Planning in progress (two weeks to departure!)

Only two weeks until we fly out of Sydney to London!

So far, we have inked in:

• new members' tour of Hampton Court Palace
• a walk around The Borough with London Trails, using old maps (love maps, especially old ones, love history, love seeing the changes, so I'm really looking forward to this one)
• a meeting with a friend who has been living in England for the past year
• day trip to Carlisle, up near the Scottish border, to coincide with the Festival of British Archaeology
• new members' tour of the Tower of London, after hours
• Garden History tour of Kensington Palace
• a day trip to the Gunnislake Festival in Cornwall
• a tour of the Buckingham Palace State Rooms (only open in summer).

And in pencil (flexible dates):

• Birdoswald Roman Fort, part of Hadrian's Wall (while we're in Carlisle, if there's time)
• the Banqueting House, in London
• an Unseen tour (in London, guided by homeless people)
• Kew Palace & Gardens
• day trip to Dover and Canterbury
• day trip to Bath
• BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall (standing room 'promming' ticket on the day)
• Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House
• British Museum
• V&A
• Tate & Tate Modern
• National Gallery
• Royal Hospital Chelsea (home to the Chelsea Pensioners, who conduct tours) and the nearby Physic Garden
• the Jubilee Walk, in sections, stopping frequently to visit places along the way - will take a week or so if we do it all, but looks like a very flexible way to see lots of London on foot
• and of course we need to explore our 'local' area - South Kensington, with all the institutions on offer close by.

Somehow I don't think three weeks will be enough!