Cheri Returns to London to complete her assignment - Oct 2010

After the last week in London together, Cheri and John returned to the US together. A week later, Cheri was back in London for to complete her assignment while John stayed in the US.

The 2 weeks flew by as had the last 2 years. There were lunches at Middle Temple, dinners at various scrumptious locales, and over night stays. A big thanks to Greg and Liz for their hospitality! There were fond farewells from her mates. There was a night of photography with her photo buddies and finally there was the leaving do.

The leaving do was at Champagne Charlie's, a wine bar located in the Arches between Viller's Street and Northumberland. The party was wonderful, the gifts 'spot on', and many of Cheri's pals turned up for one last drink and one last story. Steve had a gap in his schedule and came to tip a glass and tell some stories. It's a night that Cheri won't soon forget as memories were relived and new memories were made.  The night made her realize even more, if that is possible, how special 2 years it had truly been.

There are really no goodbye's forever, just goddbye's for now. Both John and Cheri hope they see their London mates soon, but rest assured that they will forever have a place in our hearts.
John & Cheri

The last day Living Large in London - take 2

And here we are, leaving London for the last time as expats.   Even the airplane seemed reluctant to let us leave...it took an extra 40 minutes on the ground deciding whether we could leave, or not.  In the end we trundled onto the long Heathrow runway and up, up and away we've now gone.

It was a grey and blustery day in London.  Again, as if the city was saying I'm gonna be grim if you really do leave me behind.  For our last full day, we had sun and wind.  We thought a lot about this last day.  What do you do on the very last day, do you repeat favorite haunts or do you take one more exploratory venture into the unknown.  Well knowing us you might expect it was the later and you'd be right.

The Queen generously opens her working palace to the public for 2 months each year.  We were in luck, it was September 25th and Buckingham Palace was scheduled to be open until October 1st.  So after striking off for Leicester Square to try our luck for the elusive Mamma Mia, which we scored big on, but that comes later...we wound our way through the back streets finally ending up at Trafalgar Square and to the Mall.

We tried to enter a little upstream of Admiralty Arch, but we were met by a woman with a squeaking radio who informed us that the Mall was closed at the minute because filming was in progress for Johnny English 2.  Well that was something to deter our steady progress to the palace.  We scampered up Pall Mall instead until we could once again rejoin the Mall and get an eyeball on the action.  We were in luck, it was actually quite easy to get very close.  The film crew was setup with a camera truck.  The actors were down near the arch and we were at the first junction into St. James park. 

With a 400mm lens, not all that far at all.  So we stood and watched and waited.  All of the sudden the camera truck, which had a long boom camera in front, wrung into action and roared forward to where a mini went screaming around the center of the Mall in a fast U-Turn.  A police car came flying from no where and all the actors ran in.  All in all  the filming probably captured about 30 seconds of action, but it took at least 20 minutes to film.  So now that we'd seen it, we thought they will do it again.  We got positioned and sure enough they did it again!  This time we shot it.  

Once satisfied with the images we started back down the Mall to see if we could get tickets to see the State Rooms. As is often the case in Warren's World, we were in luck.  We queued up in typical British fashion and got our tickets.  We sincerely hope that the monarchy lives for ever in Britain.  There is nothing quite like it in the world and the British people are richer for having it.  Seeing the rooms where the Queen and staff work, entertain, and live was truly impressive.  It's the largest working palace in the world.

At the end of the tour your are turned loose on the Gardens where the famous garden parties take place each year.  They have a cafe set up and by this tie it was about 2:30pm. We decided to tuck in.  Ham and cheese sandwiches followed by the most scrumptious pastries we'd had in a long while.  And of course a cup of tea!

We strolled out of the gardens at a leisurely pace just enjoying the beauty of the place.  Once back onto the street we re-entered the real world.  From that tranquil setting we were destined to ruin the mood quickly by foraging at John Lewis on Oxford Street.  Crowded, packed, wall to wall people barely begins to describe Oxford street on a sunny Saturday.  We squeaked into John Lewis, grabbed the pillows we needed, and then began the long walk back to Marylebone.  Whew - made it and a nap was in order.

We quickly dressed and headed into Picadilly Circus for the long awaited performance of Mamma Mia!  We'd talked about going for the whole 2 years we'd lived in London, but hadn't made it.  So that day when we waltzed into Leiscester Square at noon, we thought we'd have little chance of procuring tickets to this often  sold out phenomenon.  Alas, our luck held and we scored row M!  As we went into the theatre that night we we're hoping for good seats, but were most impressed not only with the location, but the seats themselves. For you who often go to theatre, you know that most seats are not comfortable and there is very rarely any room for your knees.  Imagine our delight when not only was there leg room, but the seats had built in lumber support!  The performance was worth the wait and the whole audience was on it's feet for the last 3 numbers!  Joy at being alive and at having had the chance to live in this glorious city!

We finished the night with a night cap at the Albernach, a wonderful Scottish bar known for it's vast and varied whiskey offerings.  We stuck to our usual G and Ts. John had a Tanquery10 and tonic.  The Scottish waiter talked Cheri into trying a Scottish gin, Carnon.  It was yummy and comes with slices of green apple designed to bring out the apple blush highlights.  So one final perfect day was had....