London

We've had a busy couple of days...with more to come.


The kids have all been absolute superstars, travelling really well, and sleeping like logs all night long on our first night in the UK.


Monday morning we headed out of canary wharf on the DLR to the Tower and got on a hop on/hop off bus. We chose to use 'the original' tour company, much to the disgust of the guy touting tickets for the opposition bus service. 


The bus took us along the river over and past the Globe, back across, along the Embankment, past Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, round the back of Buckingham Palace, past Sloane square. We hopped off at Baker Street and had some lunch at Pizza Express, we were all starting to fade at that point and it was a well timed break. 


After lunch we hopped back onto the bus and got off at Trafalgar Sq. We watched a very bendy contortionist and the kids clambered around on the Lions at the base of Nelsons column. From there we wandered up to Covent Garden and were entertained some more by a street performer juggling a chain saw. We also had some amazing ice creams - amazing both for their taste and their price.

Back to Trafalgar square again, we hopped back on board and finished off with a drive over Tower Bridge and off again at the Tower, back on the DLR and home to Kelvin and Kat's place for a barbie.


The kids all seemed to sleep pretty well again last night. I got up this morning and went with Katrina down the gym in the building basement, we'll try to get the kids down there at some point for a swim in the pool.


We headed into town (DLR again, kids are getting to know all the stops and changes). We met Alasdair at the Tower ticket booth and went in for a look around. Katrina thought we should go and see the Crown Jewels first up, they were pretty impressive and going in early was a great plan as the queue was enormous by lunchtime.  After the jewels we went into the armoury and the kids all seemed to be pretty impressed by the displays. it's all been re-done recently and was well set out and good to look at.


We followed that with a picnic lunch - again in the nick of time before meltdown occurred. It was nice to sit on the grass and chill out. The kids ran about and we managed to catch up with Al. Luckily for Bridie the Tower 'Raisin's' didn't fly over and try to steal our lunch.


From there we took the Ferry up the river to the London Eye. Another eye-watering bill for admission tickets, but a pretty impressive experience. Great views, the kids had a blast - Ashlen especially enjoyed leaning on the glass to try and freak me out.


A long walk back along southbank, lots of things happening along there. We poked our heads into the Tate, but really only to see what the building looks like on the inside - we were kind of over doing anything more. Alasdair headed back to Waterloo from there and we walked on to get the tube from London Bridge. 


Staggered home and Katrina made us fish and chips which we ate with pickle onions and pickled eggs.

Kelvin has to go back to work tomorrow so we'll just have Katrina and Heléna with us tomorrow. Hopefully H has a good night's sleep tonight as we're running the poor girl ragged! We're thinking Knightsbridge, maybe the Natural History Museum, maybe Harrods, and definitely Hamley's tomorrow.

Right, that's all from me, my eyes are on stalks!


Lyn


Today we planed to go to the tower of London then the London eye. At the tower of London we meet up with my mums cousin Alasdair. The tower was really interesting because we got to see the crown jules. We also got to see a torture chamber, the armoury, and were some ravens. After the tower of london we went to the eye which was really big. When you got to the top of the eye you could see for miles in all directions. On the way home we went on the tube which was really fast. So far our trip is going really well.


Ashlen