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....