After two years of anticipation, I collected Jonathan from Heathrow Airport last Thursday. After dropping his gear at my flat in London, he got a quick introduction to the exciting world of genealogy with a visit to London Metropolitan Archives - where he helped me find info for a book research project - and a quick stop by Society of Genealogists where I had to drop off an overdue library book (oh, the thrill of it all!).
His real Olympic adventure began Saturday morning with a tour of Lord's cricket ground in St John's Wood. (no illustrations - his flaky aunt has deleted the photos of him at the ground) It was the last day of tours before they give up the ground to Locog for its transformation into an Olympic venue (archery). Jonathan enjoyed the tour, though I think the real excitement came from spotting a ferrari whilst walking both to and back from the ground to the Underground station. (The rest of the weekend I spent tearing up the streets and parked cars of London in a pokey little VW golf - I've almost managed to shift the mother of all headaches that comes from trying to drive in and out of the centre of London multiples times)
Monday we visited the London Transport Museum. Jonathan enjoyed driving the underground train simulations. Auntie G could barely contain her excitement at seeing old train tickets and posters celebrating Metro-Land - basically seeing several chapters of the book I recently researched come to life.
After two days of work auntie owed the young visitor a proper day out so we rode the High Speed train from St Pancras to Rochester. It's a thirty minute journey to Kent via the Eurostar's dedicated high speed rail line. We sped south at 120 miles per hour and Jonathan loved it. We climbed the castle keep - the lad was a little nervous about the height but he was very pleased with himself when he made it to the top.
The views across the Medway River were wonderful and he was especially pleased with the rusty Russian submarine marooned in the river bend near the castle.
