The five-day forecast for London from the BBC is looking pretty good at the moment, with the prediction for our arrival there (next Wednesday) being rainy but still pleasant (high 64°F), with Thursday sunny (high 60°F) and Friday partly sunny (high 62°F). Sunset is around 8:10 each day, so we’re hoping to do at least one 8:00 “flight” on the London Eye, so we can experience the city views during and after sunset.

Last night we began to put some specific events and sightseeing plans to specific days. Thursday is theatre day, with Billy Elliot scheduled for a 2:30 matinee and Mary Poppins 7:30 that evening; we bought our tickets for the latter last night, with very good seats in the “Stalls” (equivalent to the Orchestra section for U.S. venues). Friday and Monday are set aside for various in-town sights–a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields; the V&A, Tate Britain and Tate Modern museums; Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s and the Tower of London; and afternoon tea, perhaps at Brown’s. Saturday we’ll take the train up to Cambridge for a day trip, and Sunday we’ll take a coach down to Leeds Castle, coming back for the previously mentioned evening flight on the London Eye (assuming the weather is relatively clear). We may do Hampton Court Palace on Wednesday, after we arrive. And, if possible, we’ll try to get to Kew Gardens, though the schedule really is getting pretty full, and it looks like a trip to Windsor Castle is not in the cards. Our trip is only one day shorter than the one cancelled in February, yet that seems to make a difference (granted, we weren’t planning to do Windsor or Kew then, but with the weather getting nicer for the latter and having viewed a PBS special on the former, we were hoping we might be able to fit them in; I guess we’ll just have to go back again).

[image by Brian Jeffery Beggerly, “beggs” on Flickr, used under the terms of the photo’s Creative Commons Attribution (2.5) license]