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.