Catriona visits Clapham Junction

Catriona arrived late Friday afternoon, and we headed out to CJ and drank large G&Ts (thereby redressing the reduced intake/opportunities due to H being in South America) on the balcony whilst nibbling on olives and dips, before adjourning indoors to watch Big Brother. We’re both addicts, so that made it a no brainer on the “what shall we do” front.

10 am Saturday morning we met up with Phil at the Royal Festival Hall and looked at their little exhibition on building the bridges across to Embankment / Charing Cross, and drank cold drinks at the Film Cafe overlooking the river.

Cat and I then wandered up to Tate Modern, over to St Paul’s (decided not to pay £6.50 to go in) and then back to the river – past a large film unit on the main road to Blackfriars – with famous actors, but we couldn’t remember their names. One was Bridget Jones’ dad. They were all dressed up in Pride & Prejudice type gear. All very London!!!

Took the tube to Kew Gardens via Victoria where Cat bought some flip flops to counter her rubbing sandals, and spent the afternoon soaking up yet more sun (aka getting burned) wandering around the gardens, exploring the hot houses (more humid than outside, so coming out into the hot Oz heat was really rather pleasant!), including the aquatic plants (and fish – safely behind glass barriers…!) displays, and chilling out in the shade by the japanese gardens.

Got back to CJ around 6ish, drank beers and ate crisps on the roof terrace and opted for easy tea at Banana Leaf – apparently when we’d tried to go there before it’d been full. We had better luck this time, but were both too knackered to go out drinking on Northcote Road (honestly!!) preferring to retire to Barnard Raod, and veg in front of the telly, leafing through photo albums and trying not to plan more RTW trips…

Sunday featured a lazy morning with fresh baked sultana bread and freshly squeezed OJ, followed by the National Picture Gallery and more walking (i.e. all the way back along the river and via Battersea Park). More sun, but we had H’s surplus factor 25 sunscreen on, so that was ok.

At 11.30pm I got an sms from Cat saying that she has got back to Leeds to find her annoying housemate had used the last teabag and milk. So that’s decided her to look for a house. Looks like we’ll get invited to the house warming!!