Europe 2023, September 02

Had to deal with more advertised train strikes over the weekend of course. The Elizabeth line trains to Slough weren't running until 7am which luckily just fit in with my plans, otherwise I had a backup to a closer event at Gladstone parkrun.

When I got to Paddington station there was severe delays on the Elizabeth line due to train issues further down the line. The GWR over ground line had some strikes too, but were still running every half hour direct train from Paddington to Slough, which was perfect for me. It was fairly easy to find the parkrun course from the station, about two kilometres away but just needed to take a few main roads.

I did a usual warmup to check out the course, the grass was a little bit long and damp in a few places but otherwise looked in good condition. Once again I had my usual slow start, and also started running in slightly the wrong direction to the marked cones which were actually meant for coming around on the second lap. I quickly corrected as everyone else was running at a totally different angle, so was about 20 spots from the lead.

I worked up into the top four towards the end of the first lap and finally got into the lead soon after. Like usual it took a long time to take the lead but then I finished over 30 seconds ahead by the end as other people slowed down. Overall it was a good course and I managed to get the U letter parkrun, now just need an I letter parkrun - since there are no X locations so far.

I brushed against some thorny bushes on the way back to the train and got several small cuts, but it was still stinging hours later too.

Back at the hotel I made a booking for The National Gallery after lunch. Again it turned out be pointless to have a booking, there was two divided lines at the entrance but no queue in either one so you could just walk straight in.

I went to the gift shop first which is conveniently near the entrance, bought a couple of small items and avoided anything fragile. Then moved on to viewing the paintings, a mixture of portraits and other stuff, although I still prefer the more modern stuff. They had quite an impressive collection, some of the better ones were:

• Monet - The Water Lily Pond and other similar ones
• Picasso - Fruit Dish, Bottle and Violin
• Rousseau - Surprised
• Van Gogh - Sunflowers

Then I did a bit of shopping in the afternoon, went to the Forbidden Planet megastore but was definitely out of my depth. I though I might find some interesting stuff in either the horror, movie, TV, or video game categories but basically didn't recognise anything. I also had a look at another CEX used video game store but they had hardly any retro consoles and games.

So that was it already for a quick final couple of days in London.