London Adventure

You won't believe what's happened to me... On Tuesday, I finally went into London with Eve - I needed to renew my passport and she'd offered to accompany me, so we could make it a nice day out, but of course she can only go during term breaks as she is a teacher. I'd been trying to phone the Embassy twice, to find out how much it would cost, possible waiting times etc, but both times I was cut off after over 5 minutes of holding! I wrote them a letter to which I never got a reply. Their website only says "passports and visas Mon - Fri 9am to 12nn".
BUT -- when we got their, they simply told me that presently they cannot renew passports or accept applications for new ones, as the passports are due to change to a new style, with finger prints, but they are not yet in place. Meanwhile, they simply turn people away!!! Not a word on their website, or on the spiel that you listen to while holding the phone line for ages!!!! They really are the most inconsiderate b... on the planet - I think the notion that an Embassy is there to SUPPORT its people is completely lost on them. So - for the time being I'm stuck in England, for better or worse (and I can only hope that nothing is going to happen to my Mother that would require me to travel to Germany!)...

In any case, once I'd got over the shock and anger of this, we did have a nice day out, strolling around - there is some fascinating architecture in London, even just some of the older residential blocks... We came across a beautiful, massive catholic church called The Brompton Oratory and decided to have a look inside - it was very Italianate and absolutely marvellous and we spent quite some time looking at it all; then just down the road we found the V&A museum and spent some time there seeing the textiles and silverware exhibits and also had a sumptous lunch in the "refreshments room" with beautiful stained glass windows and chandeliers - the prices were sumptous, too, though: nearly £18 for two salad plates with rolls and butter! Then around the corner into the Natural History Museum but that wasn't a good idea as it was far too crowded with families and children, being half-term, so we left quickly and went back home for some tea...

I thought it would be appropriate to add the cover page of my London album here today - it will soon get some additional pages as I took quite a few photos (it was a beautiful crisp and bright autumn day on Tuesday!).