Today was our calm day–just two church services, and afternoon tea, a park, and a couple of museums. But somehow our feet are still sore!
We attended All Soul’s for morning services and found it to be a thoroughly Evangelical church, complete with the drum set providing a rock beat to accompany the organ. The second mini-sermon featured a former chaplain for royal marine commandos units who talked about what we can learn from Christians serving in the armed forces. Several good points, and very politically incorrect. We briefly strolled up to Regent’s Park (which was so much prettier than Hyde Park) before heading down Wimpole Street (I picked that route because it sounded so familiar but I couldn’t remember why, other than Arthur Conan Doyle and Elizabeth Barrett Browning whose residences were marked–turns out I was thinking of Henry Higgins–and apparently wikipedia informs me Paul McCartney also lived there). Then we strolled into to a super fancy part of town for afternoon tea at Brown’s Hotel. I stared at Tiffany’s out the window as we stuffed ourselves (very elegantly) on finger sandwiches (okay, we might have had thirds on the coronation chicken ones), scones, pastries, and cake. I took pictures of every course so that the girls and I can reproduce it at home! And the tea was scrumptious, too. I’d been saving up my craigslist and garage sale earnings for months to fund a really fancy afternoon tea to celebrate our anniversary, and this did not disappoint.
Then I totally wore Derek out by dragging him through not only the National Portrait Gallery (which we found pretty fascinating–and we agree the Kate portrait is dreadful) but also the National Gallery. It was next door! They were both free! So convenient! So foolish! Um, yeah, my husband’s art museum limit is about two hours total. Even my feet were aching and my eyes glazing over by the end. Next time we’ll visit them on different days. The National Gallery is.really.big.
We ended our crazy day by attending St Paul’s Cathedral for an evening service commemorating the centennial of Britain’s entry into WWI. We agreed that worshiping in a grand cathedral is sometimes preferable to just going in to sightsee.
Tomorrow is our really busy day–we’re hoping to make every minute of our last day count!