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I’m finally grabbing a few minutes to post some photos, but I’m frustrated with the limitations of the mouse pad on my wee Netbook (which otherwise is so convenient!) — can’t seem to manipulate the photos as I’d like to, so I’ll just present them in the order in which they arrive.

We’ve done so much in our first few days here. Let’s see: visited the Tate Modern (and that could be a whole post on its own, obviously — Francis Bacon, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Kandinsky, among other highlights) and strolled the Southwark area on our first day, then went back out Friday evening to see a show — The Thirty-Nine Steps — in the West End. Yesterday we visited the British Museum, taking in the exhibit advertised in the poster in the photo just below — The Remaking of Iran.

The photo below is of me on the Millennium Bridge which we crossed to get to the Tate Modern — it’s a beautiful pedestrian-only bridge offering stunning skylines in every direction. I don’t find London anywhere near as beautiful as Paris, but I’d say its skyline is more dynamic, more architecturally varied and interesting. Here I am back at the British Museum in front of a temporary landscape exhibit featuring plants from the Indian subcontinent — rather impressive for a temporary garden, probably erected in several days — there’s a substantial banyen tree, several decent-sized palms, bamboo, etc.,

I’m afraid I’ll give you vertigo jumping from one scene to another in these photos — but I don’t want to complain too much about the Netbook — it’s been so handy being able to check e-mail, Google for local information on trains, museum openings, and sundry other items.

The next photo is taken from the Cafe on the top floor of the Tate — what a brilliant view it offers of the river with the boats and behind them all the City — I’d read about this view in one of IndigoAlison’s posts and had to check it out for myself. In this photo, you can see the Millennium Bridge

and below, here am I again on that bridge . . .

We’ve been walking for hours each day — today was an especially long walking day with us heading out from our hotel near King’s Cross Station and walking to the Victoria & Albert Museum via Hyde Park, enjoying crowd-watching all the way. We checked out some of the fashion exhibits at the V&A and then wandered Kensington-Chelsea, enjoying lunch and a glass of wine at a pleasant Italian eatery. I have to say that the wine and the heat (pleasantly sunny here) combined to make us much less energetic on our return trip which took us through St. James Park, past Buckingham Palace, along the Mall and very gratefully to the National Gallery where we repeated yesterday’s wonderful cream tea — could anyone actually manage to eat that huge dollop of clotted cream?!

Let’s see, what else? Well, we so much enjoyed last evening’s performance of Haydn’s Creation at St. Martin in the Fields that we plan to get tickets to the show this Saturday when we pass through London again after Birmingham. For now, though, it’s an easy evening tonight — just after 8 p.m. and we’re revived by a wee nap so off soon either to “our local,” McGlynn’s ’round the corner, or perhaps yet another fabulous tandoori meal — Pater just can’t get enough!