After Templar Church... out and about

Down the street....getting later now

hmmmmm...beer....

stopped to be tourists and take photos in the middle of the street...

The front of the courts..

Main entrance... soooo pretty

The view from down the road...

Knights templar

Chris outside his beloved Templar Church

This was the best stained glass that i have ever seen... it was awesome....

Walkabout Page one....

Here are the photos from our trip out today...

Her is Chris looking out over Blackfriars bridge..

This is the view over the Bridge...

guess where this is!!!!! Globe theatre.... yep....Shakespeare... we couldn't go in as Othello was playing and it was sold out. Only 5 pounds for a standing ticket...

Chris on a secret mission to visit the church of the knights templar...

Me in the courtyard of the Templar church...

I have one thing to say....

HARRODS food hall!!!

Well i thought you should all know, that today i spent about 100,000 pounds in Harrods. Well i would have if Chris hadn't been there to stop me.

Here is Chris after he had got me out of Harrods only spending 12 pounds and 25 pence.)

We wandered around the food halls first, and i have never seen such amazing foods and displays. All the fresh fish is a work of art, and don't get me started on the Chocolates.

We need to go back because we didn't get very far in. We were going to go back and get chocolate brownies but after drinking pure chocolate we were over chcolated.

I have never had such a nice hot chocolate. they melted the pure dark chocolate in with pieces of orange which are taken out after they have infused the chocolate. They use this pure chocolate and some vanilla cream to make me hot chocolate!!!! yummmy.....

We found some Fejoa fruits in the fuit section. They had been taken off display because there were only about 6 ones left. The nice lady gave them all to me pay for that one and i'll give them all to you.. very nice, but i guess they were nearly ready to be thrown.

(Here they are...) yummm

As for my mental spending, i found a perfume i wanted at 100 pounds a bottle. Not that i bought that one!!!

then i saw my perfect cutlery set!!!!! 9000 pounds!!!! but oh my god was it beeeeautiful!

it had stamped gold into the amazing handles. The alternative set was all gold with stamped silver. I prefered the silver though.

the rug, was 20,000 pounds, and looked it. About as large as our lounge and pure silk.

the antique furniture room was just "wow" i spent up large in there.

My green dress was only 890 pounds.

Then the piano. Top of the range grand piano at about 37,000 pounds. (on sale from 47,000)

so really all in all a profitable day!!

We came home and took wine, cheese and crackers up onto the terrace. Dan, James's friend brought an ipod and speakers, dinner, ice, and all sorts of other things.

PREVIOUS DAYS!

We went to see Naomi a few days ago... the day that Chris didn't go to bed till 10:00am the next morning... this is the street they live in....

Kate, one of the girls who lives there, did my hair at about 2:00am...

Ok, i had to put this picture in... We bought a camping set for the south of England (tent sleeping bags and mats for 39 pounds)

This is Chris trying out his new sleeping bag!!!!

Gone Visiting...

Yesterday was a pretty cool day in the end...

We went out about lunch time to Oxford street and had a look around. The shoe shops are fantastic... if you love cool shoes then London is the place to get them. So far, however, i havn't been that impressed by the clothes. So for the moment i can say i havn't bought ANYTHING.

We eventually made it to Convent Garden to a pub called "The Punch and Judy" at 2:00 to see Katie and Andy. it was a really good afternoon/evening/night and we finally went home about 10;00 that night. I was very much the worse for wear, but Chris was surprised that i had managed to keep up with the pints. They all had SIX pints. I manged 5, but considering my last record is one and a half pints, Chris said i did "really well". lol!!!

We had a great time and we are going to meet up sometime this week as well. Hopefully we will all meet up in Bath on the 19th.

Still booking flights/accomation blah blah blah,......

hmmmm... think i have been a bit tardy in posting over the past few days. we have been busy planning our trip and it has been taking a while.

It is currently 9:30am and we have just got home from dinner the night before. It was such a trek to get there and dinner was at 9:00 (still sunny) and the tubes stop about 11:00pm, so it wasn't worth trying to get home that night. Chris stayed up all night and is going to bed now.


