London Day Three

I awoke to Jim's voice, "Mary, breakfast is over in 15 minutes!" We hadn't set an alarm and slept till 9:15 a.m. Breakfast was the same as yesterday: buffet style scramble eggs, sausage, corn flakes (Jim partook), canned fruit cocktail and juices. It strikes us as a "typical" American breakfast from 40 years ago. Except the sausage is different than anything I've eaten, and not in a particularly good way: fluffy, almost, a foam of fat, says Jim. But, breakfast comes with the room and starts our day off with warm tummies. We think we'll skip the sausage tomorrow.
We took a "londonwalks.com" tour of Westminster Abbey. Gillian, the tour guide was great: informative and witty. The Abbey is beautiful. The fan vaulting on the ceiling of the Lady's Chapel is incredible: lacey ribs that look like ladies' ball gowns swirling. Jim bought me a small book, "The Royal Line of Succession." It takes me back to my youth and love of all things historical and royal.
We walked across Westminster Bridge, right next to the Houses of Parliment, complete with a bagpiper. We recreated the scene from Hook when Toodles flies to Neverland at the end of the movie. Well, without the pixie dust.
Then we caught the 148 bus, one of the new double-deckers, and sat up above, of course. I watched for the premium front seats to free up, but they did only one at a time, so we continued to sit together and rode past Victoria Station and the back of Buckingham Palace Gardens, which was all stone wall and barbed wire and trees from the Grosvenor Place side. We skirted the north side of Hyde Park, got off at Notting Hill Gate, and found a Tesco grocery store. It was very centering for me to be in a real grocery store - it puts me in my element. We bought Cornish scones and rhubarb-vanilla yogurt. There were no shopping carriages, only plastic baskets, no parking lot, and no Russian speaking cashiers. (Hi, Sam!) After a few days in a hotel area, it was nice to find a place that sells bread and groceries.
Back outside on the streets, I was puzzling with my map when a friendly man asked if we needed help. He had a book in his hand about a musician's trip through the south and south west (Memphis, Amarillo, Phoenix, etc.) He directed us to Portobello Road. The market is only on Friday and Saturday, but we walked down the road with the haunting tune from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," in our heads. In 2001 we were there on a market day and bought some British edition Harry Potter books. The facades were brightly colored stucco: pink and blue and yellow. They reminded me of St. Croix colors.
Looking for a place to sit down and eat our scones, I steered us to Pembridge Square, which had a wrought iron fence all around. I asked a passer-by how to get in. It's a private garden, it turns out. She offered to unlock the gate for us, "but how would you get out?" So, we chatted with her. She's Greek and came to Oxford about 25 years ago. She loves Notting Hill, but thinks it has gone to tourists too much and lost some of its charm.
The yogurt was mildly rhubarb, the scones were good, but, oh! for a microwave in our room! I don't know where we would fit it...