Beanie's Day Out In London!!

Last Thursday, Andrea took the day off work.  We planned to meet up with Bob and Dilly in London, but Arnty Helena couldn't make it and they're not old enough to travel on their own.  But me and Andrea decided to go to London anyway to do some Christmas Shopping.

We got to Brighton train station nice and early (after stopping in at the Managing Agents to tell them the water boiler still didn't work.  The pilot light was on but it wasn't heating water up)

We saw Garfield on the way!!

We got on the train to London - but it wasn't the Brighton to Victoria train!!  We're going a slightly different way!  How exciting!!!

We tied one of our CDs to the table.

It's a very pretty view going through the countryside....!

OH!!  It's a traffic jam on the train tracks!!!

Here we are arriving at Blackfriars Station!!!  This station is on a bridge over the River Thames!!!  It's weird!

Tower Bridge is up there, the one that goes up and down in the middle!!

Andrea needed to take a pee so I left another CD on the toilet door!!

When we came out of the station, we saw a funny pub!!

It's the Black Friar!!!

Then we walked up the road to Ludgate Circus (that's near the Old Bailey) and got the bus.  We tied a weathergram to the railing on the bus!!

We got off at Somerset House to do some shopping in the gift shop.  (We were going to see an exhibition there with Arnty Helena, but decided to do something else instead.)

They had a skating rink in the Courtyard!!

And a whopping huge Christmas Tree too!!!!

After that we went into the Gift Shop and did some shopping.  We're not telling you what it was though!

Then we walked down the road towards Trafalgar Square and had a History Hunt!!

Hmmm..... interesting!

We saw this strange Topiary too..... is that a cat??!

There's the Savoy Hotel entrance.  That always reminds me of the front of a Rolls Royce car, except the statue's different!!

Then we arrived at Trafalgar Square, and there's a new statue on the Fourth Plinth!!

It's a Blue cockerel!!!!!  Wow!!

Those clouds are rather "Ominous", Andrea said.  I said they were just being dramatic.

 There was a big event at Trafalgar Square, all to do with a Big Hike to the North Pole or something.  Those people in orange and blue jackets are the ones going.  We saw on the news later on that Prince Harry was there!!!!  YOOOOO-HOOOOO!!!!!  Hello Harry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 then we got on another bus to go somewhere else.  I tied another weathergram onto the railing!!

 OH!!  Here we are at Cornellison's near the British Museum!!!

 I want that till!!!  We went inside and did some shopping..... I'll show you what we bought later on.  

 Then it was another bus back to Trafalgar Square.....

 And another art shop where we bought more stuff!!!

Then we were hungry so we went for lunch......

 It's a shame Bob and Dilly couldn't make it.  They're so much fun...... hope we get to see them again soon.

 For lunch we had a Minute Steak that was a bit chewy but very tasty.

 and some French Fries that were Yumstastic!!!  (That's a Bob word, yumtastic!!)

 And then we wandered back down to Trafalgar Square.

 and saw a pretty grating on the side of a building!

 We got another bus and tied another weathergram to it!!!

 And got off at Ludgate Circus.  You can just about see St Paul's Cathedral disappear in the sunlight!!

 And then went back to Blackfriars Station to come back home!!

 We had another wee first, and left another CD on the door!!!

Now, we can properly see Tower Bridge in the distance and The Shard building too!!  London Bridge train station is right next to the Shard building....

 and we're off home!!  I like leaving CDs for people to find!!!

 It's been lovely and sunny today but very cold.

When we got back to Brighton Station (not being very observant first thing in the morning!!) we noticed coming out of the train station that the Ticket Office has been completely emptied!!  There's no ticket office at Brighton Station??!!  Just as well we ordered ours online then - we picked them up out of a pre-paid ticket machine!

 and we got home just in time to watch the sun go down!!!

 We also discovered that our water boiler now heats water properly and Andrea can have proper hot bubble baths!!  The Gas man chap had to do a steampunky Star Trek gadget thing on the gas meter!!!

 Here's some of the shopping - we got some funky papers for Andrea to play with and some metallic markers too.  Some of  those are a present for Someone though, but don't say anything!!!

 We also found some proper real Sepia Ink too!!!  I've always wanted to try that....

AND we got ten sheets of A2 size craft paper in five different colours!!  We're going to share that with Someone too but shhhhh!!!!  It's a surprise!!