THE PLAN:
6th august pick up hire car (can't buy a car as car was 400 pounds and insurance was 1300 pounds)
drive to leeds castle. stay in camping ground. visit stuff around there. Go to Dover, and over to Calais (france) for a day)
go to Brighton and hastings
Go to Portsmouth.
Go to the very south of England and see the Edgecumbe houses...
Drive to Bath on the 14th and stay there till 19th.
back to London for Chris's B;day.

now we have a week spare till we go to paris. Not sure what to do in this time. we may go to spain...

1st september, bus to paris.
6th 10th september in Copenhagen
10 15 Berlin
15- 20 Poland
20 - 25th Prague
25 whenever we can get a ticket home , in Brussels...

THEN...
up to Yorkshire and make back some of the money we spent!


over the past few days we have been sorting stuff out. The England stuff is all sorted and We have got to Paris, and from Copenhagen to Berlin, but the rest remains a mystery.

Apart from that, having a great time here with James, yesterday we went out as a late birthday lunch for me, Tapas, which was yummy and all three of us l bought massage pillows!! they are great. very small and good for travelling and planes, but the massage at the same time....

but anyway i had better go to bed or at least pretend to go to sleep as it is nearly 10am.

byeeee

Tuesday

By the time we all managed to get started this morning we headed of to Camden Town. Really rather an awesome market town in London full of totally wierd shops!!

We saw the most bizzare collection of shoes that even surpassed my imagination. 20 inch heals with at least 15cm glitter platforms at the front.

don't worry Angela we didn't SPEND MONEY or buy any books!!! i don't think anyone who was there could atually read so there were no books to buy.

everywhere we went in the food markets people were handing over food for us to try. we enventually settled on Morrocan food which was beautiful. the veges were awesome..

on our way home we we saw a really scary looking collection of punk people. the scariest of all was about 40 with bright yellow mohawk hair and leather and chains.

this tourist walked past and asked for a photo.... WTF i would have run the other way. But no she wanted a photo. It was very scary to see, he was really rather nice, he laughed and posed Smilling!!! for the photo.

As for the moment, i'm drinking wine so i'm sorry for the mish-mashy-ness of this post. I am also distracted by the "Adams Family Values movie in the background.

tower of london video

tower of london

British Museum - Images

The images above come from the Sutton Hoo exhibit. chris was drooling

I want this!!!

Sunday - Monday

Sunday evening we went to see my Dad's second cousin for the first time. It was really nice to see her and talk about the family history research that we have done. It was amazing to see. My great grandmother and her grandmother were sisters and look so similar. It was quite amazing to see the resemblance between her and my nana when she was a little younger.

Monday - we went to the Wallace collection. This was so very very worth going. It is a beautiful house all transformed into galleries with lots of amazing armor and collectables. the 15th c armor was just unbelievable. Chris was drooling all the way around the gallery especially as he was unable to take pictures in the gallery at all. He was very very upset!!!

He did however buy a book by Hans Talhoffer, "Medival Combat".

We then wandered off to the library and saw the Magna Carta.

It's raining again, no floods in this part of London, just annoying rain.

Saturday...

Well i finally got him out of bed and onto a tube so i can go and buy Harry Potter. I was at a slight disadvantage because i had no idea where to go. We got off at Tottenham Court Road ( yes oh so significant in the book...) and found (eventually) a TESCO's which was selling the book for 10 pounds. So feeling much happier we went off to the British Museum again.

Here i made the mistake of going into the book shop. You might all very very unhappy that you are not here, but nothing beats being in a bookshop with every book i , and any other person who loves history, could ever want, AND NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY THEM ALL!!!

Chris found book after book on armor and there were books on Anglo - Saxon clothing and a book on Condottieri (which Chris DID buy). the range was awesome. We spent about an hour drooling over the books.

Angela you would have had a field day with the books on archaeology!!!

possibly worse is seeing them and NOT being able to have them.

anyway this made me forget, only slightly, that there was a Harry Potter to be read. When we got home i hope to start then, but my plans were thwarted by another plan to find a pub for diner. which we did. Then when we got home i hoped to start then, but everyone was home. I gave in and said i had to read it at 9:00pm last night. I was still reading at 2:00 (spurred on by the endless number of Drinks that James and Chris provided me with. At 3:30 i finally crashed with 100 pages to go!!

