I WOULD WALK 500 MILES...

OK. So if I said that we have walked the whole of London, you'd think that I was exaggerating, but it's NOT an exaggeration AT ALL. On Saturday, when we arrived, our FREAKING awesome hosts, Neil, (pictures to follow when we're home), picked Robert and I up from the aiport and took us to their great home in Sutton (which is on the southwest side of London). After meeting their children (Oscar, Callum, and Elspeth), we had a FAN-TAS-TIC meal with them, and then believe it or not, stayed up until one in the morning and played board games! Can you believe that - halfway around the world and what do we do? The SAME thing we'd do at home with our friends! It was great! A great way to just be back with Robert and begin our stay in London.

On Sunday, we went to church at the Vineyard Sutton, where we heard yet another Pastor Jason talk about SLOWing down and enjoying life. After that, back to the house for what might just have been the most FAN-TAS-TIC cookout ever. Seriously, it was great! We hung around with folks from at least three countries while gnoshing on some great food, drinks and games (again, pictures to follow, and well, the games might have been more Robert than me)...and then headed off to meet London.

I don't know what to say except that London played our host and that the highlight of the evening was to be the promised highlight of my trip to London: Queen Mary's Garden (I'll tell you more about the other sights and sounds in another post). Robert had mentioned this garden when we first met, and said that people in C'bus compared the Whetstone Roses to it! so of course, I had to see how completely ridiculous that was. So, we trekked across London on tube, bus, train, and foot for what felt like hours to find this garden (knowing full well that the payoff would be worth it) only to get there just at twilight (optimum viewing time as Robert said)...take four steps into the park, and then find out that the park is closing and have to leave! ARGH!!!! UGH!!!! So at the point, we had to leave the park we'd come so far to see, and of course, we hadn't eaten! so we went to look for dinner, but we couldn't decide on anything, so after hours of searching for some sustinence, we decided that we just needed to go home...back to Sutton...and so we did...rolling into town around midnight. I was SOOO tired I could hardly move.

Of course the next day, we repeated the entire thing, only we started earlier in the day! and packed MORE into the day! There was so much MORE to see in London than we'd seen the day before! More to DO! And it was great, seriously... Only this time, towards the end of the day, we made a point to head towards the park earlier so that we could get in before it closed.

It's a good thing, too.

Because apparently that's where Robert had planned to propose the entire time.