1. What is the weather like today where you are? Today is Tuesday 7 January 2025 – I am answering a day after the challenge was posted. I live at the southern tip of Africa. If we’re lucky our mornings will be windless. However, it will blow in the afternoons! So today started slightly overcast with no wind, but now it is hot and windy. Yesterday was also hot and windy. Tomorrow will be hot an windy!
No complaints from the kite surfers!
2. Have you booked your annual vacation yet? We take multiple vacations each year and have just returned from our summer stay in Plettenberg Bay, where we spent time with our daughter. All three of our daughters and two of our grandchildren were also there. After that, we spent a week in Cape Town with another of our daughters. We haven’t booked our next vacation yet. We tend to do things spur of the moment. However, traveling internationally with a South African passport requires careful planning, as most countries require SA tourists to obtain visas. The process of applying for these visas can be both costly and time-consuming. Since we plan to cruise later this year, it’s time to start our preparations.
3. Do you have a passport, and when does it expire? I do. It expires next month which means I need to go to Home Affairs to renew it next week! In the city this would mean queues hours long. But where I live, it won’t take long.
Taken from the internet – no queues but that’s unusual in most places!
4. When was the last (or first) time you went abroad? The first time I embarked on an international journey was back in 1988. At thirty-six, I had my adventurous 9-year-old daughter by my side. Our destination? London, to visit my younger brother who resided there. We spent an entire month soaking in the city’s charm. We explored every nook and cranny of London, and the excitement of navigating the tube trains and London buses was an experience my daughter cherished deeply. She fell head over heels for London, later working there for two years in her twenties. To this day, she seizes any opportunity to return.
Christmas in London 1988 – Paddington Bear was a gift from her uncle.
The last time I traveled abroad was in June 2024. My husband, our London-loving daughter, and I spent two weeks exploring London. Afterwards, we joined another daughter for a 10-day Adriatic cruise.
Gratitude: I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to travel both within my own country and abroad. Some of my best travel adventures have been right here in South Africa, where I have explored every province and visited nearly every national park our country has to offer.
The weather has not changed. Every day we dress in summer clothes but take along jerseys and jackets. When the sun comes out it is quite warm but mostly the skies are overcast. Today it did not rain.
When one is used to driving everywhere, taking buses, trains and underground tubes can be exciting but also a little scary. The Earl was with us today and was a tad nervous about the whole procedure. Of course, he wanted to know how it all worked too. Tapping his card to get in and out of the underground was completely confusing. How does it know where I’ve been and how much money to take off? I have no idea but I told him to trust the system and soon he was happily tapping like the rest of us. All the walking was a challenge too. He seldom walks anywhere! Well, today he clocked up over 14000 steps!
We walked to Clapham Junction, took the train to Vauxhall, changed to the underground then used the tubes to get us to Green Park and then St Paul’s where we met Lollz’s cousin, Kevin for lunch. After lunch, we took a bus to Covent Gardens and then took the tube and train back to Clapham Junction.
Green Park and Buckingham Palace
Click on the first photo, then use the arrows to watch the slide show.
The Goddess Diana is seen as you come out of the Green Park Tube StationGreen Park is – well – GreenQueen Victoria Memorial StatueThe Victoria Memorial StatueThe sculpture represents their relationship of mutual trust and harmonious coexistence. The torch held by the man symbolizes progress, youth, and the dawn of a new era.One of the King’s Guard.After a spell of standing dead still they get to march up and down a littlePall MallLollz and The Earl taking a break
I find the King’s Guards fascinating. Imagine being clad in those red tunics and strange bearskin hats and standing to attention, not moving for ages. At first glance, they look like statues. The two we saw had a break from stillness and marched up and down a few times. Phew -that must have been a relief.
St Paul’s, Paternoster Square, and The Millennium Bridge
After disembarking at St Paul’s Station we found ourselves in Paternoster Square where we were to meet my nephew, Kevin. Having only heard the word Paternoster associated with a small West Coast Town I wondered what it might mean. Google is such a help – The Lord’s Prayer. That made sense as it was in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral! We ate lunch at the Paternoster Pub. Kevin and Lollz ordered sandwiches – Kevin had a BLT which was fine but Lollz’s cheese sandwich was inedible. I shared my Caesar salad with her instead. The Earl had pork bangers and mash which was excellent. They did not charge us for the cheese sandwich!