Well i have just finished it an hour or two ago. Won't say anything however because i'm sure dad is still reading it.

I have footage that i am trying to get online of the tower of London and the museum but I'm having problems. Will try again today and hopefully upload some video onto this site or BEBO!

London History Museum

Yep another museum....
However it was free so at least it was an inexpensive day!

1. Early Britain - had lots of cool finds from thousands of years ago. Including a replica of the Battersea Shield.
2. Roman britain - scale models of London in Roman times. Shops and all sorts of things you can actually play with.
3. Medieval Britain. Full size medieval Hut... we could walk and sit in...very cool... chain maille, film on the black death...hats to try on...books... language learning stuff.. very cool...
4. London Burning - dedicated to the Great Fire of London that destroyed most of London. Ver interesting as we saw the monument for the fire the other day. I had no idea how much of it was burnt, and how close it came to the Tower of London.

very good museum. Interactive.

after that we took a wander to the Old Bailey. It is the Central Criminal Court now so we couldn't go in. I did however ask a guard how to get a hold of the records and they are in Kew, Surrey. He asked me "why was i wanting them" and i told him and he said he vaguely remembered the court case.

must go down and have a look.

We accidently wandered past St Pauls Cathedral but it was too late to go in.

Back on the tube and cooked dinner.

After Westminster...

After we spent quite a bit of our day in awe at Westminster, we decided (ok I decided) that what i wanted and wanted now was to go shopping!!! So we headed off towards Piccadilly taking a short cut through St James's Park. (See photos above. It was a beautiful day and standing on the bridge you could see the palace.

From the other side you can see the city in the background!

When we got to Piccadilly, eventually, we had a bit of a wander around and went into a department store. I nearly walked right back out again when i looked at a plain, blue, silk scarf, only to see a price tag of 390 pounds!!!! yep went right out the door again.

It was at this point i checked the map to find i was just down the road from Berkeley Square. Now this won't mean much to many people, but mum, and ange will know that Berkeley Square was a T.V show that we watched about nannies in the 1900's! (great series by the way) And here it is...

Unfortunately NOT like the show... there were cars and i couldn't find the house (if it was there at all) but it is a rich area and beautiful buildings. The buildings on the left were in the corner of the square.

We then walked up to Oxford street and had a beer at an expensive little pub called the hog in the pound. After wandering around the shops up there it was about 6:00 at night. I bought some perfume and a cheap watch (i hate not knowing the time) and jumped back on the tube to Victoria for dinner.

(Chris outside the Hog in the Pound)

Has anyone had Tapas before??? i hadn't.. We found a nice little spanish Tapas restaurant and ordered some yummy/expensive food. We had Paella, eggplant cheese and something, spicy potatoes, a lamb stew, bread and olives and a plate of deep fried seafood.

very yummy.

and here i am the following morning... telling you all about the fantastic things we have done.. Sorry about that... but we are here and you are NOT...he..he..he...

Had better get the lazy boy out of bed as it is 10:00am... and decide what wonderful things to do today.

byeeeeee

Westminster Abbey

Ok Westminster Abbey...
well it was very well worth the 10 pounds to get in, but unfortunately you can't take photos in the place so you can't have any. You can see one of the towers in the back ground of this picture, taken in the gardens out the back.

I have never seen so many beautiful old little chapels anywhere. It is truly an awesome place. We bought some little walkie talkie phones that guide you round the Abbey and explain what everything is. Everyone of any importance was there, from Edward the Confessor to Shakespere and Charles Darwin. Yes, the person who disproved the Bible's story about the creation of man. Apparantly he recanted his life's work on his death bed and said it was lies. That is why he is buried there. However it is a very plain slab of stone. Just a name carved with o decoration at all.

Even Chaucer was there (For those that don't know Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, one of the stories is called "A Knights Tale".... Yes think Heath Ledger.






