We were up about 6am. Had coffee in the room and went for a walk about 8am.

Ash pointed out Compton’s Bar, the oldest gay bar in London. It’s a few blocks from where we are staying.

We went classic and headed towards St. James Park, passing Buckingham Palace (above) and the Queen Victoria memorial (below) along the way.

St. James Park

Big Ben above; Parliament below.

There were red phone booths everywhere still. Most of them empty, some still have phones in them, updated with modern forms of payment.

We went to L’ETO, a local chain, for breakfast. We were enticed by the delicious looking sweets in the window but didn’t order any.

They had a banana Biscoff shake with vanilla ice cream as the base that I couldn’t resist. And I’m glad I didn’t. It was exquisite in its simplicity and subtle flavors.

Ash had poached eggs and salmon in a bowl with greens and quinoa. I had shakshouka – poached eggs in spicy tomatoes, onions, and red peppers. It was great.

We were done there about 11am and went back to our room for a nap.

We went back out about 1:30.

Ash wanted to stop by Fortnum & Mason, a luxury department store that has been around since the early 1700s.

We were only on the first floor and it was the most English thing I’d ever seen, entirely devoted to tea and biscuits.

With something called a Biscuitorium a half level up. We found what he wanted – various shortbread cookies – where we were so kept going before we were tempted by anything else.

We dropped our purchase at the room and went to our 2:30 show.

Oliver! is a musical based on Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Neither of us had seen it. Oliver is an orphan who gets into trouble and finds himself on the streets of 1830s London. There he gets involved with folks who will continue to get him in trouble. But all works out in the end.

It’s one of those rare shows where I enjoyed the 2nd act more than the first. Glad I saw it, no need to see it again.

It was in the John Gielgud Theater, built 1907. I saw Angela Lansbury here in Blythe Spirit in 2014.

Caricature of Gielgud directing Richard Burton in Hamlet in 1964.

It was very much an ensemble cast, but the woman in red played Nancy who had the best solos and she was amazing.

We decided on sandwiches for dinner and went to Crunch, something we had passed several times already.

Just a counter to sit at. Ash had a chicken sandwich, I had a patty melt. With crispy potato layers which were yummy.

Our 2nd show was at 7:30. Called “My Son’s a Queer (But what can you do?). It was a one man autobiographical show. It included a lot of pretty funny video from his childhood where it was very clear he was gay and that he had a flair for the drama. The point of the show was really the message from his parents: our job is to help our kids be who they want to be. It was an amusing way to spend an evening.

We went back to L’EST for dessert and split a burnt lemon carrot cake.

And that was our day. Tomorrow is the last one of the trip. We have two shows again but the first one isn’t until 3pm. We will see what we fill up our day with.