Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you...

Well.... you wouldn't know it from the above picture, but just when I thought I'd escaped the floods and the rain... London turned it on full pelt... there was flooding in the streets and rain every second day, but thankfully this Friday the sun managed to creep it's way out... although how they refer to this as summer is beyond me!!

We stopped by to visit the Queen - but she was on holidays so instead I settled on annoying the policeman below by taking his photo.... he looked just like he had stepped out of the Bill!!


We had intended to go to the Royal Mews, not realising it was shut on Fridays... so instead we settled on a squirrel hunt (since I had never seen one before!!) The first I ever saw was insistent on showing me his bottom....





The second tried to attack us (slightly more scary than you would imagine)...







Finally I found one prepared to pose for his photo (phew!!)...






After the squirrel chase we headed down to whitehall, and halfway between managed to take the following pics from a bridge between the two...

We made it to Whitehall, just in time to see the "inspection"... apparently many years ago the queen stopped by Whitehall to find the guards laying about drunk and playing cards at 4pm in the afternoon, so dismayed at this was teh queen that she passed law that at 4pm for the next 100 years there would be an inspection and the losing guard would have to finish their duty on foot!! Although the hundred years finished a few years ago, they maintain the tradition today. I love the horse that was closest in the picture below and ended up with a small painting of him to take home!!

We then headed down to 10 Downing Street... but no Hugh Grant in sight (oh wait... he's not actually the prime minister!!)

But boy does he have a good view!!

We then checked out Hamley's the hugest toy shop ever!! We raced over (after a little more shoe shopping!!) for a quick but delicious dinner and off to Les Miserables... which was FANTASTIC!! I loved it so much ... having seen it a zillion times on video but never on stage!!

Even better was the little ice cream cart at interval... mmmmmmm.

We took in the wonders of picadilly circus at night, which was very cool...



And my FAVOURITE statue in all of London... the CRAZY horses... get me one of those!!

Finally.. I headed into my least favourite experience of the day.... being squished in the tube... a fat man squished in around me... SO huge that his fat was actually squished around the outside of me as I was suctioned into his gut!!!! Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.......

There is a castle on a cloud...

Apologies for the delay in posting... we just went on a ski trip this weekend and are trying to sort everything out before Rob has to head off, so things have been a little hectic!!

Anyways... back to London...

So when Emma asked me what I wanted to do in London, the first thing that sprung to mind was "see a castle", having never seen one before. Further to this i decided it really had to have a moat, which i decided was vital to the castle seeing experience.

We headed off bright and early on day two to Leeds Castle... now don't be fooled, it's in Kent, not Leeds... confusing I know. Furthermore, the train we went on stopped at Bearstead, and we spent most of the trip arguing about the pronunciation of such a place, and annoyingly singing the "i was right" song at each other everytime we heard a random person say it our way!!

If you don't like birds of a feather, then don't go to this castle, coz they sure are sticking together! We walked through a massive "duckery" ... yes ... full of ducks!! And saw an albino peacock, and feathered friends of every description.

The castle itself was breathtaking ... pics below...




And once we had finished marvellling at the inside, we went to venture to the strangely named "dog collar museum". Who would have thought, but it actually was a museum, full of... well.. dogs collars. Dating back to really old ones, we learnt the origin of the spikes in the collars being to ward off attacks from wolves and bears and the sort, compared with really ornately beaded and leather collars from royal dogs of old. But... and here it is.... one of the highlights of my trip (much to Emma's annoyance!!) we stumbled across the tiniest of collars...what sort of dog could such a tiny red tartan collar have belonged to? We searched through the numbered descriptions to read, that the collar had been proudly presented to the museum, by none other than Sweep (of the Sooty and Sweep show), who happens to be one of my all time favourite child hood characters. So now I must share with you....

Sweeps collar....

After such excitement we settled on the edge of the hill to have our Marks and Spencers picnic, and marvel at the gorgeous gardens surrounding us. As we finished we noticed a crowd gathering around the birds of prey display and we headed up to meet some of the funniest birds I had ever seen! The tourists and locals were amazed by Duncan the Kookaburra (which was a little confusing for me, who was like... honestly people these things are annoying when they are cacking themselves outside your bedroom window at five in the morning!!), who flew from tree to tree on demand and Zippy the little owl in the pic below...

He was so cute and flew over to us and sat on the fence to say hello. Sadly at this point my camera battery died, so i missed out on pics off his big brother Ozzy and the Red legged something called Darlene, who was just so funny... they gave her a toy rubber snake and she demonstarted how she would kill a snake in the wild... who knew birds could be so cute!! They finished off bringing out a box full of baby owls that they were hand rearing, and they were simply gorgeous staring up at you with their massive eyes.

