Day 45: Farewell tour of the UK kickoff

London leaving drinks!

Day 44: Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall

I am in Cornwall for a mini holiday with my friend Helen. We were spoiled for choice with photos today so I'll be posting more on my Facebook page. We spent the day first looking around St. Ives, and then we set off for the Lost Gardens of Heligan. They were gorgeous and we had wonderful weather. After we explored the gardens, we came back to St. Ives and went out for dinner and the pub. It was just the perfect day!

Day 43: London to Penzance

I spent about 5 and a half hours on the train from London Paddington to Penzance. It was well worth it!

Day 42: Let the thing swing, son

I took the train down from Edinburgh to London on Tuesday and decided at the last minute to go to one of my old haunts, C Jam at the Bedford. This is one of the places where I used to swing dance when I lived in London. Martin Ellis, the bloke in the photo, runs this and other nights of lovely dancing all around the city. I didn't have a manic night of dancing like I usually do but it was still great to dance a bit and see everyone. And I'm glad I had a warm up before Rhythm Lounge this Saturday! I'm happy to discover I haven't forgotten everything. Extra credit to anyone who knows which song the title of this post comes from (no Googling, of course!)...

Day 41: Lunch with Mark

Mark and I went to lunch at Posh today. Posh is right across the road from our office and I always have the same sandwich there - brown roll with smoked Jarlsberg, sundried tomatoes, and lettuce. Anyway so Mark and I went over for lunch and chatted about work, life and everything else!

Day 40: Glasgow pipe band

My aunt, uncle and niece have come up from London to spend the weekend in Edinburgh. Today we had a bright, sunny day and took the bus off to Glasgow. We had a lovely lunch and then walked to Buchanan Street to shop. We all split up and as I was walking down the street, I heard a pipe band so I followed the music down to the end of Buchanan Street. These three lads were playing for a small crowd. Their music was an unexpected pleasure!

Day 39: My cheesemonger

My local cheesemonger, IJ Mellis, is just down the hill from my flat in Stockbridge. They have gorgeous cheeses and wee snacks like crackers, biscuits, oat cakes, and so on. My aunt, uncle and niece are visiting from London and my niece and I went to the cheesemonger to get cheeses for our lunch. One very nice thing about this shop is they make a variety of vegetarian cheeses. I am really going to miss IJ Mellis when I'm gone!!

Day 38: Train to Portsmouth

My colleague and I had a meeting in Portsmouth so we were on the train. Both of us wanted to take a nap on the ride across but we were good and prepared for the meeting instead. Luckily the meeting went well and we celebrated by having a nice long lunch afterwards.

Day 37: SW1

Today is the day of three meetings. I have never had three in one day! And yet today I do. Two down, one to go. This was taken following the first meeting, near Westminster. You can see the Eye and the Abbey which I quite liked.

Day 36: Dinner with the girls

I am in London for the next two nights and I tried to find some company to go out with tonight, but all my spare gentlemen were busy. Hmpf. So I turned to the girls, who I should have just asked in the first place! We had a lovely dinner near Bank and they graciously posed for this glamourous photo.