A Walk on the Mall - 27 October

Another glorious day so we decided to take a walk down the Mall. Mounting our faithful steed (that's bus No. 15) we headed off. If you really want to see London, the bus is, of course, the way to travel; but if you need to get from point A to point B the underground is much faster. In fact, it took at least five times as long to get to Trafalgar Square by bus - just over an hour - as it would have on the tube. But the views are infinitely better. London's underground is the largest in the world, and the oldest, so it is no wonder that there are always problems. But as any Londoner will tell you the problems are always on their line!

We got off the bus at Trafalgar Square which is still one of the great squares of the world with the National Gallery and Nelson's column dominating it. A short walk took us to Admiralty Arch. Admiralty Arch is actually an office building and although it looks as if it has been there for hundreds of years, it will not be reaching its centenary until 2012. There is an interesting statue of Captain Cook at the Arch. After walking through the Arch we continued down the Mall admiring the glorious colours of the changing leaves in St James Park. Virginia paused reverently at the statues of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mum) while I took the compulsory photo for her "Book of Royals." I fear the Republicans will never get her!

In addition to the park, there are some lovely views of Clarence House and St James Palace nearby. We got to Buckingham Palace but having seen the changing of the guard on numerous occasions decided not to stay for that although we did see some mounted cavalry go by in all of their ceremonial dress.

From the palace we made our way to Victoria Station where we picked up our tickets for a trip to Ashford on Friday and then came back to our room on the Circle Line. It is half-term at the moment and frustrated Mums are to be seen at every turn with rambunctious children.

One of the things we have noticed is the amount of smoking. Pubs are now smoke free, which is very nice. We had our laundry to do and while we waited for it to finish we went across the street to a very pleasant pub which we had discoveredwhen we were last in London and had found it pleasant and charming but terribly smokey. This time it was a delight; smoke free. From the number of customers it seems as if the horrors of a smoke-free environment which were being touted here (just as they were in Australia) were - pardon the pun - just a smokescreen.

Cigarettes here are very expensive and you wonder where people get the money to smoke. Well, the answer, we found, is in the black market. Cigarettes can be purchased for as little as two pounds fifty pence per pack which we were told was about half the going price for legal smokes and, interestingly, was described as children's pocket money. They are sold under the counter in shops and out of private homes. These "tab houses" as they are called are apparently very common (not to mention economically successful). Interestingly all of the anti-tab propaganda focusses on issues such as age of beginning smoking and volume, but in reality the government is opposed to tab houses because it loses millions of pounds in income from cigarette taxes every year.