I am trying to avoid making this strictly a travelogue but do hope that the places we go and comment about might be helpful to others who will visit here.  So while I hope friends and families might find the information useful in knowing what we are up to (but they also have the option of ignoring it), first and foremost these are notes to me for sometime in the future so I can remember what I did with my youth.  So I skipped yesterday as our day consisted of a long walk through the Chelsea area and Battersea Park which included a visit to the Royal Hospital where the pensioners live.  Interesting and fun to do but certainly not to read about.

The highlight of the day was losing our pubginity.  Spell check says there is no such word but there is now.  I have decided that a pubgin is someone who has been to the UK many times but never in a pub.  We have one right up the street and it was Konnie’s brilliant idea to try it for dinner.  With all of those beautiful floral displays on the outside, why not?  Bingo!  The food was fine, the wine was fine, they don’t smoke in them anymore and we saved a bunch of money.

With Thursday’s forecast of only a 20% chance of rain it seemed like the day to scoot back to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew which is advertised as the most complete public gardens in the world with 300 acres and about 40,000 plants.  It is about a half hour via the Tube from downtown and Kew is a lovely village to visit also.  We made a springtime visit there in 2009 which was spectacular but even the late summer visit of today was worth the trip.

So here are way too many pictures and I will tell you up front that if you don’t like ridiculous close ups of flowers and us you might as well skip this one.  Oh yes, please check in later as I am working on two “special” posts for publication later in the trip.  One is “Signs You Don’t See in the US” and the other will be “The Window Boxes of London.”

One more thing.  The kids over here in their school uniforms (blazers, hats, ties, school backpacks etc.) are sooooo cute.  I have been afraid to try to take pictures of them except for the one from behind at the pastry counter but hopefully I’ll get up the nerve to ask a parent sometime.