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Published: September 19th 2011
We took our first few days in London town pretty easily, although in hindsight these were the days we were the most active. We walked mostly around the west end and even took in a theatre show at Victoria Palace: Billy Elliot (music by Sir Elton John).
Billy Elliot was good and Nick enjoyed it a lot, although personally I prefer the movie. Seeing a show in London's West End though - what an awesome experience! On the Monday we went to Madame Tussauds and M&M World. Whilst I'm being honest, I must say that Madame Tussauds has gone significantly downhill since they removed Bon Jovi. However, it was redeemed somewhat by having Leonardo DiCaprio. What a guy! M&M World was pretty good, but it was mostly a memorabilia store. This didn’t detract however from Nick’s excitement. He was like a kid.. in a... toy store... wait. That doesn’t work. Never mind. The point is that I kept losing him. I have a photo of an M&M kicking him in the head. Not sure what the highlight of his day was, but that was surely mine. Actually. I tell a lie, the highlight of my day was when we were
walking through Hyde Park and a gentleman offered me a nut so that I could feed a squirrel. No kidding. It was awesome. I asked it if it wanted to come and live with me, Nick and Toitle, but it politely declined and moved onto the next nut dealer.
Tuesday we took a looooooong coach ride to Stonehenge and had a look around for about an hour. The weather wasn’t optimal so the photos that we got are pretty moody, although considering the subject I suppose that the lighting wasn’t entirely out of context. The rest of the day we wandered back to the hostel via Harrods and looked at over-priced things. Nick made my day when we were looking at the expensive watches and asked what they were for. I gently informed him that they were for telling the time.
Wednesday we went on a Big Bus Tour, however I think we covered more ground when we walking around ourselves. We hopped off at the Tower of London and took a cruise up to Westminister. From there we had dinner and back to the hostel along the southbank where we took some spectacular photos of Big Ben
and Parliament House (good work Barclay!).
Thursday was a pretty easy day where we went to St Pauls Cathedral and the Tate Modern Art Gallery. I am not sure what I really think about the art gallery. It was good, but some of the pieces were beyond my scope of art history knowledge (read: none) and I admit to having a small giggle at their "surrealism".
Friday we made our way to Sittingbourne to Nick’s aunt and uncles. We met Nicks uncle Mark at Sevenoaks from where he took us to Ightham Mote; a moated manor house in Kent. The gardens were spectacular and the house was magnificent. We then went onto Knole where I took some (read: too many) photos of the deer in the grounds - much to Nicks dismay and Marks amusement. We were treated to a vegetarian feast (thanks Jan!) and delicious wine (nice range Mark!) and great company.
Saturday Nick, Mark and I ventured to the castles nearby with the singular request from Nick that the places we saw had turrets. We went and visited Walmer Castle and Deal Castle. Both castles did indeed have turrets and Nick returned to Mark and
Jan’s a very happy boy.
Sunday we all went to the Lee Valley Olympic white water rafting course in Essex for Tony's (Nick’s cousins) birthday. The course was fantastic and we had three attempts at not drowning. Going with the mindset that if you're going to get wet, you're going to do it right, Nick, Tony, myself and Jan all sat in the front of the raft. Thankfully it became apparent that we were all masterly skilled and therefore did not capsize our raft. Upon alighting the raft, we were subsequently asked to join the England team. Well, they have to do something to win some gold in the 2012 Olympics.
Peace out
NJ&NJ
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Druid Elder
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House of Stone
Just the same after all these years. It has not changed. I bet it was not built by Bob The Builder.