After the show we headed into the maze, where after struggling for all of five minutes we lost patience and the man put our right hand on a wall and said not to take our hand off it and just keep walking... this theory came in very handy at other points during the trip... ie when at a pub and trying to find the toilet, put your right hand on the wall and just keep walking... you'll find it eventually. Sadly the maze took us down to a scary grotto and while the little kids thought it was super cool... I was not such a fan and snuck out asap!!

We headed over to the aviary section where they had so many exotic birds and I saw the most exciting thing.... A toucan!!!! It was so cool... I never expected to go to London and see a toucan... but there you go! Obviously my stupid camera just wouldn't play so all i have is a dodgy picture on my phone. But they're beaks were just so cool... they look like they are plastic and are just so huge... unbelievable.

The rain started to set in so we jumped back on the train and when we got back to London trotted around until we found ourselves on Bridget Jone's street... can't wait to watch the movie again and pick it out! Finally, after all that hard work we settled at the wine bar at the end of Emma's road for a relaxing champagne, laughing about the people who had been squishing themselves on the tube..... ohhhhh little did i realise what was to come....

Awake is the new asleep...

Anyone who says they love travelling is mad!!!!!!!!!

OK... once you get there... it's a blast... but the actual act of getting there... ie "travelling"... Is all my worst nightmares come true!!

5 minutes after take off on my Cathay Pacific flight from Sydney to Hong Kong.... and yep... I'd broken my entertainment console... the hostie trudged off to get it rebooted, with a polite yet strained reminder to be a little more gentle with the buttons once it was fixed.... ooops... yes my impatience kicked in after a whole five minutes.... it was set to be a long trip!!

I did however make it to Hong Kong, still partially sane, and marvelled at the view as we landed at night... the roads were so higgeldy piggeldy compared to the straight grids of Adelaide... and what was that massive dark patch... ooooh.... a mountain.... I realised I'd never seen a real mountain before (guessing Mt Lofty doesn't really cut it!!).

So that was it.... I had made my first foray into a foreign country!! Hmmm... what did i note.... they didn't know how to que.... everyone just jumped in... annoying, if i'd had a car horn attached to my person I would have been tooting left, right and centre!!

Also, after dragging my way through security, and stressing about all the new rules about not bringing any liquids in your baggage, I finally settled at the boarding gate, and being thirsty... pulled my half drunk bottle of water out of my hand luggage.... OOOOPS!! Somehow the 57 million security checks had missed that!!

So back on the plane I got - and this was the sardine flight... as i squished myself between the window and a very cuddly passenger, whose sole ambition on the flight was to find all the free food available and stuff themselves with it!! Nevertheless I survived.... and even managed a little sleep along the way!!

And that was it... There was London... well not quite... immigration really didn't want to let me in... they seemed to think I would want to stay (how much did they not know me!!) but after i played twenty questions with them they eventually gave up!! (I'll be getting my British passport sorted before I go back though - since i really wasn't in the mood for an interrogation after being on the plane for so long!!)

And there it was staring back at me... Marks & Spencers!! I will never forget the happiness that shop brought me!! Of course, mixed with sadness that I will never be able to experience the happy ready made yet fresh and yummy meals contained within its walls in my very own home... nor the mini flapjacks.... sigh!!

Gratefully Emma picked me up and we were off!! Back to her place, a converted flour mill, which was simply stunning and I was in awe as I wondered around imagining this as my home for the next two weeks (not that we spent a lot of time there!!). To keep me on my feet (and fight off the jet lag) we headed straight out and off to patrol the streets of Greenwich (where Emma lives). I marvelled at the letter boxes, lamp posts (no stobie poles here!!) phone boxes and london buses as we made our way around - all things i had seen pictures of but assumed had been updated and modernised as the years had gone by - but not in London they haven't.

We made our way up the massive hill in Greenwich Park, where the sun decided to run away all too fast and the view which had been clear just moments before, now showed a fog descending over London...
I then straddled the Greenwich meridian, before we headed off for some lunch in Canary wharf where thankfully the sun returned.

Then what else could I do on my first day in london.... SHOP!!!!!! Yay.... with the impending wedding on my mind I knew I needed a dress ...and shoes... and fascinator.... ooohhh the possibilities were endless!! I fell in love with a shop called next (www.next.co.uk) and never managed to walk past it without stopping in for soemthing. And who would believe it but at Karen Millen I found a dress that very first day....but the shopping was far from being over....

Stay tuned to find out just how much more shopping one person could pack into two weeks!!

I've been to cities that never close down...

I'm Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay - now I get to bore you with all my travel stories and pics.... so over the next few weeks I'll be putting up a blow by blow account of my best holiday ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let the fun begin!!