Since I’ve traveled to London a number of times it was wonderful to wake up and pretend as though I live in London. Theresa and I headed to Burrough Market near the London Bridge where we’d visited a month or two ago and had amazing foods and seen amazing sites. We got our brownie and carrot cake and only then headed to eat a meal at a fun Spanish Tapas restaurant with sidewalk seating to watch the throngs of locals cramming into the pubs and market.
One of my favorite things to do in London is take a walk along the Thames. It is one of the best ways to see the sites of London. Each time it brings back fond memories of past trips with my friend including Bos and Sophia as well as remembering a particularly fun, and cold walk with my colleagues Ed and Doug while here on business. So Theresa and I stretched our legs and walked back to her apartment on the South side of the river. A good enough walk to get us ready for our next meal that evening at the Guinea Grill, a restaurant that was opened in 1645 in Mayfair. We had a wonderful time with the exception of the white pepper that we thought was salt and continued to put on all of our food until our throats were burning!
Sunday Theresa and I saw that London weather was continuing with rain and a cold wind but we decided to not let that keep us in and decided to go visit Windsor Castle. A friend and I had recently spoken about the fact that once you’ve been to a castle they all start to look quite similar. The coat of arms, the turrets, the tapestries and the plethora of portraits of old royals. This trip proved my thought process wrong.
Windsor Castle was amazing! We took the train from Paddington Station in London to Windsor and walked up the hill in the rain. The audio tour took us around the property and into the castle. It was truly a site to see with all of the items mentioned prior but in absolutely amazing splendor. I suppose the fact that the Windsors still occupy the castle makes it a special example of a castle.
The town of Windsor is a magical little English town. I thought a lot of my friend and boss Marcia who passed away a year ago. She and her husband Joseph had spent time living and working in Windsor and it added to the visit to know that the two of them spent many happy days in the same places. Though her portrait wasn’t hanging in the castle I could certainly picture her smiling face enjoying where her life had taken her.
Unfortunately I was also thinking of Marcia for other reasons. I’d received word that a colleague and friend Ann Sullivan had been killed in the early morning on Saturday in New York when she and a friend, who also died, were struck by a taxi. Ann, was a wonderful person who never was too busy to stop and ask how you were, always with a smile on her face. I gave much thought to her passion for life and how she’d spent much time in other parts of the world. I asked Marcia to welcome Ann. Theresa and I continued to talk about the fact that this was again reason to live life to its fullest, as both Marcia and Ann clearly had.
