Spring blossoms!

Longhaul flying is so desperately boring - not to mention uncomfortable, but I survived and the flight landed at Heathrow within about 2 minutes of scheduled arrival time. My pretty turquoise and lime green Kathmandu bag did it's sore thumb impression on the belt and a quick trip into a disabled toilet (no not the toilet, the users!)gave me secure space to do the moneybelt thing with my passport and some of my cash. I also layered on a few clothes, it was 4 degrees C in London at 6am today, but a beautiful, clear and sunny morning. Heathrow Airport didn't disappoint, it is as soulless as ever, but the double shot latte from the cafe was good, and very welcome, I needed caffeine and the coffee on the plane was vile - undrinkable!
I took the Picadilly line train into London and was excited to see spring blossoms in tbe backyards of houses the trainline passed. The I had a bit of an adventure on the way to my hotel on Bayswater road.
It's several decades, well all right, 35 years, since I was last in London and I caught the wrong train out of Earls Court to get up to Bayswater. (Up, as it's up on the tube map) It was easy enough to catch a train back to Earls Court and ensure that I caught the correct train up the District line to Bayswater Station, then join the numerous other visitors/travellers, trundling baggage along Bayswater Road. Time to enjoy the sunshine and people watch.
Of course my room wasn't ready at 9.30 am, so I deposited said colourful bag at the hotel and legged it onto Oxford street to my previously planned destination of the O2 shop to buy my micro-sim for local calls, texts and lots of data, then a pret-a-manger lunch and a stroll back to hotel, through bits of Hyde Park.
When one is young... there is a high degree of obliviousness to place. My hotel is just down the road from Clarendon Gardens where one of the Georgian Dukes had a grand house - the gardens are, of course locked, and available to residents only - just across the Road from Hyde Park, where there were people out riding on Rotten Row this morning as they have done for centuries. Not for them the jeans and crash hat of a Kiwi out exercising the horse, these were in hacking jackets and regulation colour jodphurs, as you might expect. Lots of people also, running, with children - lots of strollers (or pushchairs, if you will). On my walk back from Oxford Street, through the park, I passed delightful beds of massed pansies, with colour-coordinated tulips growing through them. I'll take photos tomorrow, weather permitting, it is the UK after all!
Lovely surprise when I entered my bijou room at 63 - the Soroptimists Club Hotel (no I'm not a member, its open to all) My room looks west over Hyde Park. i'll post a pic tomorrow. A room with a view! I'll post a pic tomorrow.
The welcome and much anticipated hot shower was followed by a much needed kip, then a bit of general messing about - too much time wasting, by the time I was ready for dinner dinner was off so I nicked a couple of weetabix and some fruit from the already laid out breakfast buffet, I'm going to be pretty hungry by Breakfast time!
Now time to take the sleeping pill and get some sleep before the northern hemisphere day arrives. Perhaps my brain will have caught up a bit more by then.