A visit to the UK!

I have been neglecting my blog! It is a long time since I wrote a post here. And that was only to say that I was committing the blog to print, which is what I have now done. The printing was much cheaper in Ukraine so my friend Marina organised that with a print shop in her city (which I also know - the print shop and the city!)
They printed two copies which I now have at home and I can lend them out to friends. I had fun reading some of the earlier posts too!
During the summer I have spent quite a lot of time with my friend Orlinda who I met about 2 years ago at my Meetup group. And then we re-made our friendship when I came back from Colombia in March.
In June, she was saying how much she would like to visit the UK and by chance, the fares on Ryanair to Bournemouth the following week were quite cheap. I didn't hesitate, I bought the tickets!
We stayed in Bournemouth for 2 days, went on a bus tour, did all the usual things. And then we took the train to London which was our main objective of course. We stayed slightly out of the centre in Clapham Common which has many memories for me. When I worked for the BBC we used to record Billy Smart's Circus from a large tent on the common.
In London, we also took a tour bus, visited Buckingham Palace (I mean, outside the palace!)... What else? I have forgotten a lot of our visit because it was quite a long time ago. But we had a great time. Ah yes, I remember, we visited Windsor Castle and on the way back to London, we dropped in to see an old friend of mine, Tricia (girlfriend, I mean) because Orlinda wanted to see where I used to live. Addlestone in Surrey is a little to the south of Windsor, just outside London.

We chanced upon a festival on the South Bank, near to Waterloo Station and saw an acrobatic show with a group from Colombia, which was great! Very exciting for Orlinda because, I am sure I have said previously, she is Colombian. On Saturday morning, we took the train back to Bournemouth, took a taxi to the airport and Orlinda's husband picked us up at Girona Airport. We were away for 5 or 6 days. Here are some photos! The first two were in Bournemouth. A tour bus and a view from West Cliff.

This is Orlinda after we arrived in Waterloo Station from Bournemouth.

A trendy bar in Clapham!

 

 A festival on the South Bank.

  

This was in Leicester Square on our way back to Girona.

The weather was rather cool and cloudy in Bournemouth but, while we were in London, it was fine and warm as you can probably see from the photos. 

Infantile English humour in the train going back to Bournemouth.
 
In my next post, I will write about Marta's visit - Marta from Ukraine, that is, who has appeared in previous posts. But this was her first time in Spain.