We found Paternoster Square quite fun. They had some wildlife sculptures on display. These sculptures are done by a husband and wife team who are very much into wildlife conservation. You can find out more hereA Wild Life for Wildlife – Gillie and Marc®↗
The Dome of St Paul’s peeping throughPatternoster PubLollz with Cousin KevThe Earl and meInformation on Gillie and MarcBaby hippo and elephant sculpturesThe Earl with the biggest Gorilla sculpture everWalking in the streets of London!St Paul’sThe Millennium Bridge
Covent Garden
I wanted to go to Covent Garden to see street performers like mimes, acrobats, magicians, etc. I was disappointed that not much was happening. We only saw a magic act and an artist painting a portrait of Amy Winehouse while playing a recording of her singing.
My brother Nicholas worked at this perfume house when he first came to England.Covent GardenStunning shopsThe Magician was quite goodClever and messy artist
Some photos Lollz took with her phone.
On the Tube TrainBuckingham PalaceSt Paul’sMillennium BridgeCovent GardenCovent Garden – Need to make a call?
Last night we slept like the dead and awoke with the wonderful realisation that we were not at the Southern Tip of Africa! Instead, I opened the blinds to behold the Thames waking up with boats and barges starting their day’s work.
I received a WhatsApp from a friend telling me that it was windy, cold and wet in Cape Town. I replied that it was overcast here in London and that the temperature was 13 degrees C. “Oh,” came the reply, “it’s warmer than that here!” Ha! Ha! I will never complain about our weather again.
But the day was not that bad. We dressed in layers and dodged the showers and sometimes had to remove our jackets when the sun came out.
The Earl decided that he would take a rest day. He did not relish the idea of buses, tubes and lots of walking in London! So after cooking scrambled eggs and bacon Lollz and I left the flat at 10, walked to Clapham where I found a Halifax Bank and sorted out some issues with an account I have there. I was seen immediately and had the most awesome help from a lovely young lady named Lisa. All is now in order and I have pounds to spend!
Rows of terraced houses – Clapham
After that Lollz and I went to have a coffee at Neros. I try not to compare how much what I buy to eat and drink would cost at home! It is always way more than what I pay at my favourite coffee shop in Struisbaai! But my Americano was excellent and it went well with a small bar of Belguin dark chocolate!
Coffee and Chocolate at Neros
I was so pleased to have Lollz deal with all the direction finding and bus/train negotiating. Thanks to modern technology she has these useful apps on her phone! Also she understands them and knows exactly how to use them. All I had to do was follow my leader! All the angst of travel was removed. I can highly recommend going abroard with a tech savvy younger memeber of your family!
We took a bus to Westminster and all I had to do was tap my credit card and climb aboard. I was as excited as a kid at Christmas boarding a red London bus and going up to the upper deck with his marvelous views of London flashing by as we travelled to our destination.
Aboard a London BusRoyal Mail still functionsA funeral procession – horse-drawn hearse!Telephone Box!
We had fun walking around, seeing the houses of parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey etc. We then hopped on the tube and went to Oxford CircusWe spent the afternoon shopping but not did not buy very much. Hopping on and off busses and riding the tube is very convenient and simple but we also walked a lot – it’s cheaper and good exercise! We clocked up over 20000 steps today! A tube train from Oxford Circus took us to Vauxhal and from there we took an overland train to Clapham, shopped for our dinner then walked to the flat. We thought it would take 10 minutes but only realised we took a wrong turn and got quite lost! It was all part of the adventure during which I managed to have an unfortunate accident! We stopped to get our bearings and I allowed my shopping bag to slip to the ground – crash – the wine bottle broke! Oh dear what a waste! But we found an Indian cafe that sold wine and we got a bottle of Savignon Blanc – a Western Cape wine called Secretary Bird!
Big BenMadiba!London EyeTrain coming into Tube Station
A few months ago, our oldest daughter, Lisa, suggested we join her and her bestie on a Mediterranean Cruise as part of The Earl’s eightieth birthday celebration. She would have liked all our family to join us but it was just not possible. So our party will consist of Lisa and her friend, Dominika, Laurie, our youngest, her friend, Sasha and The Earl and me.
In the past, I have been the main organiser of such events. What a pleasure then, to have my two daughters deal with all the details and just simply agree to go along with it all. We both feel lucky to have kids who actually want us to go on holiday with them. And having them take care of everything takes a lot of stress off us.
Lisa and her bestie will go to Poland for two weeks while Laurie, The Earl and I will be spending two weeks in London. We will then meet up in Istanbul and cruise the Med together.
Because we would be travelling on Election Day, we all applied for Special Votes. On Monday the Earl and I cast our vote at The Dutch Reformed Church hall in Struisbaai. We were second in the queue and were done by 9:30 am. Lisa voted in Cape Town on Monday but Laurie went just before leaving for the airport yesterday and luckily did not have a long wait in a queue.
