Linda and I did the cleaning in the morning for some extra dough and we had planned to go ice skating in the afternoon. But the ice rink we were going to go to had closed down so instead we caught a train from Waterloo out to Hampton Court Palace.
It cost quite a lot to get into the palace but the gardens were free so we spent a couple of hours wandering around the immaculately kept grounds with their shaped trees, flower beds in bloom with the colour and smell of spring, and along the banks of the Thames which is only a fraction of its size up here. It was a mild spring afternoon and there were a lot of people out there. It is an interesting place and I hope we will be able to get out here again and go into the palace itself to see some of the rooms and hallways trodden by Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey and many of the characters from the Royal history of England.¹
We caught the train back to Waterloo at 5:30 and spent a quiet evening upstairs at the pub.
¹Sadly, we never returned to Hampton Court.
CurseOfTheTraveller 