Family Trip to London

Today was the family trip to London that we’d organised for everyone. Well, Tash had organised! I was up early and down at Sainsbury’s at 8.00am buying more beers and food and then back at the house getting sorted out before picking up Tiff, Paul, Brendan & Ivy so we were all at our house for the pick-up. The workmen arrived as well so were starting on the patio as we left. The minibus we had was actually a coach so that was a nice surprise and we were able to leave our cool box on there so we had cold beers for the journey home!

Once on the coach everyone opened up the beers and cocktail drinks and started on it…it was 10.00am!! Went steady and only had two by the time we were dropped off at Marble Arch and then the fun began…we went and had the picnic in Hyde Park and left after 45mins to get the coach for the first part of the tour.

We were all able to get on the coach together and I enjoyed listening to the facts and showing people where I’ve been working etc. Got off as planned at Trafalgar and looked round there and took some photos and then back on the bus. Sue was struggling a bit with the heat as it was quite hot but she was okay.

The tour took us to the places I’d planned and wanted to see so we went through the London Mile and St Paul’s, the Tower and then back down to Westminster where we got off and boarded a boat for a trip back up the Thames to the Tower again. That was enjoyable on there and listening to the guide was interesting, always nice to hear pieces of information that can be useful in the future.

Off at the Tower and back on the bus for a 10 mins ride to Blackfriars bridge where we walked along South Bank to the Wharf restaurant that we’d booked, we were 30 mins late but it was fine and the location was fantastic. Nice meal and loads more to drink…couple of hiccups with food orders but it was good until we got the bill and they wanted to charge us £49.00 in service charge which we refused and made our own cash payment which turned out to be about £35.00 anyway!!

We walked back to Blackfriars only to find that we’d missed the last bus 20 mins earlier so that was a pain and a bit embarrassing, so we had to jump into taxis to get back to Marble Arch where we waiting for a bit and the bus was 30 mins late to get us but got there in the end. The journey home was fine, not mad as I think everyone was quite tired out, as we left London there was a massive pall of smoke rising into the sky and as we got closer there was clearly a factory fire taking place – it was incredible.

As we passed Barton we dropped the Foxes off, and Miles, then all the Bulls got out at Five Mile Drive and Sue at her road and finally us. We’d had a fantastic day, it really went well and everyone enjoyed themselves I think. We quickly dumped stuff at the house and then made our way to the White Hart as Jake & his mate Shak were performing and when we got there the place was packed out with friends and locals, it was a really good night I was pleased for them and we saw loads of familiar faces.

I got some good feedback from the staff at the pub about my social media work so that was flattering – didn’t get a free drink out of it though! I periscoped some of the performance but we never got more than 6 people viewing which was a shame…then my battery ran down.

Had a few more drinks there but Tash was conscious of my zorbing experience in the morning the next day so dragged me out of there even though I wasn’t ready to leave…ah well. Sulked a bit at home and then went to bed, such a lovely and fantastic day, loads of photos that I need to get uploaded.