Europe 2008 Part 3

 Strolling around Bloomsbury 

 

These were squirrels playing on the lawn behind the Cathedral one time we walked past. Very cute to us but a nuisance to some!

 

On the other side of the square, near the front entrance, was a Marks and Spencers' mini-supermarket where we shopped while in that area. We remember having to queue up with a number and wait until the queue got smaller, then your number was called.

 

 

 

 

  

 

We had arranged to meet acquaintances from New Plymouth, Kirsty MacDiarmid, and her partner, Vaughan, at a cute pub with the Thames River just below. They had been working in London for several years. Margaret worked with Kirsty's mother, Lindy, (a physiotherapist) a few years before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

And we took the underground to the part of London where my Gaze ancestors had lived before they left for Auckland in 1859.

 

This photo shows the corner of Bedford Row, with houses presumably rebuilt after war damage. This is just south of the British Museum.

 

The streets around the house where the Gazes lived, Hyde Street, were demolished soon after they left so that New Oxford Street could connect Oxford Street to High Holborn.

 

The neighbourhood to the south, St Giles, was a notorious slum, so at the same time the authorities managed to get rid of a nuisance, in the form of an area which was a hotbed of criminal activity!

 

 

We called at a café on the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road for our morning coffee (or water!), and here is Margaret enjoying her water, in the sunshine, with her recently purchased linen bag with a design of the British flag on the front.

 

The trains weren't running on that Saturday afternoon for some reason, so after exploring the streets of London, we had to find the right bus to ride back to our hostel.