London ... we arrive, our bag does not

We arrive …. our bag does not

The Air New Zealand flight was really quite nice: on time and smooth, the food was not awful as one usually expects, friendly flight attendants, and the seats had two reclining buttons, one for the back and one for a footrest. After the long wait at bag reclaim (as it is called in England), we came to the conclusion that somehow United did not get our bag on the flight to LAX where we transferred too Air New Zealand. Having bags delayed domestically is one thing, overseas it is another … and why I always have two extra sets of clothes in my carry-on bag.

We’re staying at The Orange, four rooms above an upmarket pub in Chelsea, not far from where our friends Briony and Simon live. It’s a nice walk from the Sloane Square tube station, through a t of galleries and home décor places … my friend Hildreth wold love this I think. It’s very friendly, up four flights of stairs, a lovely room, airy and with a nice view of St. Barnabas church and school next door.  We went downstairs for something to eat – an interesting pancetta-wrapped prawn pizza and ale – and saw Briony coming up the street. Her office at Ambit magazine is nearby, and she came to welcome us, which is so nice. She’s the one who suggested The Orange, and she invited us to her flat for tea with her brother. I learn that the correct pronunciation for scone is actually like “skon” with a short “o” rather than the American long “o” version. Her homemade multi-berry jam is delicious, and we also learn that you put on jam first, then the clotted cream, or if you are really being indulgent, butter, then jam, then clotted cream.

Following our usual practice of walking as much as possible to stay awake until at least 8:00pm, we took a walk with Briony to the dog park. With us was her older spaniel Cassie (who reminds me of Puppy in her later years) and the highly energetic, adorable four-month-old Gatsby, a golden spaniel working dog who will be trained to be a golf dog (rather than a gun dog as they don’t hunt).

The dog park is in Burton Court by the Royal Chelsea Hospital which has a beautiful view to the Wren-designed facility. The dog park is the opposite of  American dog parks … instead of being a fenced area for dogs, the fenced area in the center of the park is for children and sports, and the outer grassy area is for the dogs. There is a regular crowd, who seem to know each others’ dogs’ names quite well, and the dogs play happily.

We walk over to King’s Road, full of shops, walk by the Saatchi Gallery (closed for a private event) and saw some interesting large metal Buddha sculptures.

We take the #11 bus toward the City, got off at Westminster Cathedral (initially confusing it with the Abbey, quite different, this one is Catholic) and got a bit lost taking another bus back (the Pimlico #24, thinking it would get us to Pimlico Road though it did not, but we had a nice walk along the river and approached The Orange from a different angle. We ended the evening with a simple dinner of crab salad (in a hollowed out crab shell) and salmon terrine at a place across the street, and crashed, hoping that we’d hear news about the missing bag soon.