Beanie went to The Market!!!

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, Andrea said we were going Out For The Day!!

Yippee!!

Because it was Easter Sunday, though, there weren't many buses, so we got a taxi to the train station and got there in time for our train!!

And we're off!!!

When we arrived, the first thing we did was lose an art piece in the toilets!!! Hahaha!!

We're in London! We waited a little for a Number 11 Bus!

We sat upstairs on the top! I love riding on the top deck of a Number 11 Bus!

We went past Westminster Abbey - Andrea said that somebody famous is getting married in there next Friday!!!

At Trafalgar Square, we saw a big TV stand that said "NBC" on it! Andrea said that TV people from all over the world were in London for The Big Wedding!!

we went to Ludgate Hill...... here's where the Lud Gate used to be up until 1760!

We're at Bank now, where the English Gold Bullion is!!

We got off at the last stop, Liverpool Street Station. Are we going to Colchester then???!

Oh look, there's the Gherkin building!!!

then we found a statue about the Kinder Transport in World War 2!! Lots of Jewish children were brought here from Europe in 1939 and arrived at Liverpool Street Station!!

Andrea said that if they didn't come here, they would have died. I'm glad they came here instead.

 And there's the statue. One of them has Bob T Bear's great grandfather!!!

Oh wow!! This was a hospital a long time ago!!

I didn't know George had his own pub!!!!!!

Then we found Petticoat Lane Market!!! Apparently, Petticoat Lane was named after women's underwear!!!!!!! HAHAHAHahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

We found another pretty drain cover!

We then found a statue of a goat standing on top of lots of boxes!!!

And then we found Spitalfields Market!!! Doesn't seem to be much to do here....

WAIT A MINUTE!! This is more like it!!!

SHOPPING!!!!!!

Gosh, there's tons of stuff to look at here!! There's rubber stamp stalls, hand made paper from Nepal stalls, clothes, knitting yarn, jewellery stalls, even one that had Panno Shoko Lah from France!!!

They have a website here http://www.spitalfields.co.uk/traders.php

After some Hard Serious Shopping (which tires Andrea out, I've noticed!!!) we decided to go lose some more stuff.

We found a funny mirror map of Spitalfields!!

Then we found the way back to the station.....

Oh, that looks a bit creepy in there...!!

(Ed's Note: according to Google, there used to be a pub called Catherine's Wheel down here where a certain Dick Turpin used to drink at!!!! Wowweee!!)

Here we are, back towards Liverpool Street Station...

 And then we got a 215 bus.......!!

And we got off here!! I've been here before!!!

I love this building!!

Then we stopped off for lunch at Pizza Express. I'm thirsty....!

We had an American Pizza with pepperoni on it! That's Andrea's favourite!!

We lost another CD in their toilets too!! HAHA!!

(this has been found and commented, too!! Excellent!)

Then we went back to the bus stop to get a number 73 bus!!

And we're off down Gower Street.....!!

.....and down Park Lane past the Hilton Hotel!!..........

And back to Victoria Station!! We were a bit early for our train so we had a little wander round.

We found another pretty drain cover too!!

And lost another weathergram!!

Oh!! I didn't know there was a hotel here!! Hang on.... Andrea said she saw that hotel in the news the other day.....

We saw this notice on a pole outside the hotel..... nobody's allowed to park in this street from Thursday evening until Saturday morning - and there were lots of metal barriers things set up outside too. Wait a minute, didn't you say that somebody famous was getting married at Westmister Abbey on Friday?? Do you think that the Bride lady might be staying here then???

Oh how EXCITING!!!

There was a little square nearby with a statue of Queen Victoria in it!

Oh, we've seen those animals before!! I remember them!

And then it was time to get on the train home!! There's Battersea Power Station!!!

And here we are back at Brighton!!

Here's what we got at Spitalfields Market!! We got two rubber stamp thingies (an old camera and a pawprint!) and he gave us a free ink pad in cocoa colour and we bought some hand made paper from Nepal.

Then, Andrea said she had A Surprise for all of us!! So all my friends got on the table with me!!

A CHOCOLATE EGG!!!

WE LOVE THOSE!!

WAIT! There's more!! There's a surprise in it!!!

IT'S A FROG!! Andrea said it's a wind up toy that can hop across the room!!

Oh how fun! Wind it up! Wind it up!!

It hopped so fast it nearly got out of the picture!!!! Andrea got a picture of Froggie's BUM!!!

THAT'S SO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's Hopalong Froggidy's BUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Tip of the Week

In the South East of England, there's a very good way of getting discounted train tickets through Southern Rail. Every so often, they introduce cheaper than normal tickets only for purchase online here http://tickets.southernrailway.com/ - in some cases, a day return from Brighton to London which normally costs £26 and upwards can only cost £7.40 on the website!!!

