Travelling Home...

Left London heathrow on the A380 about lunch time on Wednesday, lovely plane.

Arrived home Thursday night received lots of licks and cuddles from Ellie...makes it worth coming home..no sign of son yet.

 Starting to enjoy the champagne !

Stopped in Singapore for about an hour...

Last day in London

Today is our last day so lots of packing to do...sigh....not sure where all the stuff has come from...well might have a bit of an idea :-).
Just for a break we decided to have lunch in Convent Garden and listen to the buskers. Just love this spot.

We haven't been to see Big Ben yet so decided to go for a walk along the river. 

Lots of Big Ben photos coming up !

I was on my own for dinner tonight so decided to eat all the old favourites that I hadn't had a chance to eat so far.

So it was a packet of Quavers for entree, pork pie for the main course and a Walnut Whip for dessert !!!

Not sure I feel all that well at the moment :-( but couldn't miss out on all these old favourites !

Sure all you Poms out there understand.

Convert Garden

Big Ben

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This is not the best photo but it does show London with red buses, black cabs, red telephone boxes and of course Big Ben.

This gift shop caught my eye, just love the colours.

Houses of Parliament.

View while we were having coffee near the London Eye

Chris by the London Eye.

My Special dinner !!

Golf Day

Yesterday we played golf at Beckenham Park golf course. It has become a tradition on our trips back to London.

The weather was still amazing , the golf not so much but we had a good time.

Golf is always followed by a meal at the Curry Cottage.. Chris lived in Beckenam for a while and this was his favourite restaurant.

Thanks Nahendran and Shamini for a lovely evening and of course the beautiful cake.

 Chris hitting off..

We all spent lots of time in the trees !!

Near the end ....getting a bit tired and hot !!

Curry Cottage

We met friends here who very kindly made Chris a proper birthday cake...a lovely surprise.

Apparently it is an Indian tradition to feed the first piece of cake...I think we need practice

Girls Day Out !

Chris was off on Sunday to Paris to watch the famous horse race called the 'Prix De L'Arc De Triomphe', the French equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. More about that in the next post.

So Jo and I had a girls day out !!!!

It started with a quick family history trip to a London cemetary ,shopping then finishing with a show :-)
We started in Harrods ....the atmosphere inside was amazing....there was an opera singer serenading us as we went up the escalators, sounded amazing.

It was a lovely sunny Sunday in London with so much atmosphere...lots of people, lots of  buskers.

We ended up in Convent Garden and enjoyed a cool drink and a look around the markets. 

We had planned to go to a show in the evening but all the shows we wanted to see close on a Sunday ....can you believe it !! 

Anyway to cut a long story short the only one we could get into was Thriller Live .

We thoroughly enjoyed singing along to the songs.

This is where we had our drink in Convent Garden.

Just had to have our picture with Michael.....really everyone was doing it !! had to be part of it..

Champagne before.

Such a spectacular show...We had such a good time and would thoroughly recommend it.

Birthday Celebrations in London

Today is Chris's birthday. The celebrations started with a morning skype call back to Sydney and muffins for breakfast.

Then Chris was allowed to choose the days activities. First he chose to have a relax at the flat. 

In the evening we had planned dinner at the Anchor Pub followed by Shakespeare's 'Much Ado about Nothing' at the Globe theatre. This play arguably was Jane Austen's inspiration for Pride and Prejudice, a bit of an ongoing theme !
Jo and I decided to go shopping while Chris was relaxing. We went to the King's road and had fun buying gym gear at Sweaty Betty's !! Also spent a lot of time at Peter Jones, it was so hot outside we just had to find somewhere to keep cool :-)

We had dinner at the Anchor which is really close to the Globe Theatre and has lots of character....rebuilt in 1676 after a fire in the area.

Birthday Muffins

We walked across the London Millennium Footbridge to get to the Globe theatre.

You can see Globe theatre in the background.

The Anchor

The view from the window towards St Paul's cathedral.

A borrowed picture of the Globe Theatre

This was the play we saw which was a lot of fun . It was a bit warm even at 10 pm...

Its a beautiful Theatre...this is the stage before the play started...

The seating is very basic, just benches so you need to hire cushions and back rests.

Lots of trains

Today was the day to leave Holland, very sad, we had such a lovely time.
Thanks Ineke and Gerry for all your help planning the Dutch part of our holiday...it was fantastic. Loosdrecht was a lovely quiet place to stay.
Our trip back to London was by train, several different types, so Jason lots of pictures for you!!
The first train was from Schiphol Airport, Holland to Brussels. It was a Thalys- really really fast train...its amazing how fast these trains go and so smooth.
I think the Thalys is a really nice looking train, this one could do with a bath, they must hit a lot of bugs !!

Although there is supposed to be an internet connection on the trains there really isn't. So it was back to old technology, a good book and watching the scenery flash by.

We changed trains in Brussels and had about an hour to walk around the station and feel we had visited a tiny bit of Belgium.

The next part of the journey was on the Eurostar to London arriving at St Pancras station.

Last part was on the London underground, love the tube but it was a bit hot.

Then it was back to Jos flat and dinner in a nearby pub.

This is two trains joined together.

This is me getting a bit frustrated with the internet connection.. 

Lovely food while we speed through the French countryside.

Chris reading while we were under the English Channel....it only takes 20mins but always really glad when we come out the other side..

This is a picture of the train once it reached London, very dirty ! 

We are now at St Pancras station with all the other Eurostar trains.

Getting ready for the Olympics next year..

St Pancras it a very nice looking station and they have several statues around, I especially like this one,
its huge.

Last part of the journey of the tube.

Bangers and mash at a nearby pub.

A Bike Ride in the Forest

We chose to ride again today as we enjoy this the most...this time we were in the forest.
The weather was still fantastic about 27c today :-) even got a bit of a sun tan !

The forest was so shady and cool.

The leaves are just starting to turn but there are still plenty of green leaves around.

Unidentified mushrooms.

The different bike paths were identified by these signs that looked like mushrooms

A different style of path.

We stopped in a little town called Lage Vuursche which has many pancake restaurants .

Of course we had to try them...this was Chris's mango and caramel sauce pancake.

Then it was off home to try and ride off all the extra calories !!