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
This morning, I was wide awake before the alarm went off. Our bags were packed and just the last-minute stuff had to go in. I was in a high state of excitement and by 8:30 we were both dressed and ready to leave. But our transfer would only arrive at 10:30 so we took Marlene, our lodger, to Shipwreck for breakfast and said our farewells to our friend, Rachel who owns it.
Steyn was dead on time at 10:30 and on this most glorious Autumn day with a high of 26 degrees C, we set off with in high spirits. We were delighted to find that Steyn showed an interest in the birds as we drove through the Overberg and we taught him the correct English and Afrikaans names. It was as if the birds were all coming out especially to bid us farewell. Our list included black-winged kite, rock kestrel, jackal buzzard, black sparrowhawk, spur-winged goose, Egyptian Goose, Grey heron and Blue Crane,
Lisa brought Laurie to the airport and they arrived a few minutes before we got there. Lisa and Dominica will only be flying out tomorrow while Laurie will join us for two weeks in London. After checking in we all went to have coffee at Wimpy which overlooks the runway. It is always exciting to watch the planes take off and land especially when the weather is so clear.
After Lisa left we went through passport control and it wasn’t long before our flight was called. TK45 left Cape Town International at 16:30 S.A. time and landed in Istanbul at 06:30 the following moring. It was a long night! Laurie did not have a seat near us but was on the aisle a little further back. Earl had a window seat and I was in the middle next to a lovely German girl en route home after a year of extra study at Stellenbosch Univierstiy. The Turkish crew were lovely and we were served two meals on the flight. Dinner at around 6:30 pm and breakfast at 2 am! The food was tasty – but hey aeroplane food is never wonderful!
Taken from the onboard computer as we flew over South Africa
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Earl had assisted travel which was great as Istanbul Airport is huge and the distances you have to walk to get to your connecting flight are vast. Lollz and I got to go on the buggy with him and it was so much fun. The driver was a maniac and yelled to everyone to please make way. We went through the baggage check before everybody else but then had to make our way to the boarding gate on our own while Earl waited for a wheelchair to bring him. In the end he insisted on walking as the distance was not too far. But there was drama – the carer had lost his boarding pass! It turned out not to be a big problem. The check-in guy told us it often happened! He promised to get us a new one printed but while we waited for the flight to be called he came over with the original – “They found it – it was given to the wrong passenger!”
Driver of the buggyEnjoying being transported across Istanbul Airport!
On the second flight, TK1979, I was so exhausted that I actually managed a power nap and so did Lollz. We were served a second breakfast at the more reasonable hour of 9:00 am.
We arrived at London Heathrow at quarter to ten GMT. Lollz and I were not able to get a buggy ride this time as it was full but we still made it to passport control at the same time as Earl. We did, however, get to go through passport control ahead of the crowds!
After collecting our bags Lollz and I parked Earl on a chair and went off to find a phone shop. We each bought a “Three” sim card loaded with data that gives us airtime and data in both England and Europe for a month. Lollz then organized an Uber on her App and by 12:30 we were delivered to our door at Battersea Pad! Thanks to my brother, Michael, for allowing us to stay there while we’re in London.
After unpacking and settling in, Lollz and I tried to order in some supplies but there is no 60/60 here! The soonest we could get a grocery delivery was Friday so we decided to go shopping ourselves. Lollz’ friend, Katya and her 6-year-old son, Daniel arrived just before we left and walked with us to the Tesco Express. It was such fun shopping like a Londoner! You can use self-service check out but we were afraid we would do it all wrong so went to the till instead. “Sorry,” I apologised to the cashier, “we’re from Africa – we don’t have such things in our supermarkets yet!” He looked at me as if I we crazy!
Katya, Daniel and Lollz in the streets of Battersea, LondonTesco Express
Katya and Lollz are old college friends and she now lives in Greenwich. It was lovely seeing her again and getting to know little Daniel. They stayed for an early supper and Daniel was absolutely intrigued by the river and the helicopters coming and going! Of course, the Earl just loved entertaining him while the girls chatted and caught up after not seeing each other since 2018.
A London Bus
Katya and Lollz – Still buddies after 26 years!
Our View of The ThamesHelicopter coming in to land
We grilled crumbed chicken portions in the oven and served them with baby potatoes, creamed spinach and salad. Katya had bought Magnum Ice Creams for our dessert!
It was a lovely start to our fortnight in London. It’s early to bed for us tonight. We are exhausted!
Adventuring into Retirement 