Monday - 13th December 2021

Today is the last day of our mini-break to London.

I didn’t sleep all that well as the hotel room is just too warm. Nothing really that can be done, as it’s just our house is quite cold as it’s so old!

I got up at 7am and went for a jog around nearby Hyde Park. There wasn’t much of a sunrise as it was cloudy.  There was a mix of cyclists going to work, people walking their dogs and runners. As I got about halfway around, a mist came over the park and it began to rain. It didn’t last too long, and had finished by the time I had made it full circle back to the start. I saw a queue of people waiting to go swimming in the lake.

The traffic had picked up comepared to earlier as I jogged back to the hotel. On the way back I stopped off at the coffee shop we had visted yesterday. It wasn’t too busy and I had a bit of a chat with the staff working there. They remember me from yesterday, it must have been the penguin face mask.

I sat at the counter for a bit as I was in no particular rush. I had a very nice flat white. The creamy milk was a nice treat after going for the run. By now, various people had come and gone for their coffees, and the staff seemed to take pride in trying to remember what the regular customers orders were.

I picked up lunch; a sandwhich for me and a salad for Kathryn. Then I headed back to the room. We had a nice breakfast together (cookie/cake and coffee) before getting ready.

We had planned to go to the Natural History Museum, but we had done so much walking in the past few days that I didn’t feel up to it. It did mean though that we had ample time to round up all our things and pack them into our luggage cases.

We left dead on 12 noon which was the check-out time. A minor improvement seemed to be that this is now done remotely. All you have to do is just text a number when you leave the room, and leave the keycards in the room. Makes sense to me.

Travelling on the Underground was uneventful and we went to St Pancreas to wait for our train. I had visted during my day trip to Keith’s funeral earlier in the year. As it is the Eurostar terminal, there is quite a few shops and places to eat.

We then popper across to Kings Cross and sat in the first class lounge for a bit where it was warmer. Our train was on time and we left promptly at half past two.