London - Saturday 19th April - Harrods and the Houses of Parliament

We are off to visit the bears in Harrods!

This is PJ bear one of this herd has jumped into my backpack.

(although I believe a herd of bears is called a sloth).

 We had morning tea in Harrods and shared a honey cake which we couldn't finish.

Poor Graham still looks unwell.

We couldn't stomach lunch after the attempt at cake.

 Because its Easter we went to the food hall to visit the eggs!

 

the one above is 130 pounds.

 

 ~~~~~

Our next stop was the UK Houses of Parliament at Westminster.

I booked this tour before we left home.

 

We started our tour in Westminster Hall (after going through all the security checks).

This is where the Queen had her lying in state before her funeral.

 We did the audio tour.

 

Below id St Stephens Hall, and then photos weren't allowed.

We visited the house of Lords and the house of commons and through the magic of the internet they looked like this below.....

 Great tour, lots of gold and history.

And as there was no cloak room to leave him  PJ bear came on the tour as well. 

It was bonkers outside in Westminster. There was some sort of gay rights protest (related to the recent UK ruling on what is a woman). 

Managed sandwiches for dinner tonight....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

London - Good Friday 18th April - Kensington Gardens and the Royal Albert Hall

 

Feeling a bit better but not 100% so we decided on a gentle day and not far from home base.

 So, in an attempt to remove the growling rodents we decided on a walk in Kensington Gardens.

Its spring, but the weather is still coolish. 

We visited the Diana memorial fountain. She would have loved the kids splashing in it.

We also stopped at the Peter Pan statue.

 Before leaving home we thought about booking tickets to the Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall but didn't get around to it.

But last night we decided to see if there were any tickets left.

 We got some of the last seats, right behind the choir.

It was a full house and the choir was amazing. 

We made it through the concert, but were very glad to get home...

 

All I've eaten for the last 2 days is a weetabix (similar to weetbix), Grahams eating a little more but we are still not well. Every now and then you hit the wall. its two steps forward and one step back all the time.

The noises my stomach has been making are seismic!

 

London - Thursday 17th April - Sick Day!

Above is our flat in London, its the one with the white iron lace railings.

343a Kensington High street

 

No shortage of Caviar shops and Persian restaurants downstairs. But its quiet, and we rarely hear or smell the restaurants.  

Above:- Pigeon waiting for a bus on our balcony...

 

We went out for dinner at a local pub on Wednesday night and we are fairly sure we got a hefty dose of food poisoning.

We were both so sick, to the point where we wondered if we should call an ambulance.

So all we did on Thursday was catch a bus to Kensington High  street to the Boots pharmacy, and that was an effort. I had medications with us but we were so violently sick that they didn't work.

 

Can't eat. Thirsty, can't drink water won't stay in.

 

I have some sort of growling rodent running around in my innards and Graham has the same rodent running around his head with a hammer. 

At least we had no plans for the day and we didn't have to catch a train or similar. so we spent most of the day curled up trying to get through it. We were very pleased to have  nice comfy place to veg out. 

(I'm writing this nearly a week later and we are a lot better, although it was slow going and it really knocked us about. We've only just started to eat normally again. But I will document our progress as I catch up on missed blog posts).

 

London - Wednesday 16th April - London Transport Museum & Covent Garden.

Above:- 1923 Tube stock. 

I absolutely crashed last night and must have slept for 10 hours, Graham still hasn't caught up yet and is still a bit weary.

Today its a visit to the London Transport museum which I've wanted to go to since watching the Secrets of the London Underground with Tim and Siddy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_London_Underground

 So we made our way to Convent Garden.

 Its school holidays here as well and above seems to be parking for the new Transport for London.

As much as we love kids my advice would be to go outside the school holidays.

 

I took lots and lots of photos and it is a really great museum.

Above: Plastic horses complete with plastic horse poo (kids love this detail) and below the same tram with real horses.

 

 These photos are  the 1884 London horse tram.

 Now we reach the years of the first underground lines. (this is the same as the introduction photo with all the 70's type people). 

Would you like to learn to touch type in 8 hours?

 1923,,, Still in service until 1971!

 The underground steam engines.

Here I am below!

 

 

 

Transport for London love their posters and here was a gallery.

 

This ones a bit odd! Info below.

The below one is for London Zoo.

 

 Then we went for a wander through the Covent Garden markets.

We also stopped at St Paul's Church but as it is holy week I didn't take any photos inside.

 

Its the actors church.

 

 We had lunch in the cafe at the royal opera house.

(would have been nice to do a tour there but don't think we'll have the time this trip)

 

 

 

Not sure what we will do tomorrow.