This summer will be our fourth extended stay in London since starting our nomadic lifestyle. London One was in 2018 when we stayed May, June and July for what was then the hottest summer on record. Our flat was in West Kensington. London Two was July and August of 2019, staying at Earl’s Court and then taking a 30 day driving tour of England. London Three was six weeks in the summer of 2022 which tied the record for the hottest summer with 2018. That stay was in the central London borough of Westminster. Since London is our all time favorite we decided to come back one more time, but this time we will stay in the far west suburb of Kew on the Thames Richmond as our friends Sigi and Paul live in Richmond.
BA had a special deal on their daytime first class flight from Boston to Heathrow. We have found that the day flight over is the best as you don’t arrive early in the morning tired and jet lagged.Little did we know when this photo was taken that three hours later we would still be sitting on this plane, still in Boston 😠.Sandy watched an entire movie before they announced that they could not start the engines and we were to get off the plane and wait at the gate for further announcements.After waiting about 30 minutes it was announced that the flight was cancelled and we were told to retrieve our luggage and go back to the BA booking counter to make other arrangements and/or hotel accommodations. After waiting in a long line, by the time we got to the counter most flights were already fully booked. They finally booked us on an overnight flight in economy on Delta and put us up in a room at the Hilton. After a quick lunch Jim spent several hours on the phone with a British Air agent who found us an overnight first class flight out of JFK but we had a very tight connection between Boston and JFK.The connection was so tight that an agent had to go with us through the airport, practically running to get us on the flight, which we barely made.Finally on our way 12 hours later on BA first class out of JFK.We arrived in London one day later than planned. Our luggage, of course, did not make it on the BA flight and It remained in New York in the Delta luggage purgatory for a few days before being flown to Heathrow to sit in BA luggage purgatory for a few more days 😫. Needless to say we had no toiletries or change of clothes. We had made prior plans to go to dinner and theater with friends so we had to buy new clothes and toiletries. It remains to be seen if we will ever be reimbursed.163 Mortlake Road Kew/Richmond is on a very busy main street and the bedrooms are located in the front (red circled windows). The main complaint on the Air BNB website from people was the noise. Having been urbanites all our married lives this is not an issue with us and we do have ear plugs for our guests.Plenty of sitting space in the living room to watch TV and many choices for viewing movies, news, Olympics and series.Dining table seats about ten people, which is nice as we love to host dinner parties. Our Brit friends are all gourmet cooks so we are a bit intimidated cooking for them.Our guest room has a queen size bed. The washer and dryer is also located in a closet in this room.Master bedroom has a very comfortable “super” king size bed by British standards and we really appreciate the bedside tables on each side. Plenty of storage for clothing with closets and a bureau and lots of hangers.Kitchen is very well equipped because as we later found out the owner lives here between guests. We found this out after Sandy spent several hours re-arranging dishes, pots, pans, utensils and silverware in the cabinets to her liking. She also threw out expired condiments and food items.😮This sweet outside area right off the kitchen is perfect to enjoy early morning coffee. Although there are two other furnished rental units in the building the back yard is private for us. We met Jack one of our upstairs neighbors who lives in the efficiency unit on the top floor. He is from St Louis and owns a tour company and gives tours all over Europe. He is living here until October. We plan to get to know him better.This Fox hopped over our 6 foot fence and roamed around our garden very briefly. Jim caught this blurred photo before he hopped the fence again.Green parrots are also abundent here as they were in Amsterdam. There are two bird feeders in the back yard.On July 3 we had dinner at an Ethiopian Restaurant with our friends Sigi (red shirt) and Paul (blue shirt) and Sigi’s aunt Gertrude who was visiting from Munich. It was so nice to see Gertrude again. We did a lot of things together with her when we lived in Munich last summer. On July 4 we went to the Theatre to see Guys and Dolls. We got off at the Tower bridge station and Sandy took out her phone to take this picture.It was a few minutes later when she went to take another photo that she realized her phone was missing from her jacket pocket. Jim did a find my phone search and the pickpocket was already a half mile away with it. Jim at once erased everything and fortunately everything is saved in the cloud.The play was fabulous and Sandy tried hard not to let losing her phone ruin the day. Everyone felt so bad about the unfortunate event.
After the performance the cast danced with members of the audience. It was phenomenal.. Enjoy the brief video.We had plans to go to another musical performance of a friend of Sigi and Paul and then have drinks and pizza but instead we had to pass on that and go buy a new phone to the tune of $1,000 pounds or $1250 USD.😡
If this sounds as if we had a disastrous start to London Four, we did, but really only minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. We really like the small hamlet of Kew as it is quite cute and we only have a 5-7 minute walk to an industrial park with a large supermarket, drug store, TK Max ( TK is English version of our TJ) and a dollar store. Sandy is very happy with that. We are also only a short walk to both underground and overground trains and to the Thames riverbank walk. The biggest benefit is we are a brief walk to Kew Gardens that we became members of and absolutely love exploring its 300 acres. This garden was founded in 1840 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is also one of the most extensive and important botanical gardens in the world.
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