Saturday 7 December 2013

Impromptu Visit to London (Friday 7th December 2012)

The day started off with blue milk (thanks to 'Maldad', our Elf on the Shelf - named by the kids - Spanish for 'Evil'...) Anyway, I'm not quite sure how it came about, but as Lucy and Jack had no school on Friday, so we decided not to send Harry and Tom either, and went to London for the day instead!

We rang up Tom and Harry's school to let them know, as we were driving to the train station!
Scott and I waiting in a shelter on the platform.

Once on the train, Lucy whipped out a Children's World Atlas from her bag, and we had a very educational journey!

First off we went to see Platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter books. Our Harry nearly knocked himself out by running full tilt into the wall, and rebounding off it - not quite sure what he was thinking!

Lucy posing near St. Pancr(e)as!! (Excuse the bad Type 1 Diabetic joke!)

We went to the British Library, and had a cool time looking at some of our literary treasures... it is such an amazing place!

We then headed to Tower Hill, and read about this part of the original wall around London, dating from Roman times. Here are the kids with Trajan. (Roman Emperor around the time the wall was built.)

A quick play on the park opposite the Tower of London.

We then took the tube to Canary Wharf in one of the driverless trains.

 We surfaced at Canary Wharf, and had a quick look around and discussion about what they do there.

Walking through some of the posh office buildings...

After that we got the tube to the Isle of Dogs, and walked through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (which was finished in 1902) to Greenwich.

The Cutty Sark. Built in 1869, and one of only three remaining clipper ships built in the 1800's which has a wooden hull on an iron frame. It's the equivalent of a grade 1 listed building.

We then went and looked around the National Maritime Museum, which was free.

Walking up to Greenwich Observatory. It was nice to see the areas used in the 2012 Olympic Equestrian events.

 On the Greenwich Prime Meridian (A Prime Meridian is a line of Longitude defined to be 0.)

 Looking out over London from the Observatory.

After that, we walked back through the lovely Greenwich buildings, had lunch in Subway, then got a catamaran down the Thames.

The light was gorgeous (though it was pretty nippy), and the London land marks looked fantastic. We sat outside the whole way, and got off opposite the London Eye.

Going under Tower Bridge!

 HMS Belfast.

Then we made our way past the Natural History Museum, which was looking gorgeous, and went to the Science Museum.

The kids having a rest on one of the landings in the Science Museum.

We spend quite a while in the Science Museum, with the kids playing with everything.

We then walked down Oxford Street, and got some sandwiches for tea in a little Tesco.

Trafalgar Square.

Eating our sandwiches outside the Canadian Embassy!

We then headed back to King's Cross to get our train home. It was such a good day!! I had no qualms whatsoever about having the boys miss school - they saw so much! (And an added benefit was that we missed the school fair!!) A good eve to Jack becoming a teenager!

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