Beanie Mouse: Surprise day out in London

Thursday, 27 May 2021

Surprise day out in London

We got up early today and Andrea said we were doing something special!

So we raced up to the bus stop....

But there weren't any buses!!! So we went to a different bus stop.....

....and got to the train station just in time......

....to catch our train!!!

We tied our first floppy disc here!

And we're off!!!

Is that the Shard in the distance??!

Yes!!! It is!!

A bit later, we came into Blackfriars station, but we're not getting off here!

This is a really cool station, you know!!

Then we came to our stop, City Thameslink!!!

We used the facilities, left them a floppy disc and then washed our paws carefully for half an hour.

He we are!! You can just peek St Paul's Cathedral up there!!!

The train was really empty, and it's very quiet in London too. Not many people about at all.

So - bingo cards at the ready, we're going to get a bus!!!

It's the number 11!!!

They got a floppy disc as well!!

Wonder where we're going.....?

Going down Fleet Street at the moment.... there's some interesting buildings here!

We're at Trafalgar Square!!! But there's nobody here.......

There's a dollop of icecream on the fourth plinth!!! Oh how funny!!

Looks like there's a drone on it too!

And a fly!!!

It really needs to have a chocolate flake bar stuck in it though......!!

Trafalgar Square is eerily quiet - no fountains and no people.....

And no statue buskers! We're going over to St Martins in the Fields - that church building with the pillars in the background

We spotted some ghost drawings though.....

Those are quite eery too!

Round the back of the church is an open air expedition!

It's called "Out of Home" and it's a series of photographs by homeless people during the pandemic in London. In the first lockdown, we were all told to stay home...... but the homeless don't have a home to stay in! They can't sell the Big Issue to earn money because 1. it's not being printed and 2. there's nobody to sell it to anyway...... and there's nowhere to buy food because the shops are all closed!

Cafe Art gave some of them disposable cameras and told them to photograph London during the pandemic and paid them £20 per camera on its' return. So they were able to earn a bit of money to get by on, and Cafe Art ended up with quite an interesting photographic story of "life in London during Covid"

we found a blocked up fountain here too!

This was a very interesting expedition. There's supposed to be a book that accompanies the expedition, but there was nobody there to buy one from. We'll have to ask around online.

Ed's update: expedition book and photographs can be purchased through HERE

this one's our favourite photo!!

Then we made our way back to another bus stop - and found a busking spot on the way!

WAIT!!! THAT'S OUR BUS!!!

Phew! We managed to get on! We went past a Harry Potter House of Spells!!

And we had time to tie a CD to the handrail!

Ooh! There's Foyles bookshop!!

We got off at the last top - bus bingo number 176!!!

Now then, where are we going???

Ah! We're going down Great Russell Street depositing some floppy discs!

We brought ten floppy discs and ten CDs with us today, which is double what we'd normally bring on a day out!

And we left this one here!

And THEN we found our favourite art shop!!!!

OOOOOoooooo!! Let's go in!!!

(We'll show you what we bought later!)

Then we continued wandering and losing art because the restaurant we wanted to eat at wasn't open yet.

We got glorious weather today which is just as well!!!

Because it means we can wander around without getting drenched by rain!

Ah, this is the life....!!

We're in Bedford Square now, and we left loads of decorated CDs on the railings!

LOADS OF THEM!

And one of these as well!!!

Then it was lunchtime and we went here to eat!

It's Anatolian, Turkish, Greekish and first we got flatbread with a yoghurty dip and some olives. Yum!

We ordered a drink too because we were thirsty.

My jacket's coming off. It's because I'm hot, you see.....

For a starter, we had red lentil soup and it was yummy!

We've had that before!

Then we had a grilled chicken sis with couscous and that was yummy as well!

We're stuffed to the gills now!!!

After lunch we left another CD.....

...and then it was time to come here!!!

We're going to the British Museum!!!

We haven't been here forever!!

The expedition is in that circular part of the building there.

It's about Thomas Becket in the late 1100's during the reign of King Henry 2nd. First Thomas Becket was chancellor and then he got made Archbishop of Canterbury even though he wasn't really a monk or a priest or anything. Then King Henry wanted to combine the 2 jobs and Thomas said no bugger off, I'm staying Archbishop of Canterbury only. King Henry got annoyed so Thomas had to escape to France for six years. But he came back to Canterbury and three of the kings soldiers went there and killed him in the cathedral!!!! Chopped off a bit of his head!! Two years later, Thomas Becket got made a saint. When Henry 8th came along, during the reformation he said Thomas Becket wasn't a saint any more.

But he is. You can't unsaint a saint even if you're the King of England

So Ner.

It was quite interesting in there but it was very stuffy, so we were kind of glad to come out!!!

We did a bit of shopping in the gift shop first - we'll show you that stuff later!

We had to exit the museum from the rear exit which brought us out here, Montague Place!

They got a posh lion here!!

Then we went down here.....

....and ended up back on Tottenham Court Road.

Bus bingo cards at the ready - we got bus 390!!!!!

That bus got a CD as well!!!

And we're off!!!

And we got off here outside the British Library!!!

It's time to go home!

We found a pretty picture on the wall too!

Here we are!! The train station!

First of all, we did a spot of shopping here (we'll show you later!)

And of course, we HAD to buy Andrea a birthday cayke here!!! (we'll show you later!)

And then stopped to use the facilities!! They got a floppy disc.

After we washed our paws carefully for half an hour, we went off to get a train home

Oh there we go!! Our train's in 10 minutes! That was well timed!

And I got a little table seat!!!

We put our final CD here!

We came through Blackfriars Station again!! You can see Tower Bridge in the distance too...

We're travelling through the Borough Market area now, near London Bridge station. You can see the front of our train turning the bend!!

That's the Walkie Talkie building in the distance!!

And the Southwark Cathedral spires.....

.....love this bit........

We spotted Pooh Bear and a fox waving out of the window!!!

And a croco-dragon too!!!

There's the South Downs in the distance!!

And here we are back at Brighton!!

Just have to get the bus home, now!

And we're off!!

Here we are..... just go round the corner...

...and down this road, and we can leave this CD here!!

And we're home!!! At the art shop, we got a Fabriano sketchbook, four mini pads of watercolour paper, a pack of handmade paper for mouse-sized paintings, and a bottle of Verdisgris pigment by the London Pigment Company! The LPC go mudlarking and find old bricks and then grind them up to make pigment to paint with - there's a London red brick pigment and a London yellow brick pigment as well!!!