoying the sun in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.  Breakfast at Cocomaya, lunch at Noura where they stuffed us with complementary baklava after we opted for a light lunch and dinner at Patara with Gail and Robin Edwards.

We stopped into Muffinskis for an afternoon break one day, a muffin and coffee shop in Covent Garden that we have visited before.  The music in the shop was all early Beatles.  Perfect for an old codger who lived through the British Invasion of the 60s.  As we were preparing to leave I said to one of young lady servers, “I really love the music you play.  Is that a new group from around here?”  Her jaw dropped and eyes opened wide and she clearly was reaching for the right words to not offend a customer.  She finally mustered in amazement (and you must add the accent) “It’s the Baytles.”  She was born 30 years after their rise to fame.  But they are in institution to even her.

We love London.