Twinings Tea Shop

I’m afraid I was a bit of a wet blanket yesterday morning, but by afternoon ready to venture out again. We decided to give the bus a try with the Oyster cards, and so went careening down the incredibly congested streets in the top front seat  of a double decker, watching the constant string of near misses.

The Londoners are fearless jaywalkers, weaving through traffic witthin an inch of lives. The tourists and senior citizens are the only ones who obey the walk/don’t signs, and even those can be tricky as the traffic is approaching from the “wrong” direction. The city has thoughtfully written on the sidewalk which way to look before crossing.

Anyway, we rode about 20 minutes to The Strand, past the Royal Justice Courts which looked like a giant palace. This is the home of the notorious Old Bailey where the high crimes are tried. Our area of town is  the finance types, the Strand is full of groups of barristers riding around in expensive cabs. Our destination was Twings Tea Shop, which has been in this location for 300 years. (Think about that, Americans.) We like Twings tea, so of course bought some. You can even buy tea by the bag and I grabbed a handful of chamomile for my stomach.

We boarded the bus again for Trafalger square to have a quick look at the giant lions. From there we found an Underground station back home. Dinner was a sad affair with crackers and packaged soup- we honestly couldn’t find anything nearby that wasn’t about fried food. Maybe it was the chamomile tea, but I slept like a rock last night and feel fully recovered. We’re thinking of Buckingham palace and the Tate Britain. A full day in the rain.