Day 32

Tuesday March 23, 2021

Mark:

Wow. There have been a few brief re-openings of the bars but today incredibly marks the one year anniversary of the announcement of the first lockdown in the UK and here we still are. But it’s also fun(?) to note that yesterday was the day we got the message that we would be opening up again, again. 

Meanwhile, our daily experience really is going up and down. It goes up this morning as Sarah stakes another claim for best housemate in the world by bringing us breakfast in bed this morning. And I mean the full real deal. Bacon, duck eggs, toast, tomatoes, and beans. And of course, obligatory by law when providing an English breakfast, steaming cups of tea which keep coming as required. 

We get all that down us, chill a little while longer then, with the apartment’s milk supplied depleted courtesy of Sarah’s breakfast teas, pop across the road to pick up some more milk. Almond milk, mind. It’s really lovely and sunny and we are very well fortified so we feel like staying out and getting a bus into town. So, back at the apartment building, Maja waits outside while I run the milk upstairs. We’re just going to get the first bus that comes along.

Here it is and we see it takes us to Victoria, which means I get to surprise Maja with a walk down what looks like a nondescript street along a mysterious barbed wire topped wall. What’s behind that wall? She discovers when we round a corner and there it is. Buckingham Palace. A walk from there, then up the mall to Trafalgar Square and once there, we simply have to go round that corner to give Maja her first look at The Marquis, sadly closed, but there it is. Also round this area, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus up a little to Carnaby street and then a general walk around. A few hours of this and we’re almost done, but then just as we’re thinking about taking a bus back home, we come across Fortnum and Mason. Means nothing to Maja, but I’ve never been in here and I really think we should, so we do. What we find is the most spectacular food and drink shop, complete with its spiral staircase going down to the most colourful fruit and veg display I’ve ever seen. Through all this we find the whiskey and brandy section and we simply have to have a look through all that. This is kind of like a mini Harrods. Like a Harrods but just a big food and drinks shop which happens to have a bottle of brandy that goes for 23 thousand quid. Shop assistant Andrew takes us through their ranges with Maja really keen on finding a good peaty whiskey. She settles on a high range bottle of Ardbeg which you would definitely not find in your average supermarket. After this, it’s onto the cheese section where she finds a perfect Gruyere to accompany a bottle of red wine sometime. 

Then it’s onto a sunny bus home. This really feels like the first day in a long time where there have been no events to bring us down at all. Everything is just fine and stress free and here we are having a lovely walk round Londontown.