ST KATHARINE'S DOCK - LONDON - March 2007

AC Covered with Snow 8.2.07


Grandchildren Amy, Daniel and now Sophie Eleanor


Tony & Raewyn on board AC


Megan, Terry & Lois - Duomo, Milan


Terry and Megan in Milan


Lois, Peter & Mary at Southend-on-Sea


Meagan, Seally & Lois (The Birthday Girl) in Milan


Lois & Ken at Meridian Zero, Greenwich

Well we have been in London now for 4 months – cannot believe where that time has gone!!

More importantly though - on Wednesday the 7th of March we were blessed with a new granddaughter – Sophie Eleanor, 8lb 4oz (still not in the metric system yet!!) born in Auckland. She is so cute! That makes three lovely grandchildren now – and we are told that is it!!

Life continues to be busy for us and naturally we are well into the swing of living in London, enjoying spending time with old and new friends and visiting and revisiting many places!

The days are drawing out now and the temperature is increasing – we cannot believe how lucky we have been to experience such a mild winter – and the last few days have been between 14 and 16 degrees Celsius – sunny and clear blue skies (in March) !! We had cocktail hour this week in the cockpit for the first time since we arrived in England!! Our many visitors constantly remark how fortunate we are to be enjoying suh a unique experience with having our own home in central London, positioned in the tranquil and attractive haven of St Katharine’s Dock! And outside is the hustle and bustle of the city with the many of thousands of tourists every day visiting the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, right next to the marina! Indeed we are in a great place!!

We had a fabulous weekend in Milan with Seally and Megan for my birthday in February. The day we flew to Milan it snowed overnight and we had 5 inches in St Katharine’s – very pretty!! Naturally that caused chaos with the transportation system, however our flight out of Gatwick was only 2 and half hours late! We stayed in a great little boutique hotel, near the Duomo and we walked everywhere. It was cool but really pleasant. Apart from our visit to some great little restaurants the highlight was seeing the ‘Last Supper’ – a truly memorable experience! We had to buy the tickets in advance (on line) so there weren't any queues. Only 25 persons are allowed in the chapel at any one time for 15 minutes so it is very civilised indeed.

We had a fun outing in February when we accompanied Peter and Mary Reeve on their motor boat ‘Blue Tack’ (moored next to us in St Katharine’s) back down the Thames to Wallasea, where they park it for the majority of the time. The journey took around 4 hours, a shorter time than we came up the Thames! It was a lovely sunny cool day with a nice lunch and a few wines - very pleasant! We returned to London by Train but not without having a few drinks at the Wallasea marina and dinner at a great Pub close by!

We have had a couple of lots of visitors in the last month – Terry’s brother Tony and his wife Raewyn who stayed with us for 10 days in the later part of February. We had a very relaxing and fun time with them both and had a little excursion for a couple of days to Henley-on-Thames, Frieth and Oxford – staying with our friends, the Raven’s in Shiplake.

Ken Everett, an old friend from Sydney, who has been in Dubai on business, popped into London to spend the last 4 days with us. In this beautiful weather we have been experiencing, we wandered around Greenwich on Sunday followed by a nice pub lunch. Of course a visit to Greenwich is not complete without a visit to the Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory with a photo of us on the Meridian – Zero Longitude!!! And a little gift to me from Ken – a book called Longitude – about the history of the clockmaker, John Harrison, and his quest to build the clocks for accurate navigation! Ken very kindly took us to the show in West End, "Spamalot "– Monty Python – excellent and very funny!!

Our next lot of guests – Don and Glori Watts from Washington State arrive on Saturday! They have not been to London before so it is going to be a busy and memorable 4 days plus it is Glori’s birthday!!

We are heading back to New Zealand on about the 25th or 26th of March, however via Melbourne for a couple of days so will be there about the 30th of March until approximately the 18th of April. We cannot wait to catch up with family and friends and especially all of our grandchildren, but particularly, little Sophie of course!! While in Auckland we will be staying with Nicole(daughter) and David. Their home telephone number is 09 5200423. We will get a NZ mobile number when we get to NZ.

Once we are back in London our plans are still to depart London on the 9th of May on our way up to Scotland!

Love from the Jolly Rogers
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