What’s this all about then?

Angie and I recently went on holiday to the northern lands. Admittedly, living in South Africa one would need to visit Antarctica to visit southern lands. We had no choice but to head north. We kept going north until the plane landed at Heathrow, London.

My tale of Europe and Associated Islands is broken into a number of parts because I have much to say, and internet readers are given indigestion by significant chunks of reading material.
It helps when the words are nicely broken up by pictures. I will apply pictures to the equation and hope to keep the readership entertained.
We visited three cities (London, Budapest, and Edinburgh) but used one of them as base camp (London) from which we launched our other excursions. Expect a slightly non-linear tale as I relate this Tale of Three Cities, ordered by city.
Do not expect any further intentional references to the works of Charles Dickens. I detest Dickens.

London

People in London are in quite a hurry. I’m not entirely certain why, but it is quite clear that they are. They must have heartless corporate cutbacks to implement, or corporate slave duties to perform, or some other very important tasks that cannot wait a moment to be polite.
It should be clear by now that London isn’t my favourite place and us going there to visit friends hinged on us going somewhere else that wasn’t London. Yet, meeting up with absent friends is always good, and is so good that even the inherent blerghness of London could not sour it.

Our base camp in London was at Wendy and Saul’s place, and the day after we arrived (and recovered from the flight) Wendy organised a social gathering of all the humans we know, living in London (or who happened to be be there at the time). This gathering is best illustrated with a photo essay of sorts from the balcony of their place:

Angie snaps one of (from left) Frances, Rachelle, Lisa, and Wendy (and herself, reflected in the glass of the door). Complaints regarding your appearance to be addressed to the photographer.
Neil snaps Angie, Rob and Lisa. There is also a good view of Wendy and Saul’s rather deformed gas heater on the left.

Unknown photographer includes Michael and Neil (an other previously mentioned persons)

Louise with malformed heater-head as a hat

Long exposure after sunset with camera balanced on the balcony ledge.

Alas, late-comers were not included in the photo-shoot (people like Jocelyn and Saul). They were there. Honest. Scott was also there, but who was Scott? Who indeed (his knee is actually in one of the photos). Rachelle summoned him for torture at the hands of her friends. Most unsporting of her.
The evening proceeded late into the night, with a impromptu dinner at an Indian restaurant (London practically is a part of India) followed by dancing festively (and Saul’s traditional shooter generosity) at a nearby London cocktail bar. I haven’t danced like that for ages and it was good because it was holiday and I didn’t care.

I cared the next morning when it was necessary to get up, pack, and catch a flight to Budapest having only clambered into bed at 3am. Almost five hours sleep was woefully inadequate, but somehow we survived.

Next time on waffle group:

Join us again next time for the Hungarian leg of the holiday or possibly more of London, or arbitrarily a slice of Edinburgh. That non-linear story-line is quite a kicker.
I might even ignore it altogether and rant about the lack of pavements in South African cities (they have plenty of pavements in London).