We have planned our next few days in London as time for catching up with friends and people we know.
It was a cool day today and cloudy. It had rained overnight and by lunch time some drizzle had set in. It seemed to be a typical Autumn day with people wearing jackets and coats. Far different from the weather we had last week in France. It was well and truly dark by 5.00 pm.
Today was a good start for catching up with friends. We had planned to have lunch with Julian Penge and Peter Thompson who I met on my trip to Antarctica early last year. Peter and Julian are both geologists, which was my favourite subject at high school. I was lucky then to study it in a class of just five students. As we travelled along the coast of South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsular, Peter and Julian helped me to understand how much of the subject I could actually remember. We told many jokes on that trip and on our expeditions, they would often go kayaking. I have a number of photos of them kitted out for their near-water view of the scenery.
Like me, they had also done a further trip to the Arctic, although they travelled to an area above the Arctic Circle along the Canadian Coast whilst I did a trip around the Svalbard Archipelago. Also like me, they also found that the scenery at the top end of the world was less stunning than Antarctica. Apparently their expedition leader was much more risk averse than Graham who we led our trip to the Antarctic and as a result they did not get to go on as nearly as many excursions. These were the highlight of the trip.
We had a very pleasant time over lunch at the Hereford Arms; a pub on Gloucester Road near where we are staying. It was if we picked up the conversation again just as we had left it when we said goodbye to each other in Ushuaia. We had a good time reminiscing and are all very envious of Ady who we also met on our Antarctic trip. She is the head seal keeper at Sydney Zoo and is just about to leave on another expedition to Antarctica, this time as a subject matter expert.
Perhaps the three of us can find somewhere else to go in 2016.
