Monday, 10 April 1978
Up at 5.30 – breakfast in snack room at 6.15. Started to get the porter to hail a taxi at 6.45. Many of the taxi’s were off the road and not so many about. Took about 25 minutes before we got one. Just as well we were up for an early start.
Plane was delayed one hour by a technical fault and we just sat in the plane. Sat next to a fellow from Bulgaria.
Arrived London 11.45 am. Captain had said earlier there was some sleet in London and the air temperature was 2oC. The plane circled to come in to land through broken cloud and quite a lot of sunshine. We could see the Thames [River] below and the Tower Bridge. It was COLD with some sleet.
Heathrow Airport is HUGE with three large terminals. We had to transfer by a free bus to another terminal to catch a coach into London (£1 each). This was about 25 minutes through a lot of open fields with brown brick houses in the villages every so often.
Taxi from Victoria Station to Hotel. All taxis are black, the same shape, all Austins and noisy diesels. The houses are a grander version of our terrace houses. Our room is quite large with a terrace in front that overlooks a large garden area.
We put on our winter woollies and ventured out into the crisp (very crisp almost frozen) air. Walked to South Kensington and then the tube to Victoria Station and took a two-hour London discovery bus that goes right around and past the important places of London. Traffic seemed light. Most interesting. Sunny with occasional sleet falling.
As we walked back from South Kensington it started to snow heavily. By the time we arrived back Elsie’s coat was carrying quite a few flakes.
By about 7.30pm the ground and trees were covered with snow. Overall about 2½-3 inches fell.