Back home in London?

We collected our mound of luggage and headed for the airport tube. We counted on taking the Piccadilly line direct to Kings Cross, no changes. Were foiled by the cancellation of all Piccadilly underground trains between Heathrow and Hammersmith. Got on an Elizabeth line train instead. That line didn't exist when I lived in London before. It was built not too long before the Queen died. It was new and shiny but it meant changing trains in the middle of rush hour with two trunk-sized suitcases, two carry-on cases, two heavy backpacks and another case of books and written notes. (Barry keeps on saying "You should see what we left behind!")

By the time we got to Kings Cross, we were too exhausted to do anything but take our three big bags to the station left luggage, much too tired to register the attendant's disbelief when we said OK to £28 per bag per day for three days.

Back on the tube, Picadilly line, change at South Kensington for the District line (no lifts! no escalators!! long staircases with heavy bags!!!). Off at Parson's Green. Walk to our little hotel just three block down the Old King's Road from where I lived as a Londoner. Our room on the third floor, no lift. Somebody else carried our bags. Best dinner for months, delicate and interesting and most of all tasty, then upstairs to bed and instant blackout during the first couple of minutes of Yellowstone.

That ended my first day back home in London. Home again near Eel Brook Common and 8 Kempson Road, SW6.

Next day we decide to stay on in Fulham until the end of the week, at the same time translating pounds to dollars and realising with horror that we're stuck with paying $157 a day for luggage storage. Back on the tube to Kings Cross, this time changing at Earl's Court (escalators smiley face) retrieve our bags, wheel them to a little cubby-hole near the station for £2 per bag, then out on the plaza to this:

There's a man and a dog up on a ledge at the top of the Kings Cross Station clock tower. The funny thing is, nobody really stops to look. Everybody just walking by like it's nothng. Lots of police and a negotiator atop a crane lift. It's a young man holding a little fluffy dog, arguing with the negotiator above his banner "Iran belongs to its people - Freedom for Iran."

I stopped to take another picture,

then we headed back to Fulham. We walked down the Fulham Road, past the house I used to live in, and across Eel Brook Common to the hotel. Barry liked Fulham, said he kept on imagining Hugh Grant appearing. (Hold onto that thought please.)

Today's posting is kind of dull, do you think so? That's because I'm procrastinating. Over the last few days in Fulham I've been confronted by memories of what led to my running away in 1975 to spend the last 50 years in a self-imposed state of denial and self-banishment. It's really time to come home again. Tomorrow.