The house at the sea and last night in London

Lizzie's cousin and his partner (two of the most fabulous, generous, and wonderful people) took us to their house in Whitstable. It was two days of decadent indulgence and comfortable relaxation. We ate and drank and ate and drank (etc). I did laundry and hung it all out in the garden to dry. We walked by the sea and ate fresh oysters that tasted like the sea. I slept in a huge bed with clean white sheets. It was the first time in almost 3 weeks that I had slept in a comfortable bed in a room alone. It was an extraordinary luxury compared to the lodgings from the past few nights (3-tiered cubby-hole hostel bunk beds with curtains as your only form of privacy). We woke up relaxed, I helped water the plants and then it was back to the city.

Driving through London was essentially like playing a video game (you never knew when someone or something was going to swerve into your lane out of nowhere). It was really nice to see much more of London than we had, albeit through the window of a car.

We spent the evening on the north side of the city in Highgate. At one point we were ushered out of a park by a man riding in a small car ringing a handbell. Everything in England is just so quaint!