Arrival in the UK

Friday morning, December 6, 2019, we arrived in London.   It was a flight of 9 ½ hours from San Francisco and fortuitously a smooth flight.  A couple of advisories from the cockpit to fasten our seatbelts and prepare for turbulence did not amount to anything of concern.  It was raining when the plane landed at Heathrow.  We rode up the M40 in our Hackney carriage and next, we arrived at our flat.

Our new home is a basement flat in Kensington, three blocks from Kensington High Street.  Spatially, the flat is quirky in a good way; however the furniture consists of pieces chosen for their ability to withstand pet damage rather than comfort.  There is a spacious backyard, that no one has access to but us, which should be a wonderful thing in the spring.

Ah London! There are people and cars everywhere, every second, barreling at you, unapologetically. People, as a group, appear to be pushy, rude or indifferent.  I guess that what happens sharing a space with some 9 million people.  However, individually, people appear to be receptive and helpful.  Vehicles have the right of way and this makes for an exceedingly frightful situation when crossing a street. 

London, of course, has a long and rich history, and reminders of this fact are everywhere you look.   The Whole Foods on Kensington High Street, a few blocks from our flat, is situated in a magnificent and distinctive 1930s art deco building which, until only a few decades ago, was the home of the Barkers Department Store.   This Whole Foods, by the way, takes up three large floors, and is the most amazing Whole Foods I have ever encountered.  All the food, including trays of traditional mince pies, is displayed as if it were fine art.  Everywhere you walk in the neighborhood of Kensington is evocative architecture and inviting restaurants.  The narrower side-streets and mews lanes are particularly delightful with beautiful brick Victorian homes, sometimes surrounding delightful private, collectively-owned gardens. I feel as if I could spend an entire year just exploring this neighborhood.

Luna arrived in London on a different flight, a few hours after us, and she was detained at Heathrow for several hours over an unpaid fee. She is getting used to her new accommodations, but the voyage and the new environment left her looking initially weak and forlorn.  Normally very vocal, she barely made a sound since her arrival but, happily, that is beginning to change.  We are all acclimating.  So much seems familiar and so much seems strange.

I have begun this blog in English, but as I resume my study of the French language, I will begin to write mostly in French, mostly for myself. This blog, then, is mostly for myself but I hope you will enjoy my observations and photographs.  Welcome to my odyssey!