London: October 2022
I’ve given up on any attempts at keeping this journal chronological. I’m not prompt enough when I return home from an adventure, and then end up with so much back logged I just give it all up. Since our trip to Nebraska we’ve been to India, Florida, Alaska again, New Orleans, France and London. It’s been busy! Plus the day-job, working with the Dredgers and trying not to spend all my time in front of a computer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m going to start with London, because, well - I have the photos in a folder on my desktop and have to start somewhere, right?
We have family in London, and got to see them at the reunion in Nebraska. It brought up conversations of a visit again… and why not? We’re on the East Coast, it’s a relatively short flight and we could shop around for good prices. Travel alerts set, all things came together in October of 2022. And then, a week before our trip, I was biking to work and fishtailed to avoid a pedestrian in the bike lane. Elbow broke, surgery required. It was… not great. And the timing! I was able to get into surgery before our flight, and loaded up with some pain killers and some trepidation, we packed up and headed out. On one hand I’d say my restricted abilities kept the trip low-key. But… we still tromped all around the city, met up with family, saw a ton of museums and even got some urban birding in. I’d love to go back now that I have two working arms again, but have to say - I don’t regret continuing on the trip anyway.
I did NOT expect to find pelicans in London. I definitely did not expect to see them hanging out with humans like pigeons! But, there they were.
My surgeon recommended resting my arm on my head when it got to be too much while walking around. Very practical, if silly looking, advice!
London Bridge, the city parks, so much vegan food! Months later, I’m still craving some of the food we had. Vegan pies with minty peas, cheeses that were the same price as any other market cheese, without the vegan ‘up-charge’ that we get here, the best donuts I’ve had in ages... I want to go back just to eat more food! I was pleasantly surprised by all the birds in the parks we walked through. It’s funny how one city’s ‘normal’ bird is a fun sight to an out-of-towner! I guess it’s the same on the flip side, give us a migrant bird in our own city and we’ll love it too.
While watching the pelicans in St. James Park, we saw numerous people go up and pet them. Don’t do that! Don’t be that person! First of all avian flu is rampant these days and you don’t want to pass it along. Second - they’re not pets! And have huge pointy beaks! I would not want that beak snapping down on my hand. Leave them along. And please don’t feed them. That’s bad too. Just… take a photo and move along, thankyouverymuch.
Chris’ cousin Lucy lives in Bristol, so one of our days we took the train out to visit. She found a really fun scavenger hunt that took us all around the city, with an end ‘prize’ of a discounted pint at a local pub. Some of the clues were a bit…. obscure. And a few were under construction so no longer there. We made it anyway though! I keep forgetting to look up similar maps and games in other cities - it really was a great way to get to see a neighborhood in a way you may not usually.
Bristol turns out to be a GREAT place for vegan food too. I later bought a pie cookbook that is from a place located in town, and Lucy took us to a bakery that had amazing vegan sausage rolls. The sheer number of options everywhere we went was amazing. I hope it gets to be like that in the states sometime soon too. And maybe we can get some good British bakeries her? Please?
Searching for our next clue.
There’s more to say about the trip (isn’t there always?) but in the interest in keeping these short so I actually write them, I’ll leave it there. Next up…. Florida? Maybe?