{"id":572,"date":"2017-12-19T18:14:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T18:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/wordpress\/?p=572"},"modified":"2017-12-19T18:14:30","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T18:14:30","slug":"a-tale-of-two-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/?p=572","title":{"rendered":"A tale of two cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Photo: \u00a0A London street with its Christmas decorations.<\/p>\n

A Little Pre-Christmas \u00a0Jaunt to London\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent trip to London with a friend: \u00a0 I hadn’t been in way too long and had forgotten how easy it is via EuroStar. The weather was cold and snowy, then cold and rainy but that didn’t dampen (literally) our enthusiasm. We feasted on tea and scones (with, of COURSE, clotted cream) at Whittard’s in Covent Garden, checked out the fabulous display of food and drink at Fortnum and Mason (horrendously expensive but you can still find a few reasonably priced gifts), paid our respects to the Queen at Buckingham Palace. I sought refuge from the cold at Westminster Abbey which never ceases to enthrall me. Christmas is a wonderful time to be in London, with all the tastefully decorated Christmas trees and lighted streets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For some reason I feel quite English when in England – maybe because my ancestry is more than 80 per cent English. One thing I love when in England is…speaking English! \u00a0I don’t have to make the extra effort to speak French and no one asks me “where are you from?” or remarks on my “lovely accent”. \u00a0Let me see: what else do I like? I love tea time, I adore English parks, I admire the courtesy of the English and most of all, since I live in Paris, I love the streets of the city which are used ONLY by pedestrians. I am so used to dodging bikes, motorcycles, scooters, Sedgways and other motorised vehicles on Paris sidewalks that ambling without fear and trepidation came as a shock!<\/p>\n

As I walked around London, I couldn’t help but wonder how Brexit happened and what will happen now. But that’s another story….<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo above: \u00a0Window display at Fortnum and Mason’s in London<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: \u00a0A London street with its Christmas decorations. A Little Pre-Christmas \u00a0Jaunt to London\u00a0 A recent trip to London with a friend: \u00a0 I hadn’t been in way too long and had forgotten how easy it is via EuroStar. The weather was cold and snowy, then cold and rainy but that didn’t dampen (literally) our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":783,"featured_media":574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}