Day 1 - Getting There

Distance walked: 4.35km, Alcohol consumed: 2 glasses (G&T, wine)

Well, travelling up the pointy end of the plane wasn't as enjoyable as I had hoped.  I had managed to eat something that didn't agree with me.  That, coupled with a bumpy flight to Singapore,  meant I had to make full & frequent use of the on-board toilets and air-sickness bags.   On second thoughts, travelling in that state in cattle class would have been even more unpleasant.

Other than that, the trip here was uneventful, which is how you want a plane flight to be.

Our hotel here in London, the Judd Hotel, is part of a row of 3 storey terraces, all of which have been converted into B&Bs.  Our hotel is made up of 2 houses knocked into one.  Our rooms were on the top floor, which was clearly once the servants quarters.  The stairs up to the first 2 floors were reasonably wide but then the staircase up to our floor was precipitously steep and narrow which made getting our suitcases up there a challenge.  No lifts of course.

My room was relatively spacious, at least by London standards.  The head of the bed was up against a wall, but you could walk around all the other 3 sides.  Mary's room was smaller.  Her bed was had the head and one side against walls.  Half of the foot of the bed was obstructed by a small wardrobe. Both rooms were sold for double occupancy but I wouldn't have wanted to share either with another human being, not even one I was fond of.

However, while I had more space, my bed was two twin beds shoved together while Mary had a real double bed.  Also I could only coax lukewarm water out of my shower, while hers was piping hot.  I think she might have had the better room.

After checking in and have a wash and putting on clean clothes we went for a wander around the local neighbourhood.  We started out exclaiming at how well rested we were even though at 6:30pm London time it was well into the wee small hours of the night back home.  However, after about 10 minutes of strolling we were fading fast so we settled in at a small local pizzeria for dinner.

We picked the place, Pizza Sofia, largely on the strength of its Italian speaking waitresses but it turned out to be quite good.  We shared a pizza Roma and a rocket salad but settled for mineral water to drink.  Wine would have had us snoring into our food.   After that we tottered back to the hotel.  I was fast asleep at 8:30pm but I believe Mary was a tougher soul and stayed awake until 9pm!