Now, there are three options for ticket delivery: one is a registered delivery which costs £6 (I think it's within UK only), free first class post within the UK only or what's called "Ticket On Departure" which is also free. For people outside of the UK planning a trip here, that third option is the best one for you.

What it means is, when you order your tickets online, you nominate a mainline station to collect your tickets from. It can either be the station you're departing from OR the station nearest to where you're staying. Then, when you get the booking confirmation page, print it off and bring it with you - it'll have a unique booking reference printed at the top which you'll need.

Then, go to your nominated station (it does not have to be on the day of travel - you can go in anytime) with the booking sheet/reference number AND the credit/debit card you used to pay. Take them to the ticket office and say you need to collect your tickets please. They then print everything off, ask for you to sign a docket to confirm collection (matched against your credit card, I presume!) and then hand you back your card, tickets, booking sheet...... thank you very much, easy peasy, have a nice day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Given the expense of UK train travel, this is MOST recommended!!!!!

Complete Drain Cover Collection!!

As promised, I've now collected all my drain cover pictures into one post!!! This one is the latest, taken in Brighton, England!

And a round Brighton one with holes in!!

And a rusty Brighton drain cover!!

I found this one in Groningen, Holland back in February and has the Martini Tower on it!

These ones are from Groningen, too!

This one is from Hove in England, and has a starburst on it!

And this one has a lion!!!

Below is my original post all about drain covers in Brighton, England, first posted in September 2010!!!

A couple of weeks ago, me and Andrea went for a walk. I wanted to show her the drain covers I'd noticed - I think because she's higher up, she doesn't see them but they're ever so pretty!! This one has glass in some of it!

This one says "Gas Gas" on it - Andrea says thats You Tilly Tea. This one's pretty too - I like the squares and diamonds on it!

This one's another You Tilly Tea for Water.

G G. I wonder if that's another gas one? The other gas one we saw was also a square cover...

This one has a sunflower engraved on it!!!

Oh - a rectangular one! Wonder what this is for?

This one's called "Pam Water". I gues she's in charge of that thing called You Tilly Tea.

Oh!! This one's made up of diamonds but has a flowery design on top!

And another one made up of circles!

Hodges and Butler..... wonder who they are?

Oh! More gas ones!! Yeah, I think all the gas ones must be squares. That's how they tell.

Another square gas one!

Ah, now we have to be careful now. This is Grade C Dangerous Electricity. From Sigane. Wonder where Sigane is?

On the way home, we found some more drain cover things. This one says M but Andrea said it might be W for Water.

A triangular one!! I wonder what that does?

That's for you!

It's a Thomas Dudley Meter! I wonder what You Tilly Tea that is? I've never heard of getting Dudley and Thomas Bills.

FP - wonder who that is?

Must be important, he's on the wall too. Now, if I could only get that off for Urban Don.....

FH Brickhouse. Hmm..... Oh, it's Water.... it says so on the bottom!

Fire Hydrant.... Andrea says that's for the Fire Engines if they need water to put fires out.

Oh, another little square one - must be gas!

We also saw one with a starburst in!

And another FH Water one! I never knew there were so many shapes and designs!

Flowers!!!

Last Monday, Andrea stopped of at Tesco's on her way home from work (that's a big supermarket in England) to get some things. On her way out, there were three friendly dogs so she stopped to say hello to them. One of them was a Very Old Labrador with her owner, who also wanted to get some things at Tesco's but didn't want to leave Dog on her own. Andrea said well, I'll sit with Old Dog. About 15 minutes later, the owner came rushing out of Tesco's with her shopping and a little box of flowers which she gave to Andrea and said thank you so much, these are for you!!!!!

They're so pretty!!! Gilbert and George had a look too, and so did my doggy, Comealong Stanley!

We put them by the window next to my Crochet Flower!

What a nice post for my 200th blog post!!

A walk along the seafront....

We went for a walk last week because it was nice and sunny. We found some more drain covers with different designs on!

This one's for sliding on!!

And this one's got holes in.

And this one's rusty!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tide was out today and we saw a bit of sand. It's not enough to build a castle with though...

This is a beach hut for seagulls!!!

I like the beach huts, they're all colourful!

those cone things are out for people to Smurf board round. I've never tried Smurf boarding...

And ther's the West Pier looking towards Brighton

And that's looking towards Hove, where we've come from!

and there's the Peace Statue on the border of the two towns. (Although now, it's Brighton AND Hove, regarded as one city)

We saw a decorated bicycle too!

and a ladybug on a mushroom!! That's funny!!