Easter in London

My six-day Easter break in London was very pleasant. The early colours of spring were a beautiful sight. The apartment we stayed in directly faced Hyde Park and was about 100 meters from Kensington Palace. I truly enjoyed both Hyde Park and nearby Holland Park in all their spring glory.

A tour of Kensington Palace was made memorable as two days earlier I went to see the film “The Young Victoria’ about the Queen's early accession to the throne at 18. It made my tour more interesting as I could relate the events I saw in the film with the real setting. Also on display in the Palace were several of Princess Diana's dresses she wore to special functions. There was also an elaborate exhibition on 'debutantes'.

My two boys and my charge enjoyed discovering London on their own. We enjoyed ‘The Lion King’, though I thought the New York production was a lot better. My charge complained that 'Joseph and the Magic Technicolour Dream’ was done in modern costumes and was rather raunchy but he enjoyed it all the same.

We went on a day trip to Oxford where I pointed him Wadham College to which I belonged as a student and my hostel, Queen Elizabeth House on St. Giles Street. Alas only the main building remained (I had a room under the gable in that building during my first few months there until it got so cold I demanded a room in the hostel block), the lovely garden and hostel block have made way for bigger buildings. It rained all the time while we were in Oxford but our visit bought back may happy memories of my days there.

I had thought that the economic recession would see less people in London, but it was jammed packed all the some with visitors. The only people obviously missing were the Americans!

On Saturday, some 100,000 Tamils took to London’s busiest centre to demonstrate their cause, creating a lot of inconveniences with traffic standstill and jammed underground! Well I have my views about that!

It was also good to catch up with Heather, Amanda, Erin, Evert and Bill. The boys whipped up two dinners at the apartment and they were well-appreciated by them. Evert even took home the rest of the beef rendang!

I don't know when I will ever be in London again....