Paintings, pasta and Piccadilly Circus

Jet lag wakes us up at 4:30am or at least keeps us awake.  We're actually woken up by the occupants of the room above who sound like they're dancing around the bed or at least making sure they step on every square inch of wooden floor board while they shuffle from one side of the room to the other, around and around, creaking, shuffling and squeaking all the way.   

It means we're out early and can enjoy a leisurely breakfast close to Trafalgar Square.  A rather serious looking hawk provides some amusement at its choice of perch when we meet up with Amanda.  

This bird means business

At 10am we're through the doors of the National Gallery and spend a few blissful hours (well for me anyway) drifting through the rooms and soaking it all in.  Have a look at the small sample of the collection available at Google Art Project, it's magnificent.

It's raining when we leave the gallery so we drift slowly towards Covent Garden, window shopping along the way (or real shopping as the case may be when Ross discovers GAP)... It's lunchtime and we stop for a splendid meal at Jamie's Italian.  Oh this is the life - it's a Monday and we're having a long lunch in London - in London dahlinks!  I think I'm starting to relax.

Our mission for the afternoon is to find Amanda a waterproof jacket for her European tour.  We search through the Covent Garden markets but it's not until we reach Piccadilly Circus that we find that elusive style/cost combination that is just right.  

Fatigue is starting to set in again so we say our goodbyes and Ross and I return to the hotel for a quiet night.  Or at least that's what we hope when we go to bed at 8:30pm that our upstairs neighbours won't be dancing the samba again in the wee hours.