Secret Love

Al and Nancy didn't have a big list of must-sees for their London visit, so we did our best to take them around to the places that were on their list, including Big Ben,

as well as the iconic buildings of Westminster. We had a look at Westminster Abbey,
but unfortunately the Queen wasn't using her entrance when we passed by . . .
We made sure our visitors saw some London greenspace, and St. James's Park was a good place to show them how London can do parks very well indeed.
It was another perfect day, and the picnicking throngs (whom we joined) were all over Green Park at lunchtime, making for a very summery scene, albeit in September!
A quick stop at Harrods and we wandered through the neighbourhood, coming across this house with the most amazing twisty chimneys
and another building with these charming entranceways.
We stopped in Chelsea for a bit of a snack, with Nancy and I having coffee and Al and Bob having gooey desserts with their coffee. Al enjoyed his chocolate dessert, but Bob clearly loved his sticky toffee pudding, and even drinking coffee with one hand didn't stop him from eating dessert with the other hand. Notice, too, the look of intense concentration on his face!
Al spotted this fantastic tree in Hyde Park
and when we walked under its dense canopy, Al immediately decided he had to climb the tree, and off he went.
"Okay, now you need to help me get down from here," he said from up in the branches, but managed to make it down himself. He wasn't the first person to bound into the tree, though, since he reported that there was graffiti all the way up the tree.

We exited Hyde Park on the north side,
and headed up to Abbey Road so that Al, the Beatles fan, could get a photo of himself crossing the iconic crosswalk. With that, the day's sightseeing list was done, and we headed to nearby Hampstead for dinner at a gorgeous pub, hidden up in the narrow residential streets.
The Holly Bush is lovely inside, without any music or television to distract from the conversation, and the dim lights (it was actually quite a bit darker inside than these photos suggest), excellent food, and neighbourhood feel made for a perfect last London dinner for Nancy and Al.

The walk back to Hampstead Tube provided great opportunities for peering into the lit windows of the Hampstead elite. This house was particularly nice, and when I took this photo, I noticed one of the home's occupants standing in a window. When he realised I was taking a photo, he discreetly tucked himself behind a wall, so as not to be in the photo:

Although Al and Nancy had spent the day looking around them, taking in the London sights, people, and general feel, by the end of their second day, Al was settling into the skin of a Londoner, joining Bob in perusing the free daily newspapers on the tube ride home:
I have Nancy to thank for these last two photos, since it was her idea to save the empty water bottle from my dinner. Although the front of the bottle is quite posh, with its image of Blenheim Palace,
it's the reverse side of the label (which I almost didn't even read when we were at the Holly Bush) that made the bottle worth saving--when was the last time you found such drama on a water bottle?