High tea is all it's cracked up to be...

Scones with butter and jam. Tiny little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Trifle. (Now I know what that is.) And delicious dajarleeng tea at the Goring Hotel. Followed by a martini at the posh bar. I'm liking London, yes I am.

The very civilized fare at the Goring Hotel near Grosvener Square. 

Millie, not quite sated.

The parlor at the Goring Hotel

Sugar high...

Martini high...?

But the day wasn't all debauchery. They turned the clocks back here in London, so we were up early and headed to the nice hotel gym for a workout. Then we took the Tube to Kew Gardens, the botanical gardens here, and wandered through greenhouses and serpentine paths, which were dotted with these cool sculptures by an artist named David Nash--(click on his name to see a video about the exhibit). He fashions gorgeous hunks of wood that really give you a sense of what the original tree looked like.

 

Charred wood transformed into art 

Taking time to smell the roses

  

Of course, both my friend Millicent (I'm slumming in her hotel room while she attends to business) and l fell victim to jet lag at various points (we managed to miss the same subway three times before we boarded correctly), but we also got a second and third wind--enough so that we made our way to Trafalgar Square for an Indian festival known as the Devali (which celebrates the triumph of some good spirit killing off an evil spirit). We arrived just in time for a full-on Bollywood number, before we wended our way back to the hotel, stopping on a picturesque bridge along the way. But maybe the best thing of all is having a respite from my post-layoff angst, a few days where I feel normal and happy and relaxed. Granted, I'm not doing the shopping I usually do on these trips (the fact that the pound is so much stronger than the dollar is good motivation), but that doesn't mean I won't indulge in a 15 quid martini when the occasion demands. No one can say I don't have my priorities straight! (Plus, it came with awesome--free!--bar snacks.) Totally worth it.