Family holiday in London, day one

Today we were all put in charge of packing!!  Where are we going??

Well, first off, we went up the road.....

.....to the bus stop!

And we ended up here at Pool Valley Coach Station!!

Where are we going??!

We all got on and got a window seat!  Hurrah!

We tied a floppy disc on the seat just as we started moving and nearly fell over!!!

OOh!  Painted cable box!

We're going past the Royal Pavilion here!

Pretty....

Then it was time for jaffa cakes!

Jelly Beanie's never had a jaffa cake before.....

Neither has String Beanie!

We ate all of them!

Oh...... we're hitting a town now!

It's a piggy weather vane!!!

Crossing the River Thames!

We're here!!!  In London!!!

We had to get a bus next, so we crossed the road to get a C10

They got a CD

Those are the Battersea Power Station chimneys...... all of a sudden, we had to change buses!

Don't know why......

But we did and we got another window seat!

We crossed the river again!

That's Lambeth Palace!!!  Some Archbishop person lives in there

After a long bus ride, we got off here!!!

At the youth hostel!  Are we staying here then?

We checked in and we got a BOTTOM BUNK!!!  No climbing ladders with little legs!!!

We're on the third floor!

We're in London!!!

We went out for a walk to stretch our legs, since we'd been sitting down most of the day.

Oh wow!!!

That's amazing!  That's a mosaic, you know.

That's the whole thing.....

And then we found a train!!

Brunel Museum..... that's an interesting place, you know!

We got to play train drivers too!!!  HURRAH!

Where's the toad?

We found a big duck pond and fed them,

There's a definite quacking order here you know.  Moorhens (that little black and white one) are bottom of the heap who get scared off when the ducks turn up.  But then the ducks get scared off when the swans arrive...... definite quacking order.

It's pretty here.

We left a bookcrossing on a bench near a big pub.....

And met a cat!!

He didn't want to say hello though.

Coo, that's interesting....!

That's down river towards Canary Wharf and Tower Bridge

That's a statue of a pilgrim father.  Apparently the Mayflower set off from Rotherhithe before going to Plymouth to pick up the pilgrims to go find America

And there's a restaurant called Simplicity!  Andrea says we're eating there tonight!  Terrific, we're STARVING!!!

We started off with a glass of Chianti.  Schlurp.

We got three chiorizo sausages on Mashed potato and veggies and the best onion gravy in the entire universe!!!

(our waitress from Lithuania called it squeezed potatoes!!!!!)

For pudding we got hot chocolate mouse cake, chantilly cream and a fruit compote.

That was yummy!

What a lovely view.....

Then we went back to the hostel.....

And went to bed because we were knackered!!!

Beanie went to London, day two

Morning!!  We had a schoolgroup clogging up the breakfast room entrance so we sat in a comfy chair for a bit..... I like that cushion!

Then we went in for breakfast.  Cornflakes, toast an jam an a Kwussant.   And shit coffee.  Shame they didn't have any Panno Shoko Lah though.  I like them.

After breakfast, we went out for a little walk....

.....down this way.

We stopped to get some tishoos for Andrea because she sometimes gets snotty with hayfever.

Then we got a bus somewhere.

We left them this weathergram!!

And we're off!!!

We saw some funny things on the wall here.... it's a crown on a windowsill!

And we're going over the Thames too!!

We got off at a place called Pimlico and there was another bus right behind us which was the next bus we wanted!!!!  That was handy!

We gave that bus a CD!

We some some Union Jacks made out of flowers!!  Then we got told that we were on a Dee Tour and going a completely different way!!!!!

But we saw some lovely tile pictures on a building!!

And then we got off here!!!

We found a new drain cover that we hadn't seen before!

And this one as well!!

Then we found some Bloo Plarks.

It's Sir Freake!!!!

That's the Natural History Museum over there.  David Attenborough lives there.

But we're going here!!

Guess what we're going to see!!

Beanus de Milo!!!!!!!!!!

There's a Botticelli expedition in here that we got in for half price to see!  It started off with other people's variations on the Beanus de Milo painting - including the Dr No movie where Ursula Andress comes out of the sea in her undies with some seashells.  There was also some Dolce & Gabbano clothes with Beanus on and an Andy Warhol screenprint of it.  The next room had some Rossetti paintings and some Ruskin pictures and the last room had the Botticelli pictures in.  It was quite an interesting expedition!

After we spent some money in the gift shop, we had a nose round and found these tiles!

Then we found a really posh cafe!!!

with a posh ceiling too!!

Then we went off to the main entrance - that's a Dale Chihuly glass chandelier you know.

Then we got on a bus again....

Where are we going now?

We gave this bus a CD too.

We're going to Horrids!  Excellent!

Through the food hall...

We found the Octopus again - he's drinking champagne!!!

Hurray!!!!!

We're having lunch here!  A lady from Sevenoaks sat at the table next to us and we got chatting.  Her daughter lives in the same place as us apparently.  The lady sat next to us was 81 years old and had nipped up to Horrids to get a couple of things she couldn't get anywhere else (probably the salted caramel hot chocolate) and then ordered a glass of champagne for lunch.  (she had an omlette as well though)

We had Crock Monsieur wiv fat chips!!!!

After lunch, we bought some stuff that we couldn't get anywhere else and then headed off!

We're getting another bus!

We gave them a CD too!

They got some nice shop display things!

THERE'S YARNBOMBING IN SLOANE SQUARE!!!!!!!

How fun!!

They got a weird tree!

We ended up at the station...... but only to collect our tickets for tomorrow.  We ordered them online and don't want to have a mad panic getting them if we're late to the station tomorrow....

And then we got the bus home.

That bus got a weathergram!

There's that funky statue at Pimlico again!

Crossing the Thames again!

That's Lambeth Palace.....

And there's Westminster where the Parliament is.

We spotted another grafitti'd cable box!!!

Here we are!!!

When we got back to our room, we found there was a spare bottom bunk, so we nabbed it!!  They're much easier to get in!!!  We packed up all our shopping too.

And then we went to the duck pond to say hello to everyone!

It's pretty here...

We met the swan family too!!

There was mummy, daddy and two babies.

Later on we went for dinner because we were starving hungry!

There were some interesting clouds this evening.....

And I got to play on the train again!!  Yippee!!

We left a CD on the railing here too!

And then went to eat at Simplicity again!  They do good food here you know!

We started off with a Fentiman's ginger ale.  Hic....

Then we had Bubble and Squeak on spinach on veggies, with a poached egg on top and Hollandaise sauce.  That was YUMMMMMMMM!!!

For pudding we had Apple Crumbol with icecream on top!!!

That was YUMMMMMMMMMM too!!!

We got another chocolate with the bill as well!  Andrea let me eat it all again.

When we walked back to the hostel, the clouds were even more amazing!!!

I love looking at clouds!!!

But only if it's not raining.  I don't like being wet.

.....zzzzzzzzzzzzz.........