Usually L brings her little alarm clock with us when we travel, but for some reason, this time we forgot it. Luckily, my WorldWatch has an alarm feature and even though I didn’t have the manual, I empirically figured out how to set it for 7:30 am which seemed most likely to be useful. So we woke this morning to the bleeping of my watch. We found a table at breakfast – no sign of M, we must have beaten him to it. He showed up eventually, and as we ate breakfast – same deal as yesterday – we discussed the plan for the day. We intended to walk around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and see where we ended up.

According to the weather report, it was supposed to be a nice day, but as we stepped outside on to George’s Drive there was a chill in the air and it was overcast. Near Elizabeth Street Bridge, a young man asked me directions to Victoria Coach Station. I thought he was referring to the Victoria Railway Station and proudly gave him directions that basically retraced our steps from the station the previous evening after the bus had come to the end of the line. He seemed a little unsure but walked off in the direction I’d pointed.

As soon as we’d crossed over Elizabeth Bridge I saw a big building with a sign, “Victoria Coach Station”. Oh dear. Well, that’s what you get for asking a tourist for directions. A little further down Elizabeth Street there were all these houses that had ground floors that really started below the level of the street. You had to walk down stairs to get to the front door. Several of them had very interesting plants growing up their front walls. I kept stopping to take pictures.