The original plan was to go to the London Aquarium and then on the London Eye, maybe a wander down the South Bank and then home to my mum who was having newly turned 3 year old Sophie for us.
You might wonder why we were cruel enough to leave poor Sophie behind but there was just no chance we could have taken her without a pushchair, newly potty trained, and with the amount of tantrums she is currently in the habit of throwing, she wouldnt have appreciated it anyway.
So off we went early on Friday morning. First thing we found was that our usual train from our local station into London Marylebone had been cancelled due to major engineering works.
At first, we hadnt figured this out and sat on the platform like fools waiting for our usual train to arrive. After a few minutes i checked the board and found the diversion notice and luckily the right train pulled up and we went to our designated change stop.
Fast forward an hour or so later and we had arrived at Green Park Station.
This is the stop for Buckingham Palace. It was my bright idea to stop there and watch the changing over of the guards and band/parade etc.
What i didnt anticipate was the enormity of the crowd that would greet us. How silly of me. Its August! Tourist hot spot of the year. Never mind though, despite not being able to see hardly anything and getting shoved around by numerous Japs and other foreign tourists we did manage to get some ok pics.
This was achieved by me giving Tayla my precious camera that means more to me than anything else i own in the world (apart from the children of course) and is also what i use to earn money with.
Fearfully i passed it up to Tayla who by now was sat on Johns shoulders and able to get a good view, showed her how to take the picture and basically tried to control my panic attack as she wobbled precariously on Johns shoulders with my prized possession.
Some of Tayla's pics...
After the parade was over we still werent able to get any pics in front of the gates or anywhere else as the crowd were taking their time to disperse so we went onto Waterloo station aka the London Eye instead.
We stopped briefly at a pub for a drink and the toilet and £11 something for 4 drinks later! Then carried on to the London Eye ticket office.
When we got there we saw the queue for the London Eye itself and quickly realised it was at least an hour long if not longer.
Fortunately, The London Eye has a fast track service you can use where you skip the long queue of people and go straight on so being the sort of people who hate queueing of any sort or any kind of waiting around, we opted for that instead.
After paying £10 per person each on top of the standard ticket price for 4 people, it ended up costing us £114 for the 4 of us to get on.
The trip up itself was great, they dont pack the carriages so there is plenty of room to move around, take pictures and see everything without missing your opportunity due to others being in the way. You get an amazing view right across London but the best view of all is the one of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. I got some excellent photo's and cant help but feel that i paid £114 just for an expensive set of photos of Big Ben lol!
The infamous London Eye
One of my favourite pics taken at the top of the London Eye
After that it was nearing 3pm and no one had eaten. We were still supposed to be able to squeeze the Aquarium in too but by now we were running out of cash and time so decided to give it a miss. The kids werent fussed and were more eager to find the nearest Burger King that we'd promised we'd take them to.
This proved to be another mission as we couldnt actually find the place given that it was supposed to be within metres from us. That is the joy of London. Everything is very difficult to find!
In the end we gave up and walked back into Waterloo station where John commented that he bet Burger King was inside the station and of course! There it was, right in front of us. Brilliant.
Once we'd eaten and felt happier, we decided to go back to Buckingham Palace for the photo op's that we'd missed earlier on so it was back to Green Park and another walk through to the Palace.
This time was better and i did manage some great pics before we began the long, labourious task of getting home during the London rush hour.
All in all - we had a great day. The sun was shining, we got to see and do almost everything we had wanted to, we were considerably poorer, very tired but satisfied that we had given the girls a good day out, as promised.
On the flip side though - Now i know why i rarely ever venture into London, even though it is right on my doorstep. I always love London until i visit it and then am quickly reminded why i never go! LOL.
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