Grounded for Lack of Toilet Paper

Well, yesterday turned out to be wall-to-wall activity! My morning went pretty much as usual, blogging and uploading pictures to Flickr, and cleaning the house to prepare for my brother's visit. He, his wife and my niece had an eventful day of travel. The first leg of their Delta flight was grounded by a broken tissue or napkin dispenser, believe it or not, and then the ground crew couldn't find the plane's maintenance log book -- which I suspect was the real reason for the delay. All of this meant an extra 45 minutes in Jacksonville before takeoff, which meant they missed their connecting flight in Atlanta and had to board a later plane for London. This put them here six hours later than they'd anticipated.

But they did finally arrive. I journeyed out to Heathrow to meet them, and just missed getting caught up in this snafu. When I entered the tube station, a notice board said trains weren't running to Heathrow. I was trying to figure out an alternate plan but then my train did indeed go all the way, so I suppose the system was just getting back on its feet after the earlier disruption.

The tube was running back into town with no problem, so soon after I met them we were zipping back to West Hampstead. They came to our flat and we sat out in the garden in the almost-sweltering warmth. My brother does read my blog, so I imagine it was fun for him to see first-hand all the stuff I've been writing about, from the ladybird larvae in the yard waste bag to the starlings on the bird feeder.

(Incidentally, I retrieved another ten or so ladybird larvae from the bag yesterday, so I decided to dump out all the garden trimmings in the back "wildlife area" of the garden. That way whatever's living on that alkanet can crawl to nearby living plants. I don't want to be responsible for killing all those little critters.)

After a while, my brother and his family took an Uber to their hotel in Bloomsbury, and I joined them there after a couple of hours so we could go to dinner. (Dave, who has been feeling under the weather, didn't join us -- but he was happy because the recliner repairman had come earlier in the day, and his chair is now fully functional once again!)

The gigantic mural above is one of several in the neighborhood near their hotel. We walked to a nearby pub called The Swan, where we ate, and then wandered the streets surrounding Queen's Square and the Great Ormond Street children's hospital. Here's some more of what I saw during the evening:

Door in the men's loo at the pub

Today my brother and family are going to rest up and then Dave and I are meeting them for a Sunday pub roast. Maybe before that I can get caught up in blogland!