Gloria!

Picking up where I was too tired to go further last night...so back to Saturday evening. We were last seen clambering out of a taxi in front of Westminster Abbey at 4:30 so we could queue up for the 5:00 Evensong--which had a full house.

We ended up sitting in the front, up next to the chancel--but at least we could get a partial view of the choir. The service was lovely, and of course the choir sounded terrific.

You might recognize this altar if you watched the recent coronation of King Charles (whom I met about 40 years ago, but that's not this story).

After the service, Cindy and I headed to St. James's Park hoping to see the King's swans at least (you do know, right, that the swans are the property of the monarch?). Because we walk at the Richmond Marina almost every day, we were interested in seeing whatever water birds might be at the park's pond. We hit the jackpot and saw a number of birds with which we were unfamiliar. But with the help of Cornell University's bird app, we were able to ID everything we saw! Here are some of them:

This guy just stood in the park with birdseed in both hands and these rose-ringed parakeets would just settle on his arms and eat from his hands. The entire flock of these (obviously) non-native birds seems totally accustomed to humans.

This is the Egyptian Goose. The goslings are about the cutest things we've ever seen.

Another view of the Egyptian Goose. Clearly the goslings lose their cuteness once grown.

Barnacle Goose, which is much more handsome than this poor photo indicates.

The Graylag Goose is everywhere, far outnumbering the Canada Goose--and much prettier, I think. What I especially love about this goose is that the eyes are rimned by the same color as the bill and feet.

We also did manage to see one swan.

Our stroll through the park brought us to Buckingham Palace, which was much easier to see than the day before during the Changing of the Guard. To liven things up a bit, someone was proselytizing right in front of those gigantic gates. It's somehow reassuring to see that the UK has its share of evangelists--and protestors, a group of which had set up camp on Whitehall Street.

Tired of walking, Cindy and I headed for our second pub of the day. This time it was St. Steven's Tavern right near Westminster Bridge. Had a bit of dinner then headed back to our place. On the way we finally encountered the neighborhood businesses that we knew must be around the area where we were staying.

Sunday, we started in a quite leisurely manner and headed off to breakfast in the same 'hood we'd found the night before. Met up with Cindy's best friend from her college days, Betty Power, for the morning service at Temple Church, which was the site of the Magna Charta negotiations. The Temple Church was established in the early 1100s by the Knights Templar. It's simple and beautiful and the acoustics are astounding. A choir of 11 sounded like a much larger group with beautiful resonance and every word clearly articulated.

There was much to marvel at in this place in addition to the Magna Charta history, but I’ve chosen this one stained glass window as my big "WOW." If you enlarge the image, you'll better see what enchanted me.

The dome of the Round Church (a specific, and the oldest, section of the church) is also worthy of note:

It should also be noted that this church lost its entire roof and many of its windows during the WWII blitz --as did so many of London's historically important buildings. It is amazing to me that you can almost not imagine that damage, the restorations have been done so carefully and meticulously, and with such adherence to the original buildings.

After the service, the three of us went to--where else??--a pub, but not just any pub. Cindy and I had so thoroughly fallen in love with the Blackfriar Pub that we just had to return to see more of it. Lunch and the conversations were excellent, but the interior of that place is simply overwhelming. Some photos to add to what I posted the other day:

The rest of the afternoon we wandered around the city and checked out Covent Garden, where we watched a very animated group of string players charm their audience with their antics as well as their fiddling expertise:

A stop at the Southbank Centre for a glass of wine and some street food and we parted ways, Betty to return to her home in Cambridge and Cindy and me to prepare for taking off in the morning for York.

So...another day, another city. As we leave London, I'll sign off with a few more dragon images:

Ssorry; actually only one dragon image--but yet another fearsome fish instead.

Tomorrow, a report on our all-too-swift visit to York--and our first of many train rides!

By the way, if you haven't yet discovered the mobile app for Wix (Spaces by Wix), you might want to join our blog via that. All you need to do is scroll all the way down on our Wix site till you see the box to enter your email address. Do that and then click Submit now, or Joi. Now, or whatever that says...