Brendan's Birthday Bash

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I woke up early and went into the kitchen to start making Brendan’s birthday breakfast, but when I got the pancake mix out I noticed there was a hole in it.
I was pretty sure I didn’t buy a packet with a hole in it. Helen came into the room and I showed her the packet and questioned if the holes looked more like teeth marks?
Upon closer inspection, we found that mice had also eaten into my Dorito’s packet! About this time, Beth walked into the room, which not surprisingly, startled me and I found myself half way up the wall before I realised it was her and not a mouse!!

I quickly went down to Morrison’s to get more pancake mix and managed to get back just in time before Brendan noticed I had already been out!
I made us pancakes with bacon, banana’s, strawberries and maple syrup - yum!

We had a bit of a slow start to the day, and didn’t manage to get out the door until about 2pm. We caught the tube to Westminster and went for a walk along the edge of the River Thames and had lunch at a nice little café.

We ran out of time to see both the HMS Belfast and Greenwich, so Brendan decided we should go to Greenwich. I had planned to catch the ferry down, but the line was too long, so we caught the tube.

Greenwich Village is a lovely place, full of old buildings and set on the edge of the River Thames. We walked up to the Royal Observatory, which took us through a park that reminded me somewhat of Cornwall Park in Auckland.

After walking up the hill to the Observatory we found that we were about 10 minutes too late for the last entry, which was a bit of a let down.
We sat on the grass hill for a while and look at the panoramic view of London and the River Thames.

We headed back down through the village to the river’s edge to see the Cutty Sark, an old tea clipper ship (1869) that is part of the maritime museum. It was quite a cool old ship, but will have to come back another during opening hours to have a look through in inside.
I saw a stand selling crepe’s and instantly reminded me of Paris. I had to get a lemon & sugar one for old time sake! It was no where near as good as Paris, but at least filled some kind of gap.

We went to the Gypsy Moth for a drink to ‘soften the blow’ as Brendan would say, since the observatory was closed.

Running a little late we headed back to the flat in Shepherd’s bush where Helen, Beth, Matt and Grant were waiting with balloons etc to have a little pre-dinner drinks. We all went down to the local Italian restaurant for dinner.

I gave Brendan his pressies and card with everyone’s comments in from home, which he was quite chuffed about 😊

We managed to organise a cake to come out from the kitchen for dessert and all sang ‘Happy Birthday’, followed by some digestives. Brendan convinced half of them to try ‘Grappa’, but I thought I’d stick to Cointreau, which turned out to be the right decision judging by the look on everyone’s face!

We all caught a bus to Fulham to meet some of Beth’s friends in a bar called ‘Zulu’ for a few drinks and a bit of a dance.

Brendan and I caught the last tube to Notting Hill to the hotel I had organised instead of sleeping on the floor.

We had a bit of trouble trying to find the hotel. It seems the number system in this country is nothing like at home; and is more sporadic than logical.
After retracing our steps back a bit, we asked some local bystanders of they could tell us where to go. We finally found the hotel, and I was happy to be in a real bed rather than an airbed and sleeping bag on someone’s lounge floor!


Brendan set his alarm early, we checked out of the hotel, headed back to Shepherd’s Bush and had a big fry-up for breakfast with Helen.

Brendan packed up his stuff for his next trip and we caught the tubes to Euston. Because of some tube line closures, it took us a bit longer to get there than usual.
We arrived at 1.50pm, queued up for a ticket, and he was on board the train to leave at 2.03pm on his way to Bangor, Wales.

I did a little shopping before heading back to the flat to watch TV with Beth. We did some food shopping then went down to the local pub, ‘The Green’ for a drink and dinner with some of Beth’s friends, Lee and Glen.

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Photos

The Birthday Boy
Brendan and his cake...

Helen, Grant, Matt
Brendan's Birthday Dinner

The Cutty Sark
An old tea cliiper ship from 1869

London from Greenwich
The River Thames snakes around the edge of the city