Tuesday 8th May
It’s been a lovely day, warm and no rain! We have all been to Hampton Court Palace. To get there and back we did about a 5 mile round walk. We went through Bushy Park to get there, spotting quite a few deer on the way and came back along the tow path, both very pleasant walks.
We spent an enjoyable few hours in the palace and gardens but we didn’t visit the maze. Ken said he hadn’t paid good money to look closely at a hedge! In Queen Mary II’s apartments there is currently an exhibition of paintings called The Wild, The Beautiful and the Damned, which explores the meaning of beauty, and the lives and loves of the courtesans and libertines who lived and died in the Stuart Court during the reigns of Charles II, James II, William III & Mary II and Anne (1660-1714) which was very interesting.
Between visiting the palace and looking round the gardens we stopped for a cuppa and a cake, I had a very nice jam and cream scone, which I have obviously worked off with all the walking! Barbara had a bonus because she managed to get away without paying for Barry’s crisps!
The gardens at Hampton Court are fabulous and there was an army of gardeners working in all of them. You will be pleased to hear I haven’t taken too many photos to bore you with!
When Ken went in to town this morning for a paper he spotted a fish and chip shop so we went there later, via the Wetherspoons (first time Ken has had change out of a fiver for two drinks for weeks!) to get some fish and chips for dinner. While we were out Barbara phoned to say the water had come up again and was over the concrete. Fortunately we had left the gang plank out so we didn’t have to go paddling when we got back. It didn’t come up as far as it had last night and just like last night it soon went down again, it’s obviously a tidal thing even though it is not tidal here.
Apart from the fluctuating water levels this is a good mooring for visiting Kingston and Hampton Court. The waterfront opposite here is very attractive with lots of bars and restaurants and looks very pretty when it’s all lit up at night. The sound emanating from the patrons of said bars does carry though and last night, about midnight, there was a noisy incident outside Brown’s restaurant, culminating in an arrest. It took 7 police persons (one was a woman) and a large bouncer to diffuse the situation and cart this one chap off to the nick. It was better than watching Cops with Cameras on the tv!
Tomorrow we are staying here again and doing a bit of shopping.
