London Calling – part one

Got back late last night from a terrific long weekend in London! 🙂

We were invited to a birthday party in Greenwich on Saturday night. A good friend and former colleague (from DH and I’s heady days working in Luxembourg) was holding a very belated 40th birthday party. Two years late to be precise 😉 We decided to make a mini-holiday out of it and took DD7 and DS10 with us. A great time was had by all and yes, DD7, even cried when we left… 😉

I could probably write a whole new blog about the trip but I’m going to condense it into two blog posts. Starting with Sunday’s highlights…

A tour booked with http://www.londonducktours.co.uk/ on a London “Duck”…an amphibian vehicle from the 2nd World War used for the D-Day landings. We were aboard the good ‘ship’ Cleopatra.

First you see all the London sights by road (Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, The Ritz Hotel, London Eye, etc, etc, etc) then, in the same vehicle, you ‘splash down’ into the River Thames to get a closer view.

Amazingly it was warmer when we were down on the water than up on land (the engine has to work incredibly hard to sail just at a speed of a few knots, so it ‘heats’ up the inside of the vehicle). The ‘Duck’ sits very low in the water.

I took plenty of photos, including this one for my twitter friend Candace. It’s a megafancy apartment block (just beside MI6 headquarters) and the residents are British MPs, authors and actors. If you look very closely, you might just be able to get a glimpse of Dr Who David Tenant’s flat… 😉

We were a bit chilly after our sightseeing trip, so stoked ourselves up on buns and hot chocolate. Then went back to our friends house in Islington to have a little rest before getting glammed up for our evening out. We wanted to eat dinner out with the kids so we ended up here.

Started with crispy duck pancakes…

Then on to (fluorescent) sweet and sour chicken and shredded chili beef which came nicely presented with a little pink flower on the side…

We decided not to eat the flower…

Then it was ‘showtime’! Because no trip to London would be complete without a show at the West End. We couldn’t get tickets for “We Will Rock You” (our first choice) so decided on Thriller Live (as the kids have been learning Michael Jackson songs at school). A great show with lots of loud music, spangly outfits, discodancing, breakdancing and moonwalking. Add in plenty of glitter and fireworks and, voilà, DD7 couldn’t stop clapping 😉 You’re not allowed to film/take pictures of the show, so you’ll have to make do with this one of the curtain.

I’ll be back tomorrow with ‘the second act’ so, until then, sit back and enjoy your icecream…

Bon appétit and happy Tuesday! 🙂