Birthday Trip

It was Frodo's 9th Birthday at the end of August, so for a Birthday treat we arranged a trip to London. We stayed in a hotel beside Gloucester Road Tube allowing us to do the 'tourist thing' with the boys, and take them to see the sights.

The big Birthday surprise on the day was a "flight" on The London Eye, which, as expected, gave us a fantastic view. We got out of the tube station at Westminster and we're staring up at Big Ben, when a passing policeman said to us with a wink "Have you got the time?"

Also during our visit we did the Natural History Museum / Geology Museum, (about 5 minutes walk from the hotel), an Open Top Bus Ride, and a River Trip. We saw Mediaeval Combat at Tower Hill. Mooched around Harrods and Selfridges and Hamleys. Frodo was accosted by Pirates in Hamleys, who spotted his Birthday Badge. They took him at swordpoint to a plinth outside the store, and had the people on Regent Street sing "Happy Birthday" to him. A large AT-AT was purchased from Hamleys, and some new style Daleks with infra-red combat action from Forbidden Planet. He'd already opened his "Amy Pond" action figure in the morning.

We managed to visit one set of friends, and also met up with another bunch, which was great. (Apologies to all of our other pals who live down that way, but not enough time to see everyone and do the whirlwind holiday tour).

Here's a few photos from the holiday.

A few more snapshots of London

Here's some more pictures, taken whilst we were whizzing around London in our car the other weekend. Along the Embankment, across Lambeth Bridge, back across Westminster Bridge, hung a right at the statue of Boadicea, over Tower Bridge, U-turn then back over Tower bridge then navigating around the "Monopoly Board" to find the A40 - M40 and headed home.

Guess where we've been this weekend?

We went to a Christening in Ealing this weekend. Drove down to London on Saturday morning, checked into our hotel and went to the Christening in the afternoon, and the party afterwards.

On the way home today we went for a driving tour across London, along the Embankment, and back and forward across a few bridges (went over Tower Bridge twice) to show the boys some of the sights that they've only seen in Dr Who and other TV programs - Big Ben, The Millenium Wheel and Tower Bridge.

We also saw a few interesting things on the motorway on the way down and back - a Micro Lite/Gyrocopter aircraft, a Chieftan Tank (Tank! we all cried, when we went past it in the dark) and a "Vampires Rock" "Lose Your Soul to Rock" Tour Truck, which looked like this.
(I was excitedly pointing this out to the boys, when the driver saw me and saluted).

Too tired to blog any more about this now. I'll post a few more pictures soon.

Novelist Supermum has posted a few more snaps that we took from our moving car.