Cocoa Beanie's Trip To London!!!

Today we got up silly early for a Sunday....

....because we're taking Cocoa Beanie on his trip to London!!!!!  We're catching the train from Hove Station which is just up the road from us!!

Our neighbour friend Carolyn came too - she got more Scooby Snax!!  She's good like that, we like her.

Cocoa's never seen this bit before.....

And here we are crossing the Thames in London!!  Cocoa got super excited!

When we got into the station, we used the facilities and washed our paws carefully afterwards.

Then we found a Corgi in the main concourse!!!

This one's called Dookie.

Dookie's purple.

That's his bum.

We got Carolyn in this picture!!!

Right ho.  Time to get a bus....!

BUS BINGO ALERT!  It's the number 38!

We gave the bus a CD as well.....

Ooo we're going past Constitution Hill here!!!

And we got off here at the Royal Academy!!!

We're going to see the Summer Expedition!!!!!

And we're early enough to be right at the front of the queue!!! How fab is that?!

They had a creepy forest maze in the courtyard and we had plenty of time to investigate.

It's proper creepy.....

.....and weird....

.....and creepy.....

Then it was time to go see the main expedition.  They had flower people there!!!

We joined in.  It's called Audience Precipitation, you see.  It's allowed.

That bottom picture is a paper cut-out picture, and very detailed.

Oh wow!!!  That's a sort of cut-out pop-up type of thing and really interesting!!!

Does that look like an over-sized mouldy lemon to you?

Well it's not.  That's all beads and sequins....

.....that's made to LOOK like an oversized mouldy lemon!

We liked this picture of a fox....

Hmm.  I've felt that way about some of our previous neighbours.....

Oh wow!  That's a print of St Paul's Cathedral with spotlights in the background!

That's a pretty one too....

That's a thunderstorm!  They always have good prints here, you know.

Oh wow!!!  That's not a reflection in the glass...... that's the design of the print!!!!!

.....although it does help.

That one's a quilt!!!

Yep, know that feeling.....

This one's the Mouses Choice Expedition Winner.

That one's interesting.....

It's a hedgermahoggins!!!

Ahhh....

It's a palm tree!!!  (we think it's made out of old tyres....)

We really wanted to ring the dinger on this bell but Andrea wouldn't let us. She's a proper bloo meanie sometimes.....

Oh look at that!

Mickey Mouse with tea cayke wrappers!!!  Last time we were here, there was a life sized tiger statue covered in tea cayke wrappers!!! It was brilliant!

It's a wol!

And penguins!!

Hum.  I hope it was set up that way intentionally......

That's made out of tiles!!!

And we found a bear and a cat as well!

By this point, we'd had a good look around and we were starting to get hungry.  So we had a quick whizz round the gift shop (we'll show you later) and then went downstairs to the cafe.

We got a ginger beer, sandwiches and a chocolate cayke.  Carolyn got a New York Bagel which she was seriously pleased with.

Oooooo - smoked salmon and creem cheese sarnies!!  YUM!

THEN we had our chocolate pudding!!!!!!!

You go first Cocoa, it's your first trip......Oh yum!!!!!

Your go Beanie, you have a bit..... Oh Yum!!!

When we'd all finished, we used the facilities and washed our paws carefully afterwards.

And then it was time to go somewhere else!!!

First stop was the Burlington Arcade...... because that's where the Laduree shop is!!! 

Carolyn's never been so we forced her into buying a box of six macaron.  We said if she didn't like them, we'd eat them for her, but we bought a box of six for ourselves anyway.  (we'll show you later)

Then we wandered down the arcade window shopping.  A lot of shops were empty - there's no Harrods shop here any more and Penhaligons is gone too, but Lalique was still there.

We like Lalique crystal!

We spotted this bear in another shop too!

Then we went over the road to Fortnum and Masons!!!!!

Cocoa Beanie's getting the works on his first trip to London!!!

Oooooo they've got a new decoration down the central staircase!

See?! Curlicues!!

We got our shopping in (we'll show you later) and Carolyn got some lime curd for her Mum.  We said that if her Mum didn't like it, we'd eat it for her.

Then it was back over the road to get another bus.

BUS BINGO ALERT!  We got the number 9!!

We gave them a CD....

....and then watched as we went down Piccadilly!!

And we went through Piccadilly Circus!!

Just as we were coming into our bus stop, we spotted two Police horses ahead of the bus!!

See?!!

We got off at Canada House and then waited for the horses to catch up.

They stopped to say hello too!  Aren't they lovely?!!

Here we are at Trafalgar Square..... we then walked up to Charing Cross Station on the other side....

They had a big screen and fan area cordoned off here for the women's football thing.

But we went to Charing Cross Station instead and found another Corgi!!

This one's called Crackers!

Fun, huh?!

That's one side.....

And the bum......

And the other side!

They even decorated part of the floor!!

After that, we went down to Victoria Embankment gardens..... there's supposed to be two more Corgi's down here.

FOUND ONE!!!!

This one's Linnet....

One side.....

The bum.....

And the other side!

That's the Millenium Wheel thing over there.  The London Eye, that's what it's called...

We passed a fountain.... it's getting hot now.  Can we go for a paddle??

We found another Corgi!!!!

This one's called Sandy! OH!  They named this dog after Sandy Bear!!!

There's one side....

....and the bum......

....and the other side!!!

Then we walked up a side street back to the main road and found this interesting plark on the wall!

There's a factoid for you!

We left this on a gate while we were there.

We came up the side of the Savoy Hotel so we stopped for a look.

We had a closer look at the Lalique crystal fountain they've got.  We discussed pinching one of the fish but think they'd notice.....

Then it was back to the bust stop for another bus!

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 11!!!

They got a CD!

We got off here, just after Westminster Abbey.  We had to double back a bit.....

To find another Corgi!!!  This one was cordoned off by big metal gates so we couldn't see what his name was.  Which is a bit of a bugger.

That's Westminster Abbey!

Then we headed back to the bus stop again.

And got on another number 11 bus, but this one's an old fashioned one!!!

They got a CD!

And Pooh Bear was on the bus with us!!!

We got off here at Westminster Cathedral.  (different building to the Abbey which is Gothic.)

We found another Corgi!  There was some schmuck sleeping on top of this dog but we pushed him off first because we wanted pictures.

This dog is called Susan.

There's one side....

.....and the bum......

.....and the other side!!

Then it was a short walk up the road to the train station!  There were some other Corgis near the station but our feet were complaining a bit too much to go looking!!

So we stopped off in Lush to do a spot of shopping (we'll show you later)

And then got on the train!  It was just as well we got on when we did because a few minutes later, half of London also got on and it was standing room only!!!

We're crossing over the Thames again now!!

We figured out how to hand a CD to the table and then we all had a snooze because we were tired.

And here's this bit.....

And here we are back at Brighton!!!

And there's even a bus waiting for us outside!!

We all got off here at the top of our road..... we waved goodbye to Carolyn outside her house and then we went home.

These are all the postcards we got at the Royal Academy!

SCHLURP!!!!  Carolyn got some of these too!!

We got more coffee from Fortnums because we'd nearly run out!

and some barthy stuff for Andrea because she's weird.  

What a fun day out!!!