Day 4

We started for coffee at Starbucks - why not?
At 8:30am on a volcanic sunday the streets seemed pretty empty, though there were quite a few folks dragging bags.  More refugees like us.  There was more matter on the cars, but it was hard to tell if it was smoggy stuff, ash, or pollen.


We left the hotel at 2:30pm, after working for a bit and walked down past the park to the Jubilee line.  The great lawn was greatly covered with seas of humanity, all seeking a couple last rays before the ash cloud blotted out the sun (which will happen any day now!).  We got to the station and trundled up towards Rayner's Lane without seeing that the Met Line was down for the day.  At Wembley we took a bus and then at Rayner's, we decided to walk the last 2 miles (not so smart).  Dragging out bags as we went, we certainly looked like refugees!


The hotel is seemingly better than The Barn, but the internet is questionable in the rooms and the high street is less inviting than Ruislip.  The hotel did offer to help us find a laundry service so I am in for that!  When we walked in, the desk clerk just looked at us and said - "Volcano?" and shook her head.




sigh.

Day 3

Well, today being Saturday and being stuck in the city, we went for a walk.
Nord had never been sightseeing in London, so the plan was to show him some sites.


The day dawned bright and breezy and so we set off about 9am for some coffee towards paddington.  Coffee and a bad bagel later, we were traipsing down towards mayfair to show Nord the palatial American Embassy and United called.  I chose not to answer it, as they only ever call with bad news (I later discovered it was indeed that).  


We continued to Green Park, Buckingham Palace*, St. James Park, the color guard at the War Museum (no changing of the guard today at the palace), Big Ben*, the London Eye*, the Globe*, Southwark bridge, Borough Market, Monmouth Coffee+, Tower Bridge and Tower of London*, Bank of England*, the Lloyd's building, the Gerkin*, Ropemaker Square, Fix+ off Old Street, the Bindery (closed and shuttered), Shaftsbury, the whole enitre length of Oxford Street on a Saturday, and then back to the hotel for tea.


[legend: * - tourist shots of Nord; + stops for Coffee ]


We had a soft goat's cheese (Shawley), baguettes, and fresh tomatoes from the Isle of Man for lunch in the plaza by the HMS Belfast on the Thames.


on the way home, down oxford street, into the sun, it was clear that there was a haze and we could no longer ignore the fact that there was a haze over the sun.  The air smelled burnt, but there was no particulate actively falling.  We had to admit, we were not going anywhere soon.


When we got back, I figured we walked 15.5 miles.  After a restorative cuppa tea, I called United back and lo and behold - the first flight now available would be the 22 - thursday, 7 days in.  Our plan may be to hang here until we are done with our work.

Day 2

All flights were canceled for today, but we knew that yesterday. We checked out of our hotel out in the burbs with an eye to being close to the train at Paddington. Everything was filling up fast for the weekend, but we used Priceline to latch on to anything in the area we could afford. Anything.

The only thing we could find was the lowly Hempel – a small 5 star north of the park. After a week at the Barn Hotel in Ruislip where the hot water didn’t work and you had to heat water to shave with in the kettle, where the walls were so thin that the guy snoring next door could be heard with the window’s closed, and where cute fuzzy mice frequented the lobby after the bar closed, the Hempel was going to be an unfortunate step down. The staff was quite pleasant when we checked in, though you could see they kind of looked down at us – at all of us refugees that were checking in.

I checked flights tonight – the first Saturday flight is already canceled. That means the first Sunday flight back is as well.

Still no particulate.

Day 1 Thursday April 14

Our flights were canceled today. All flights were canceled today. The UK airspace was shutdown and nothing came in or went out. It did remind me a lot of 2001 in that you could stand outside and there was nothing going over. Then I was at home under the landing approach to MHT and 5 times a day, I missed the sound of the airplanes that flew over. Today we were staying in Ruislip on the final approach to Heathrow and the 1 plane every 5 minutes was missing.

It was clear today and breezy. I expected a grey snow, but nothing fell.

The first flight we could get out was to be Sunday afternoon. Sunday, if and only if the planes flew in on Saturday.