Last day in London, hard on the heels of the first day. Not sure when we’ve stayed here such a short time, but hoping for longer on the way back. Media full of covid-19, streets and tube not so much. See occasional persons wearing masks, but usually Asian and not more than one ever saw, as Asians frequently use masks, most often to protect others from the wearers’ colds. Not sure how much the advice to wash hands and beware of surfaces is being taken aboard. Public transport has plenty of surfaces, but also people chewing their nails and rubbing their noses. Not in Italy, apparently, where the streets are empty and even local travel restricted.
Stop briefly at Barons to say hello to Genie and can see that it is indeed in the throes of major renovation. Can’t clearly identify previous rooms, and no remaining wall and floor coverings. Dust and debris everywhere. But Genie is optimistic, if overwhelmed. Call in May and we’ll see what’s possible.
Drizzling again and we’ve barely had time to appreciate the daffodils.
Tomorrow’s flight just after seven in the morning, so getting to Heathrow 5 two hours before is problematic. The tube doesn’t run early enough. Night buses do, but take much longer and you have to change buses. The obvious is a cab and we do book, but a little nervously, because checking the reviews is not entirely encouraging. Four stars out of five with 200 reviews often seems to mean that most customers were very satisfied but a small but significant minority were enraged by no shows. And we can see that we really should have booked earlier, yesterday or before. So, we have a booking and also crossed fingers.