London with the kids

It was so exciting looking forward to the arrival of the kids and Mum & Dad. We made some soup for lunch and took it around to Mark & Paula’s place and then set out for Heathrow. The trusty internet reckoned that their plane was going to be getting in about 20 mins earlier than anticipated.  We made it to Heathrow about 12.40, the time that the Heathrow website reckoned that their plane would land. The arrivals board at Heathrow had their plane arriving at 13.05, so we went and got a coffee. Having finished our coffee, we found that Paula and the girls had arrived, and so we went and got a good watching place at the rail to wait for them. So we waited. And waited. Emma and Alice used the waiting time repeatedly visiting the toilets. Siobhan got sick of waiting first and went to find out what was going on. In true airport style, no one would tell us anything. Eventually, at 15.50 (about 3 hours late), they came into arrivals. Kate was leading the way, and was very glad to be off the plane. Their flight from LA had been delayed and they had missed the connecting flight in Frankfurt. Anyway, it was great to see them. The initial plans to take photos of them coming through the arrivals gate were long forgotten and so there are no photos.

We headed back to Mark’s and he had heated up the soup so we had that for a very late lunch / dinner about 5pm. After that we brought the kids back to our flat and had a quiet evening.

On Sunday morning we headed in to Woking to look for a coat for Jared. He didn’t have a good thick coat and with some of the weather we have been having over here, he would certainly need one. We found one that he really liked very quickly, and he also found some boots. These have both been good purchases as he seems to have worn them every day since.  Kate also found some boots and so it was a successful shop all around. We got home in time for Mark to drop Mum & Dad around and so we had lunch here and then went for a brief walk in Woking Park. After that, Siobhan took Mum & Kate to Marks & Spencer’s as Mum was looking for some new socks and Kate wanted to go shopping. Dad, Jared and I caught the train from Woking to Addlestone and we met the girls for coffee in Addlestone before descending on Mark & family for a roast dinner. A very nice evening.

Monday meant that Siobhan had to return to work but we headed into London. I took the kids for a walk across the Jubilee Bridge and through Whitehall showing them where I had worked over here. We then saw Big Ben strike 11 o’clock, and went to Westminster Abbey. The line to get in was pretty long so we just admired it from the outside. From there we headed to St James Park where Kate got to see her first squirrels. There were people there feeding the squirrels with nuts and so we needed to get some nuts. There weren’t any for sale in any of the cafes in the park and so we kept walking down to Buckingham Palace. We arrived in time to see the changing of the guard with the guards all dressed in their red finery on their beautiful black horses. From there we headed up towards Hyde Park. On our way we passed the New Zealand war memorial which was really nice. In a country of massive stone structures and memorials, the NZ memorial is very stylish and really captured the high points of NZ.

At Hyde Park, we discovered the Winter Wonderland. It was a collection of bright and flashy stalls selling crap that is highly sought after only at Christmas. After scurrying through there, we emerged at the Serpentine Lake in the park, and the Serpentine café. That seemed like a good time for lunch. After lunch we headed back towards Harrods. We couldn’t go directly there though – we needed to spend more time playing with and watching squirrels. After the squirrels we made it to Harrods and I eventually found the Egyptian escalators. We tripped around the store, and Kate got to see the Millionaires’ Gallery. This consists of mounted film posters signed by the stars all in amazing presentation frames. So, for instance, they had one of the various Batman movies, with small posters from each movie signed by the relevant people, all mounted in a bigger frame. They retail for between £5-10,000. We also made it to the pet level, where we saw some bichon frise for £2,000 each, and a couple of kittens that looked like Willow and Splash. They were very fluffy and just how we remembered them as kittens. Kate also saw some pygmy Russian hamsters that she wanted to get. They were only £15 each, but with a life expectancy of only 12 months and presumably spending 6 months of those in quarantine getting back into NZ we eventually convinced her that they were not a sensible purchase. 

In Harrods we saw an advertisement for a Hollywood costumes exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Both of the kids were keen to see that so we wandered down there. It was interesting, but quite full of people and so it was difficult to read the material accompanying the displays. We eventually escaped and headed home. We had originally intended to ride on the London Eye but decided that we had had enough for one day and so left that for another day.

Christmas Spectacular

We planned to visit Andrew & Brigitte again before Christmas. Siobhan had her work Christmas party on the Friday night, and so we left bright and early Saturday morning for Kings Lynn. We spent another relaxing weekend with Andrew & Brigitte and the highlight was them taking us to the Christmas Spectacular at a little place called Thursford. It started out as one guy with a collection of traction engines that he opened up to the public, and has developed into something easily as good as the West End shows in London.  It has developed quite a reputation and busloads of spectators come in from all across the country.  We had been told by Andrew and Brigitte that it sells out months in advance, but last-minute cancellations make last-minute tickets possible.  They had managed to get four tickets but we were all seated in different parts of the hall.

The whole place is decorated to maximum effect, and the variety show went for 3 hours (including a 30 minute intermission). They had about 30 dancing girls, about 40 singers, and orchestra and a guy playing the Wurlitzer. The show was a mixture of dance routines of various types – ballet, tap, can-can and more modern, and the music was a mixture of Christmas carols, rock & roll and classical.  The whole event is truly a spectacular cabaret-type event despite its Christmas theme.  We were just delighted by it all, and so pleased we had been able to get tickets.

After the show was over we wandered about the hall a little as they really have gone overboard with the decorations.  We only have a few photos but hope they show something of the atmosphere.  We had got tickets to the Sunday matinee show, and went indoors during daylight.  On exiting into winter darkness we saw that the Christmas decorations even extended to lighting up most of the trees in the grounds.  

It was another wonderful (although brief) weekend in Norfolk, but sadly we had work the next day and so had to drive straight home after the show.

A Dark Day

After the All Blacks’ exploits against Scotland and Wales, we were looking forward to the game against England. England had played pretty rubbish in their earlier matches, with their captain making some match-losing calls towards the end of their games against Australia and South Africa. Still, the English press were talking the England team up while the word on the street was how big the All Blacks’ winning margin was going to be.

We got to the stadium in plenty of time – we trained to Clapham Junction and they had special trains from there going to Twickenham. We got a hot pork roll on our way to the game, and I also bought a disposable set of ref ears so that I could listen to the referee during the game. Our seats were right up in the Gods. While I knew that we would have seats that were far removed from the action, they had a better view than I expected. Unfortunately, it was a good view of a great game from England. The first half was tough going with the All Blacks unable to turn over any ball. As a result, when we got any ball it was in our own 22 and so we kicked it away. Dan missed three pretty easy kicks and we were down 12-0 at half time.

England grabbed another penalty just after half time, and things weren’t looking great. Then we scored two long-range tries in very quick succession and suddenly it was 15-14 and all on. The English fans went pretty quiet, and we and the NZers around us were giving them everything – well as much as a few Kiwis packed into the corner of the stadium could. Any other English team would have capitulated at that point, but instead England came back and scored two great tries of their own. We started playing catch-up and gave them another try. So England scored an historic win, but at least played a great game of rugby to do so.

The English fans were very good about it too. In wearing all of my All Blacks gears, I didn’t get hassled much on the way home. In fact, we had a couple of great conversations on the trains on the way home – with English fans who were of the view that they had witnessed something special – England playing to their potential on a day when the All Blacks had an off-day.