My dear friend Sarah visited me today. Her total travel time to and from London was eight hours. That’s friendship!

I love taking photos to accompany my words but there ain’t none of that till I get a new phone Friday or Saturday in Ghent. So I’ll paint a few pictures with words and you’ll get the idea.

Sarah took me to some big area (?) full of statues. I loved Nelson Mandela. I adjusted my location so he and I were making eye contact. Thank you, Nelson. Same with Winston Churchill. And a leader for women’s rights in Great Britain from the 1920s. I forget her name. My eyes and their eyes: no better no worse.

Then the drama of the huge fountains in Trafalgar Square … with so many people enjoying the world. A tall monument is capped off by a statue of Ricky Nelson, who sang “Hello, Mary Lou”. No, no … wrong guy! It was Lord Nelson.

A lush park full of trees with multi-coloured bark was so lovely. There was a cottage (perhaps from the 1600s) perched by a lake. Plus on an island just off the shore four huge pelicans spread their wings. And when they flew! Size matters.

The exterior of Buckingham Palace left me yawning … basically an immense rectangle with probably far too many bathrooms. But the old buildings downtown, many with faces embedded in the walls, opened my heart to history. And just like Ghent, I was thrilled to see so many folks on the terraces of restaurants, enjoying their friends or families.

As cool as much of the tour was, the real blessing was my tour guide Sarah. We had hours to say silly things and profound things. Both of us were spontaneous, bringing neighbouring human beings into conversation. We made more than a few of them laugh. I like doing that.

I loved Big Ben. It’s huge, and intricate in its brickwork. On my next visit I’m going to sit somewhere beneath it and look long and long.

Too soon, Sarah was on the bus back to northern England. Tonight, though, I ventured out again and worked on my tube navigation skills. The building lights in Piccadilly Circus had come on at twilight and the doubledecker buses were spinning around me in what I guess was a roundabout. Many of us sat on the steps under the statue of … somebody, and drank in the majesty of it all.

Gosh, I miss the photos. Next time.