So after the Bethel Tour I decided to take in some of Londons fabulous parks as the weather was finally cooperating.

Hop on the tube after lunch and made my way to Green Park with the hopes of making the trail past Buckingham Palace, back up to Hyde Park and then Kensington Gardens.

Green Park was lovely, good walking trails, even had lawn chairs for rent. But alas, a park is a park is a park. Move on to Buckingham Palace, where, yes, the flag is up- means the Queen is in residence. The front circle with the massive statue still had several of the crowd control railings up from last Saturdays announcement of princess Charlottes birth. Got a few good pics there and headed on towards Hyde Park.

Take Constitution Hill and come to Hyde Park corner. They were doing construction on the big archway and statue in the middle of the circle, so pics weren't that great. Onto Hyde and the Serpentine.

Serpentine is a long body of water stretching almost the entire length of Hyde Park. On it people can take out a peddle boat, or have dinner at the overpriced restaurant. Ducks and swans frequent the waters edge looking for handouts and I saw one young lady being crowded upon by an overly anxious swan and a hissing goose- bad combo. She smiled and said she was scared as she kept throwing bread at them to make them go away- uh-huh, like that's going to work.

Hyde Park has lovely tended garden areas, a long strip for horses to walk along the promenade, bikes for rent and lots of tourists taking selfies. People watching is great in this park.

I only made it half way through Hyde and not at all to Kensington as time was running away with me.
Back on the tube, I headed home to get ready for the meeting.

The Muswell Hill congregation is small and quaint. The building is too, but in need of some repairs. The washrooms are, well, they look like they weren't meant to be permanent, the stairs can be a bit treacherous if you don't hold the rail and the colors of the hall inside are early 90's. At the meeting I met several brothers & sisters who are just like us back in Canada, living, working, trying our best. One awesome person I met was Alexandra- you'll hear more about her later.

But talk about small world- in posting some pictures on instagram, Jerod mentions that he has a good friend named Jessica who works at bethel. Cool, didn't think anything of it. Until I met Jessica who works at bethel at the meeting. Small bethel, how many Jessica's could their be? So I ask- "do you know Jerod Symchuck?" Jessica scrunches up her face and smiles -'Yeah, I went to his wedding". Who didn't? "He is a family friend of mine." Cool, its a very small world in the truth.