Dianne and I stopped in London and spent a couple of days in Chelsea with the charming and gracious Amanda Preston (who hosted us at her flat and even picked us up and dropped us off at Heathrow. Really. Who does that?)
We schlepped with Amanda to the theatre district to dine at J Sheekey and catch Stereophonic, a thinly disguised Fleetwood Mac biopic.
Around Chelsea
Chelsea is a tony SW London neighborhood; our friend Keith James told us of the Sloane Rangers who inhabit the area. Though to be fair, the Bad Boys of Rock also hung there in their early days – and Mick Jagger still does. It does have a famous Premier League football club – though not quite up to the level of Arsenal. Go Gunners!
Down the Flowered Pub
Pubs in the UK seem to be competing to hang the biggest and most elaborate floral display. Not sure why beer and flowers go together but rumor has maybe it started with “Beer Gardens.” They are visually arresting and probably worth their own walking tour. Throw in samples of the facilities’ primary product and that should sell quite well.
Just across the Thames from Chelsea is England’s most iconic power plant – famous (for me anyhow) for its role on the cover of Pink Floyd’s masterpiece Animals album. Now the center of a major brown field redevelopment.
One of the magnificent seven Victorian suburban cemeteries built when rapidly populating London had stacked them a bit too deep in the tiny church yards of the city proper. This one is next to Chelsea (and to the Stamford Bridge stadium where Chelsea FC plays). They are fascinating – the tombstones and statues expose Victorian sensibilities, and the epitaphs can be mundane, funny, sad, inspiring,…
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