A visit to one of my most favourite places

Oliver will be in year 2 when he goes back to school in a few weeks time and they are going to be learning about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, Jenny said it would be good if he could actually see where things happened so we planned a day trip on Saturday as a surprise for him.  

He loves history programmes and is into reading the Horrible History books, so where better to go than London.  We had a great day, just the three of us, we can get the train straight though to Marylebone from our local station, it takes a little over 2 hours, but it seems like no time at all when you are on a train.

Apart from the sights, he loved the Lego shop (of course!!) and the M&M shop, Jenny had booked us a table at the Rainforest Cafe for tea, which is a fun experience, it's decked out as you would imagine, like a rainforest, complete with sounds and animated animals.  I thought the food and drinks were on the expensive side, (£4.50 for a small bottle of coke!!) and the cheapest adult meal was £20.  

But having said that, the food was good and the portions quite large and I suppose you are paying for the atmosphere.  Oliver loved it, so that's what counts.

Our first stop had been Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the Guard, but after waiting for around half an hour security came and put a board out saying that there was no changing of the guard ceremony that day (boo).  I did feel sorry for an American couple who were getting on a boat this morning so wouldn't get to see it, they said that the people at home wouldn't believe they had come all this way and not got to see it!

There were things we didn't get to do, the London Eye didn't have tickets available for any times we could do that day and we didn't have time to climb the Monument, we have already talked about taking him down again soon and we will get tickets in advance next time.

It was a long day, we got on the train at 7.20am and did't get home until 11pm, needless to say I needed a lie-in this morning!

I have managed to get into the garden for an hour this afternoon just to give the grass a quick mow and tidy up.  Lots of things are now passed their best, but the roses are still giving flowers.  We have had quite windy weather and it's blown my Sweet Peas over, I keep twisting them back but they keep getting blown again!

My one Dahlia that didn't get eaten my the slimies

I had to pop to Lidl this morning and came back with a blueberry plant.

I've no idea how big they grow, Mark planted it up in this pot, it's quite a large pot so should be ok for a while

We've both got next week off work, we are going to Brighton for a few days (until Wednesday), I don't know what we will do for the rest of the week, I would like to have at least one day at home doing nothing but stitching, I haven't picked anything up all week and I really need to crack on with Arthur's Christmas stocking.  It's Bank Holiday a week tomorrow, so it will be a nice long weekend to tag onto our week off, then it will be September, you can already feel a change in the air in the mornings.  

Anyway, this post is already longer than I planned, (will my posts ever be short, lol)

I'm off to have a nice long soak in the bath and start a new book, oh before I forget, I have just finished See You in September, by Charity Norman, I bought the book at a book sale and I will put it in the charity bag to pass on, unless someone would like it?  I really enjoyed it so if you think it's one you would enjoy please leave a comment saying so and I will send it to you.  

(If you look on Amazon or Goodreads you can see if it's something that appeals to you)

If more than one person wants it I will put the names in a 'hat' next Sunday.

Right, i'm really going now, lol

See you soon

-X-

A London Weekend, Kensington and Brick Lane

I'm back with a long overdue post of our London weekend, I have no idea where the time went in between then and now, only that I have been busy with one thing and another and the opportunity to blog seemed to keep passing me by.

The weekend was fabulous, we saw and did lots of things that were new to us including a walk through Hyde Park, the Serpentine, a walk through Kensington Park and the Diana Fountain, (not what I expected), but as you will see the weather was beautiful and there were lots of people making the most of the sunshine and children splashing about in the water so it was all good.

Unfortunately the people who organise the walking tours had cancelled the one the girls bought us which was a shame, we were both looking forward to it, the reason they gave was the recent events in London, (the incidents on Westminster bridge and the one outside Parliament).  The tour would have taken in much of this area so for this year at least they made the decision to cancel that particular tour.  Hopefully we will be able to transfer the voucher to another tour at a future date.

As we had now got more time on the Sunday we decided to visit Brick Lane again.  We have already been several times to Brick Lane and absolutely love it.  The atmosphere is fantastic, as is the food :-)  It is also a great place to pick up vintage things, clothes, records and things for the home, which Mark calls tat , but I love :-)  Even if you don't buy anything it's still worth going just for the atmosphere alone.

I'll stop rabbiting on now and leave you with some, (ok, a lot) of photos from our weekend, I hope you enjoy looking :-)

Princess Diana fountain 

The Serpentine, Hyde Park

Street art

See you soon
-X-

Thinking about what happened in Manchester and London

Only last week I was saying what a wonderful time we had visiting London again and our trip up to the viewing gallery in the Shard, and then on Saturday in the very area we had been the previous week, there was another cowardly terrorist attack.

We had walked around Borough Markets and enjoyed looking at all the lovely food that was on sale before visiting the Shard, it is tightly packed and must have been so so scary.

But, it won't put me off visiting London again, you can't put you life on hold because some idiots  object to the Western way of life.  

This photo popped up on my FB feed this week, I can't find the original feed but the caption was, 

This country survived the blitz and the milkman still delivered the milk. Do these pieces of low life ever really believe they can break the will and determination of the British people ?
No bloody chance.

I found it a very apt message.

I thought the photo said it all

Until next time

Stay safe

-X-

Seeing London from the highest point

  I had intended for this post to be a crafty one but I couldn't let this Bank Holiday week go by without sharing some photos of our trip to London and the visit to the Shard.

If you are not familiar with the building know as The Shard, it's that tall glass building near London Bridge and it looks like, well a shard of glass, hence the name I suppose :-)

The Shard is the tallest building in London, at about 1017 feet (310 meters) to the tip and has 95 floors which houses offices, the Shangri-La Hotel, a retail arcade, and various bars and restaurants.  It also has a viewing gallery on floors 68, 69, and 72, where you can get 360 degree views for up t 40 miles.  This trip was one of the gifts that the girls bought us at Christmas and I was so excited when I opened the envelope with this ticket in and I've been so looking forward to going :-)

The Tower of London

St. Pauls, shame about the red cranes

You can see the arc of Wembley Stadium in the distance

HMS Belfast

And closer

The Monument used to be the tallest structure in London once upon a time, now it seems so small.
Built 300 years ago to commemorate the Great Fire of London.
(Can you spot it?)

There it is with the gold top

We climbed The Monument last year I think it was, all 311 steps!!

I should have looked to see what this building was (below) It looks like there is a little garden are on top of the building.  I zoomed in on the photo and there are workmen up there, you can just make out their reflective jackets if you look close.

I hope you enjoyed looking down on some of the sights of London.
It was a great experience and we both thoroughly enjoyed it, I would really like to do it again some day but at night fall.  It's strange because even though I don't like heights I always seem to want to go to the top of the tallest buildings, I suppose my want of the experience out-ways my fear, although you wouldn't be able to get me to climb a ladder if you asked me to!

Here's a useless bit of information for you to end with.  The company I work for designed and installed the fire protection system for The Shard and for several of the individual units within the building too, including the Shangri-La Hotel so I get to talk to people calling from the building quite often.

Just a quick update on Mum as a lot of you were so kind in hoping she was feeling better.  The dressing was changed again last Thursday, there was a little improvement although most of it is still open wound and the nail which is growing back looks quite nasty.  They are still waiting for results to come back but the ones that have come back are inconclusive, i.e. they still don't know what has caused it.  We haven't got to go back now until June 12th when hopefully all the results will be in and we might know more.
Thank you for your well wishes.

Until Next time
-X-