Jill's - Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath London UK

My flight picked up time and arrived shortly after 7 am.   I made my way to immigration and customs and wound my way through a long, long line.  Finally, I was in front of one of those kiosks.  I put in my passport a few times and got rejected, turned it upside down and tried again and got a message that I needed to find an assistant. I was sent to a new line - though shorter - in front of an officer in a booth.  He looked at my passport, at me, and sent me through immediately.

I found the Heathrow train to Paddington without undue difficulty and that cost 25 pounds.  When I got to Paddington station I bought an Oyster card for the bus to Hampstead Heath.  Jill had sent me detailed instructions.  I checked to see how many stops until Ham[stead Heath, but I hadn't realized that those were the stations and there were lots of stops in between but eventually I got there.  I got off the bus and tried to follow Jill's instructions to her house.  If I had followed them, it would have worked great, but I got confused so it took a bit longer to get unconfused and bring myself to her doorstep.   My heart sank when a young woman came to the door and said Jill wasn't there but then she rang the top bell and Jill came down.  She is amazing - at 81 years old, she looks like the  60-year-old the doctor said her body resembles.

Now,  a few days later, I can't remember exactly what we did except we talked a lot, catching up on life and travels since last we met in Ethiopia.  I had a very nice cheese and bread lunch.  We took a walk up to Hampstead Heath - which is a big park - it used to be a heath - a big meadow - now there are trees and grasses and people walking and dogs running but not so much a meadow.  And then there is a famous overlook of the London skyline.  We saw a few ponds with ducks or geese.  It was a very nice walk.  Oh, I think next we had some g & t's and talked a bit more until we were ready to go to a neighborhood Turkish restaurant where Jill often goes with Anne Tylie who was also on our Ethiopia trip.  We may have talked more after we came back but I think I was probably falling asleep by then because I was very, very tired.

I slept quite well.