The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

I have been trying to collect a list of places to try when friends and family come to town, but I have only managed to jot a few of them down. Here is my list so far…. just in case you are coming to town soon.

Pubs

1. The Blackfriar pub: (also see some Architectural Info)  (this one is smoke free)
   174 Queen Victoria Street, Blackfriars, London, EC4V 4EG
   Tube Stop: Blackfriar
2. Bank of England pub
   194 Fleet Street, Holborn, London, EC4A 2LT
   Tube Stop: Temple / Chancery Lane
3. The Dove (in Hammersmith, so it is close to home) 
   19 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London, W6 9TA
   Tube Stop: Ravenscourt Park

Restaurants

1. Levant (Middle Eastern – it reminds me of Dubai and is a cool hangout)
   Jason Court, 76 Wigmore Street, London W1
   Tube Stop: Bond Street

Areas

1. The Cotswolds  (an area where Bath and other places are)
2. Brighton (beach town South of London)
3. The Lakes District

Back in April I captured a short video of a guy playing the blues. Watch and listen here on MSN Soapbox. There were also magicians and other people performing stuff.. it was a nice sunny weekend day, so it was a perfect time for street performers to be out. Usually when I ride the tube I also hear some good music, and occasionally I hear some really bad music, but thankfully I usually like what I hear and often slow down to listen; and if I have some spare change, I toss a few coins to the person. A few pence or quid for some good music is well worth it.  

Last night we saw a guy perform all 3 of the first Star Wars movies all by himself. He had some funny parts, but he could have stopped after the first one. The pictures are of Lorie with Boba Fet (spelled wrong I’m sure) and Anne with a Storm Trooper.

Parts of the District line runs above ground. This is the train heading to Wimbleton over the Putney train bridge.

Last night, Saturday night, there were fireworks shows all over London. We went with friends to the Battersea Fireworks Display at Battersea Park. Last year there were 250,000 people at this fireworks show, but last year was the 400th anniversary. There were a lot of people there this year too though. Afterwards we went to the Prince Albert pub, which is just outside the entereance of the park. There was even a good band playing jazz/blues/rock that night.

You can read about Guy Fawkes at http://www.guy-fawkes.com/, but basically people celebrate either his attempt, or failure (I’m not sure which) to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.  

And yes, it was a very good fireworks show. We got there too late for the bonfire though – it was only about 8 feet tall when we got there and we were told that it was about 30 feet tall at one point.

Today Milo and I had another long walk the both sides of the River Thames between the Putney Bridge into the Hammersmith Bridge. Here are my photos, but someone else took the same walk and posted better ones here: http://www.urban75.org/london/thames.html 

How could our sweet dog have challenges? Well, he is a adolescent, which means he is very hyper. This might not be a problem if we lived on a farm with 1000 acres for him to run on, but we live in London. Today we had him go out with Ed (a dog walker sort of guy) who really likes Milo. Ed takes dogs for the day and always takes them to a park to let the dogs run and run and run. Usually Ed takes care of small dogs, but also has a lab of his own. Today on Milo’s "test run" with Ed, he (Milo) proceeded to push the small dogs around by trying to play with them in his own (rough) way and proceeded to break two ribs on the lab. Needless to say, Milo can’t go back to hang out with Ed and his lab. We do have a place on a farm about 2 hours South of London that he can go to, but we’d like a closer alternative too. So for now we get to keep looking for places to take care of Milo.