Gardens and Beatles and Holmes, oh my!

In direct opposition to yesterday, we packed in quite a few famous London sites today.  On days like these, it's almost impossible for me to choose a larger theme to discuss.  But we'll see where the winds take us.

Teehee, see what I did there?  We began the day determined to beat the rain and fly our kites at Primrose Hill, just like the Banks children did at the end of Mary Poppins.  The wind was promising, but the group had mixed results in kite-flying.  Mine was a homemade kite in this fashion - it liked spinning in the air much more than floating.  I'm not sure if it needed an extra tail, more tail length, or a cross-bar for support.  Either way, the poor thing succumbed to the weather when it did start to rain (the marker started to bleed, so I had to throw it away).

Big pawprint in honor of Wishbone, and there are book titles written around it.  I had to step on my kite to keep it from blowing away.

Next stop, Regent's Park to take pictures of flowers.  Oh my, the roses!  So beautiful - I certainly thought of my dear friends with a special devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux , aka the Little Flower.

 The only children's book with a garden connection I could talk about is The Secret Garden, but I'm still hoping to get my pictures from Kylemore Abbey up in a post.  I'll save it for then.

From Regent's Park, it was on to Abbey Road - that's right, Abbey Road.  The Beatles recorded the album of that name at Abbey Road Studios, and they just took a walk outside for the album cover.  The crosswalk is a special kind in the UK called a zebra crossing.  It's mandatory for cars to stop for pedestrians in a zebra crossing.  Well, let me tell you, cars are not so happy to stop at Abbey Road while you recreate the Beatles famous picture.  We were trying to get all 12 of us in a single picture, and an ambulance impolitely told us to shove off with his siren.  (Actually, if you click here, the Abbey Road Studios has a live camera feed of the crossing.  Click on the archives, go to July 11 at 2:27pm and you can watch it - hilarious.)


From there, we were free to go where we liked.  A few of us took the opportunity to make the short trip to the infamous 221b Baker Street - home to the (fictional) consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes!

This is the Baker Street underground station - Sherlock is everywhere here!

The "museum" was just a flat turned into period-style rooms filled with mystery-related items and trinkets. I just started reading the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories myself, but I've loved the movie and TV adaptations.  I started with the first on my Kindle, A Study in Scarlet, which I found quite thrilling indeed.  Not quite expecting the second part where the story moves to Salt Lake City and the Mormon settlement, but hey, it worked in the end!  I will definitely be returning to Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson in the near future.


Tomorrow - OXFORD!