We landed in London at the end of April 2015 after a long flight from Windhoek with Qatar Airways via Joburg and Abu Dhabi. We flew over some magnificent snow covered mountains east of Turkey on the way and rivers flowing into, what we assumed, was the Caspian Sea. Abu Dhabi is building an enormous new terminal even though to us, the old one seemed big enough until we entered the building and it was bedlam – we could hardly move for all the travellers. The centre of London lay dappled in the midday sun as we lined up for Heathrow. Once through customs we caught the tube into town rather than the much more expensive Heathrow express (24 pounds these days).

Pam, a work colleague of Jenny's from Salisbury days, very kindly offered us a bed. Our hosts live east of London and we wearily trained our way out there in the evening after firstly catching up with Danni in a Fleet Street pub near where she works. It was wonderful to see her again, a year or so after she left Brisbane on her overseas adventure. We cursed as we lugged our gear up innumerable tube station stairs although we did get occasional offers of help – the grey hairs have their advantages.

Jenny had announced in Windhoek that she wanted see wild poppies in the fields of Tuscany, Italy and as I had seen the photo opportunities there I was happy to go, so we planned for our trip while we stayed in London for a week. We decided to go to Florence, Siena, Montepulciano, Cinque Terra and Pisa mostly finding accommodation via the Airbnb website. We were accompanied in our planning by Pam’s two Siamese cats and the magnificent moggie from next door peering through the window.

In between times, we visited Danni in her flat in Putney, meeting her friendly flat mates who enjoyed a Jenny home cooked meal one evening. We also explored a bit of London, finding the Battle of Britain memorial on the Thames next to Cleopatra’s needle, an Ancient Egyptian obelisk twinned with the one in New York. We had lunch in the Inner Temple Gardens next to the Thames with Danni, surrounded by legal chambers and poppies.

While walking through the city we came across a service for victims of the Nepalese earthquake featuring the famous Gurkhas. A colourful elderly gent respectfully watched the procession while his mournful wife looked on.

We had lunch with Danni at Whole Foods Kensington where three levels of all the food you would want beckon, across the road from a church where wreaths for those lost in the Great War lay in the drifting leaves. Some locals in hats provided a nice picture while we discovered Ferraris are common in the neighbourhood while taking a stroll.

We spent the last three days in London with Doris, a very special lady in the extended Gray family and were able to catch up with Marie Cécile too. We also had lunch in a pub next to the Thames with Danni, Rosie and Grant, who we hadn’t seen since St Francis days.

We caught the train out to Gatwick Airport, a new experience for us, and caught a Feuling Airlines (I hadn't heard of them either!) flight to Florence.