London

My flight back to Chicago had a delay on the ground at Nice that made me miss the connection at Heathrow that was to take me to O’Hare (will fast forward past the almost 2 hours in a rebook line at Heathrow with some very poor communication and some very grumpy passengers). In the end I got what I’d been openly pining for – a British Airways-funded overnight in London. Once all this was confirmed, I got the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, checked into a hotel there, then headed off on the tube to the Tower of London area, seeing as it’s a tourist site that went underexplored by us when we lived there. The whole area is really impressive – you can walk all around the site and across Tower Bridge for no entrance fee, and there are food trucks along the Thames (important as I realized that I hadn’t eaten yet!)

But the real treat was Superbloom, a site specific installation of blooming flowers in the moat. It’s visible to the public on walkways around and above, and also you can buy a ticket and go right into the moat grounds. There are signs around about how they created this space by preparing the soil and spreading wildflower seeds that attract and nourish bees. There is an area where site-specific music plays, and an area of meandering paths. It’s really wonderful, so happy I got to experience this!

The blooms also reminded me of the no-mow areas in Portmarnock that are so good for the bees and also really lovely landscaping. I also liked this sign that explained how the creators of Superbloom discovered microclimates within the moat that altered how the plants grew.

After Superbloom, I took the tube to Tottenham Court Road – my tube stop when I took the Central Line to work at University College London over 30 years ago! Then walked over to Neal Street / Neal’s Yard / Covent Garden, which I used to do on my lunch hour (noting that I must have enjoyed some long lunch hours!). The area was always charming and is now full of different shops and restaurants but still has the same vibe. There’s a new market with lots of food vendors inside, very hip and food truck like offerings. This cheese train was particularly sweet!

I then walked through Soho over to Piccadilly Circus and took the tube back to Paddington Station. Again limited on photos because of a lot of battery issues on my phone – this was the trip of phone issues between John’s phone being totally destroyed while at Cannes and mine really not doing great as the only phone! Anyway off to bed very early so I could make a second go at Heathrow – as seen by this clock near Paddington that is showing 5 as in 5am when I walked past to get the first train to Heathrow. The “man” inside the clock does all kinds of cleaning up motions, even erasing the clock hands as part of the routine!