Birthday galavanting day one

Right ho - we're off for a trip today, and we just finished packing!!!

Kidney Beanie's never been on a trip before and he's proper excited!!!

Which bus are we getting?

The one that goes to the train station!!!  HURRAH!

We didn't have to wait long - AND we got a window seat!!

We gave them a CD too!

It was quite a busy train we were on, so we didn't get any pictures until we were going past Millwall football club!

And there's the Shard!!!

Here's our train coming into Blackfriars station!  But we didn't get off here....

We got off at the next station!!

We used the facilities first and left a CD on the door.  Then we washed our paws carefully for half hour.

Then it was straight outside to our bus stop..... which one are we getting??

BUS BINGO ALERT!!  It's the number 26!!! (sorry I'm not in this picture - I was busy hauling luggage onto the bus!!  Honestly, you can't get the staff these days....)

We tied a floppy disc onto the hand rail!!!

We're crossing Waterloo Bridge here!!!

We're at Waterloo Station!!!

We're getting another train!!!  Oh wow!!!

We gave this train one of our poppy wind chimes!!

WE'RE OFF!!!!

We got off at Richmond Station!!!  The last time Andrea brought me here was three weeks before the first lockdown!!!  Kidney Beanie's never been here at all!

We decided to have a little walk as we've been sitting down on trains and buses for most of the day.

And shortly we arrived here at the Travelodge!!  We're staying here?!  Brilliant!

We got a first floor room with a big double bed all for us!!!

Right ho, let's have a cuppa tea.....

Hang on, what's happened to the windows????

They've been changed to frosted glass!!!  We only have a weeny view of the sky at the top now!!

Oh that's no fun.... we like having a view.

After we'd had our cuppa tea, we went to Pizza Express for lunch!  About five minutes later, we had an absolute TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR INCLUDING HAILSTONES!!!

TORRENTIAL I tell you!!

We had a Leggero pizza with tomatoes and shrimp on it, and the middle bit cut out and replaced with a salad!!!  It was rather yummy actually!!!  We weren't too sure if we'd go ahead with our afternoon plans because of the dodgy weather though....

But the grey clouds had gone by the time we'd finished, so we thought we'd give it a go and headed to the bus stop.

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 65 to Kingston!

We gave this bus a CD!

Hang on!!  There's cows over there!!!  There's cows in London!!!!!

We got off here at Kingston Railway Station.  We needed to find somewhere called Fairfield Bus Station to get the next bus and weren't too sure where it was.

We found a mosaic!!!

Hmm.  We thought it might be this way but this is a shopping precinct.

Oooo!  There's an arcade game place!!!

Umm.  Then we saw a Very  Big Grey Cloud had turned up and it had started raining.  We wanted to go to Putney Vale Cemetary to find a couple of graves but it's not really the place to be in a rainstorm....

So we decided to get the bus back to Richmond.

It was another 65!

They got a floppy disc!

There's the Thames River!!

Oh hang on!!  That's a Pagoda over there!  That's in Kew Gardens!!  Where are we going now?

It's the Maids of Honour Tea and Cayke shop!  We're getting Cayke!!

I'm sure we heard a long rumble of thunder though.......

They even had an old fashioned truck parked outside!!!!

Isn't it fun!!

We all got to choose a a cayke each and then went to the bus stop....

And got another 65 bus back to Richmond!!

Whew!  What a day we've had!!!

And here we are back at the hotel!

We got a choux pastry (that's the big one at the front), a chocolatey truffley cayke (that's the dark one at the back) and a "maid of honour" cayke which is the tarte one next to Kidney Beanie.  We tried the maid of honour one first and it was proper YUM!

We also got a box of chocolates!!!

YUMMY!!!!!

Kidney Beanie got his first stamp in his passport too!!!

Later on, we were hungry so we decided to go here for dinner.  It's practically next door to the hotel so that's nice and handy!!  It's a Persian restaurant.

We got a glass of white wine..... and then some olives and two dips.  But nothing to dip in the dips....!!

We'd ordered a starter as well as a main course...... and we got them both at the same time!!!

We got a Taboulleh salad (it's blurry because Andrea's laughing because we got dishes at the same time!)

This is what's called "Joojeh" which is pieces of chicken marinated in something yummy and then grilled on a skewer with rice and a salad with the tomatoes also grilled.  This was super yummy!!!

When we paid the bill, we got baklava for free!!  Andrea said we could have a piece each!!!!

We like going out for dinner with Andrea.....

We had a short walk down the road to stretch our legs....

And then headed back to the hotel!

What a day!  We're pooped!