We manged to sneak a couple of photos in the Abbey, this is really the only one that turned out ok. It was so amazing to be able to walk around. We could actually touch things to. Normally things are all roped off and you don't see things. appart from not getting a look at the confessor's monument, we were able to do so much and walk all over the Abbey. The stones are so worn down in places after 600 year of kings, queens and normal tourists walking all over them. Funny to think that all the people you read about in the History books have actually walked in the same spot as you.

I must stop, i'm getting far to mushy over that thought... we progress..








The back of the Abbey is a garden and other building where the monks slept. They are just beautiful!! As you can see from the photos on the left. You can just see a bit of the Abbey in the 2nd picture at the very top.

bow quarter

EDIT I have added some links to the history of Bow Quarter....

Just for those people as strange as me who love looking at houses, i though i would post up the pictures that we took from the street looking into Bow quarter. Here they are...

Post following on Westminster Abbey...

For more information look at the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryant_and_May_Factory%2C_Bow

Happy Birthday to me...

Well yesterday was my birthday!

had a pretty cool day, i decided that i wanted to go and see Harry Potter , so we did, in Greenwich. Very cool, very large cinema. they cast Umbridge and loony very well!!!

we went in the train right past West ham where a lot of my relatives live in the early 1900's. couldn't get off as it was in zone 3 not 2. must go and have a look tomorrow.

we ordered in curry, at my request last night for dinner. We are going out tonight instead.

still have to decide what to do with my day.... no idea yet....

hopefully museum pictures will be off the cammera soon. chris took so many the battery went dead mid picture.

British Museum

We are off to the city again today. hopefully going to see someone about getting work somewhere for four weeks. We Haven't broken into our bank cards at all yet, but i'm sure the day will come when our coins run out. We are trying to avoid spending savings until we have to book transport to Europe.

In less mundane news, we are also planing a visit to the British Museum today if we can manage it. Normally takes about a day and a half if you are an avid history buff so we may need to go back!!!!

Am hoping that in 12 hours i will have some sort of a job!!! here is hoping!

Saurday

today was a good day! didn't start out exciting but we did a few rather cool things. will update more info in a hour or so when the photos are in :-)

Updated information:

Well the day started ashamed to say at about 2:oopm when james declared he needed a haircut. we all decided to make a trip into the city. while james was having we went off wondering. Went past new Scotland yard...

Then we walked past these most gorgeous houses at the gates of Hyde park... so fantastic and wish they were all mine!!!!!!!!

Stopped at the gates of dear Queenie's house....

(wish we were invited to tea)

Her guards would have stopped us i think...

Met Back up with James and headed over the bridge to Southbank ( Yes another Southbank for you Brisbanites).. London bridge in the back ground .
A Random Church we stopped at on the way to get Lunch... at 5:30 pm...

After dinner at about 6:45 we headed back over the Tower Bridge (in Full sunshire) to get ready for the party)

After spending some time at home we eventually went out at about 10:30 to a very cool (expensive) little club somewhere in London. (I have no idea where) Where we stayed, till about 4:30 am. arriving home some 20 mins later to home at the old match factory! (which i hear was also a mental institution at one point...)

at this point, being nearly 5:00am... the boys decided NOT to go to bed as the sun was rising. so they stayed up. Honestly.

so as you can imagine i'm rather tired this morning and NOT looking forward to finding a job somewhere tomorrow morning.

must be done..

Tower of london

Today we headed off into London again. It was wet and cold, again, to start off with. we hopped on a tube and just headed off into London. After a couple of hours running around we headed off to the tower of london. 32 pounds later we were at the entry.

Normally i would say that it was totally not worth it until i saw it!

but nothing that i can put on here can do this justice. It was awsome. The most amazing collection of building enclosed in a fort built after 1066. so impressed.

one of the forts had a collection of armory inside. chris was drooling over the 14th c harness.

Not only that but the warders that work there not only work there during the day the LIVE there with their families in the pretty tudor buildings that you can see above.

(below) Me at the gate I am off now, getting late and i have had a dew too many vodka's

talk to you all later..