This is Andy’s father with some great stories about our 17 day visit to Andy and Tiffany’s in London. We did not stick to the regular London attractions. Sue and I had visited London during the summer of 1977 (BC - before children). As a result we told Andy and Tiffany before we arrived that we wanted to explore outside the box. We did see many of the tourist attractions and we also did many things that were not the norm. We went to 5 museums, 3 castles, 4 gardens, 7 parks, 4 markets, 7 restaurants, ? churches and 8 pubs. We visited with 4 relatives besides Andy and Tiffany, climbed several towers, watched a cricket match and rode the London Eye. We traveled on boats, trains, buses and the underground. We walked a lot too. Sue’s pedometer count totaled over 250,000 steps.

The entire visit was wonderful because Andy and Tiffany are such great hosts. In spite of the saying that ‘dirty laundry and house guests begin to smell after 3 days’ we were having such a great time that we anticipated each day’s adventure with the same spirit that we had on the first day. What I would like to do now is to relay several stories about situations where things were not looking as good as they could have been and yet a combination of chance and our hosts’ good planning created a truly wonderful event.

One morning early in the trip Sue and I were on our own and planning to take a double-decker bus to the Westminster area. This was our first attempt at riding a bus without the help of Andy or Tiffany. Let me remind you that traffic drives on the ‘other’ side of the road in the UK. As we were waiting for our bus, Sue asked, “Which way do we want to go?” I responded, “That way.” Sue then said, “Shouldn’t we be on that side of the street to catch a bus going that way?” I responded, “Oops! There’s one now!” The stop on the other side of the street was about a half a block away and we had just missed the bus we needed. Note: Things were not looking good to me right then. We crossed the street, walked to the other stop and waited. Another double-decker bus picked us up several minutes later and we found seats in the upper deck near the front of the bus. While riding the bus near Trafalgar Square we noticed escort cars with flashing lights approaching and then saw the Queen’s Guard on horseback coming towards us on the street. I was able to get a good photo of them through the bus window and pointed out to Sue that the people on the bus that we missed could not have seen the same sight. A simple mistake on my part had led to a ‘We’re really in London now.’ event and a great photo.

Queen’s Guard on horseback.

Our first train trip out of London was with Andy to see Cambridge. We got to the station later than we had planned and Andy sent us directly to the platform and ran to buy the tickets for the three of us. Sue and I got to the platform on time and waited for Andy. He rounded the corner to the platform just as the train was pulling out. Oops! While we waited 30 minutes for the next train to Cambridge we were able to buy coffee and lunch supplies for when we got there and we also got a photo of Andy doing the Harry Potter train platform trick at the station where it was filmed. A sign for Platform 9 3/4 was mounted on a brick abutment with the back end of a luggage cart mounted against the bricks. In a Harry Potter film, the students that were heading to whizard school pushed their carts forcefully into the brick abutment to get to the platform 9 3/4 and board their train. Our misfortune of missing the first train gave us time for coffee, food and another great photo.

Andy going to whizard school.

Another train trip that we took was to Windsor to see Windsor Castle. The line to get into the castle was so long we decided not to go inside. Oops! We took a walking tour of Windsor instead. One of the out of the way places on the tour was a very old church that was quietly nestled in an overgrown churchyard that was full of grave markers. We walked into the churchyard and wandered through the quiet setting wondering what the inside of this very old church looked like. Along came a local man and his wife and I thought that maybe we should wander out of the churchyard in the opposite direction. He told us that he and his wife were there to remove flowers from a wedding that had happened and offered to show us inside. While his wife took care of the flowers he spent about 15 minutes discussing the history of the very old church, the architecture, the refurbishing that has been done and their plans for the future. They do not plan to spend the 100,000 pounds it would take to repair the beautiful pipe organ. They decided to buy an electronic organ last year. One interesting fact is that the very old church had often taken in women of the oldest profession to rescue them. Many of these women are buried in the churchyard. They usually did not have last names because of their profession so their markers all have the last name Magdalene. I got a photo of one marker that had the names of two of these women.

A grave marker with two Magdalene’s.

The last story I have for you shows how Andy and Tiffany can make a visit truly special. Sue and I had visited several museums that day and were headed home with heavy feet. Sue wanted to stop on the way home for food to prepare a dinner for the four of us. I felt like taking the underground for a quick trip home. Then we could get to the store and home to start dinner in no time. Sue wanted to take double-decker buses so we could see the sights. I didn’t tell Sue but for me the bus idea was just asking for another Opps! The underground beats the buses every time. Buses seem to stop every couple blocks for pick-ups and drop-offs and then they have to pull out into traffic. I prefer the underground because there’s no city traffic and I’m a point A to point B kind of person. We found a bus that was headed to Oxford Circus. From there I knew we could transfer to a bus that would take us home. The traffic was horrible. Oxford Street, which is a busy shopping street with sidewalks that are full of pedestrians, is closed to all traffic except buses, taxis and bicycles. It was still very slow going. Just after we got started on the second bus headed back down the same street we got the regular ‘end of the work day’ call from Andy. “Where are you guys?” …. “OK, Are you on the upper level of the bus?” …. “Which side of the bus are you on?” …. “See you soon.” I was watching the pedestrians below in order not to watch the traffic. Two stops after the phone call from Andy I spotted Andy and Tiffany waiting to get on our bus. They waved, got on the bus and came to the upper level. A person volunteered to move when she saw us talking so we could sit together. With Andy and Tiffany along to keep us company the bus ride was no longer an Opps! for me. We all shopped for dinner and prepared dinner together. (I opened the beverages.)

The wonderful hosts pose with a statue of Peter Pan.

Click the photo of us at a cricket match below to see photos of the trip.