A Day out In London!!

Today we got up really early for a Sunday - apparently we're going somewhere!!!

When we arrived at the bus stop, we only had to wait four minutes for the bus!  Excellent!

We tied a weathergram to the rail!!

And arrived at Brighton Station!!!  And we were just in time to get the train to London, instead of having to wait half an hour for the next one!!!

We tied a weathergram on the train too!!!

I love this view...!

We read a book most of the way, but then put the book away when we got to Blackfriars!!!

We got off here at St Pancras!

And then left out the side entrance by the British Library!  We were hoping to use the facilities here but they weren't open yet!!

So we set off to find a bus stop for the number 88 bus to Trafalgar Square.  We tied this CD to a railing for someone to find.

Then we saw a number 29 bus go past which also goes to Trafalgar Square..... so we followed it to this bus stop and waited for the next 29 to come along!!!

When it did, we tied another CD to the rail on the bus!

We went past a theatre that Harry Potter was in!!

And then ended up here at Trafalgar Square!!!  Apparently there's a big Marching Procession later on with Jeremy Corbyn the "leader" of the Labour Party, all about anti cuts and stuff - but Andrea says because we got an earlier train, we'll have finished here by the time that lot turn up.

In the meantime, we had to go past the National Gallery.....

....past the horse skeleton......

....and into the Sainsbury Wing to see the Delacroix expedition!!!  We enjoyed it just as much as the first time we went to see it!  And because we got there just after the gallery opened, we were amongst the first people in, so it wasn't really crowded!!!

We used their facilities too, and left a bookcrossing book for them!!!

After we enjoyed the pictures and spent some money in the gift shop, we went round the corner up this street and then round the corner at the top.....

Past a very pretty gate that looks like a tree.....

......past another Bloo Plark......

.....and found a Byron Burger place on the corner of Orange Street and Haymarket!!!  This is where the number 88 bus would've come down had we got it.

We went in and had a drink.....

And then had a cheesey bacon burger wiv chips!  It was YUMMMM!!

After lunch, we walked up Haymarket

.....up to the top.....

That's looking down the other way and you can just about see Big Ben at the bottom!!!

And we ended up at Piccadilly Circus!!!

Then we walked down Piccadilly and did some window shopping.

CHOCOLATE!!!! LET'S GO IN!!!

A bit further down, we saw the Royal Academy of Art over the road.

Oh, Fortnum & Mason's!  Shall we have a browse, Jeeves??!?!

We did a spot of shopping there too and then had a look through the RA archway.....

We carried on past the Ritz...

And then left a book on a chair near Green Park Station!

There's Green Park.  It's pretty.

And here we are the other end of Piccadilly at Hyde Park Corner.

We then went up Park Lane....

And saw the Balancing Elephant....

and the Strong Arm statue

Then we crossed the road over to the Hyde Park side.

And went to the bus stop to get the number 73 bus

We tied a CD onto that bus too!!!

That's Selfridges in Oxford Street.

And here we are back at the British Library!!!

I love that statue!

We left our last bookcrossing book on a bench there!

And then went down the road.....

To St Pancras Station!

We only had to wait about 10 minutes for the train back to Brighton!!!

Here we are back at Blackfriars station again - the tide's out too and loads of people were out mudlarking!  I wanna go do that again!!!

We read our book most of the way home too.

And when we got back, there was a bus waiting outside to take us home!!!  Everything's been brilliantly timed today!

And then it was a short walk home!

We got a pack of postcards from the National Gallery so we're going to send some now!

And we got dark chocolate truffles and white coconut truffles!

And we got a red tin full of dark chocolate dipped orange digestive biscuits from Fortnum & Masons.  They have a whole range of different coloured tins (including bloo!) so I'm hoping these taste better than their hot chocolate, which is crap.

So all in all, a terrific day out!!!