This summer we had a trip to London for the day, just 50 minutes on the train direct with no changes. On our plan for the day would be to see the guards making sure the Queen was kept safe at all times, Tom and Jack were very much interested to see them. Midnight the day before then we had a look and thought up a rough plan for the day with the idea of breakfast on the train, a visit to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden.
A short sleep for us woken by two excited boys in the morning, off we went to the train station. A bargain was had as three adults and two children meant we were a "group" and so got reduced rates with tickets for the boys costing just £1 each. It seems cheaper to get the train to London than it is to get to the next stop! We had a whole bag full of goodies for the day, starting with breakfast of almond croissants for the train journey. We planned to get a table seat in an early morning semi empty train carriage but that idea was soon dashed as we joined a train filled with another group going to London. Their group filled most of the train unlike our group of five, it was standing room only for the journey. Almond croissants for breakfast on an early morning deserted train was not to be, but almond croissants are almond croissants and tasted just as good standing up, if not a bit more challenging.
We let the bustle of Victoria station go around us as we surveyed the foyer for the station exit and made our way up to the Palace by foot, along the way spotting with great excitement the number of bendy busses.
We had no intention of going into the Palace but it seemed like the rest of London had different ideas as we walked past the queue which stretched on and on full of eager looking people. We had no idea at what time the changing of the guard too place but hopped we might time it right by chance and as we got to a good vantage point the police all showed up and started to move people around to make room for the ceremony. We seemed to wait for ages until we heard music and saw a marching band arrive, followed later by horses and all sorts of excitement. Crowds were moved about and just by chance we had got there just in time for a full changing of the guard but managed to stand in an empty spot right in front just minutes before the area was swamped with tourists. We were a bit stuck, but stuck right at the front, boys sitting down on the road while the adults stood, and stood… and stood. We watched for a good hour and a half, solders came, they went, horses paraded and music was played.
Being boys, the highlight was not when the horses rode past us and one of them did a poo, but instead a little bit later when a London Borough road sweeper went past in the opposite directions, spotted said poo on our side, did a u-turn and prepared to clean everything up. To much cheering of the great and great excitement to Tom and Jack, all this did was to spread the poo from a nice compact pile to a big long smear along the road which demonstrated that road sweepers are just not up to the job! The driver stopped, looked, must have had shrugged his shoulders and decided against another public performance of "how not to clear horse poo off the road" and quickly sped off much to the disappointment of the crowed eagerly awaiting to see how he would get out of this one.
After such a performance, we headed for the pack and had lunch while watching the rather too tame squirrels perform for the rest of the tourists. Rested and fed, we headed to Trafalgar Square, stopping to watch the solders on guard duty and jumping each time they would shout and change shoulders that they rested their gun on. By this time, Jack had decided he would really like to be doing this as a job too and had shown us a number of times just how still and straight he could stand and so be a guard too.
The weather for the day had been a bit hit and miss on the forecast and so we had taken rain coats and all sorts just in case, and he had already had to use them. But just as if entering a new world, as soon as we got to Trafalgar Square the sun came out and everyone was hot. Just as well we had plenty of water to splash about with as we sat on the side of the pools and watched the fountains. Trafalgar Square was a bit upsetting in a way as I remember it, when I was small, as a massive place full of pidgins when infect it seemed very much small and not a pidgin in sight, the main part was taken over by a demonstration against child cruelty (are people actually "for" child cruelty I thought?).
We spent quite some time in the warm sun and splashing with the cold water. It was then time for something else and so from the blue skies we made our way down to the Tube and zoomed off to Regent Street with the idea of having a look around Hamleys. When we services back up to street level we were met with clouds and rain, how long had we been underground I wondered? We slowly made our way up Regent Street until we found the large toy shop. Jack found the toy rabbits, we seemed to bump into a life sized cuddly camel. We plodded along the noisy crowded shop…. we glad when we got out!
Onwards we went, down on the Tube and popping back up at Covent Garden. We timed it right to see the opening of the UK's largest Apple store! The queue snaked around Covent Garden and every minute or so we listened to the cheers from the staff at the door as yet another happy Apple owner walked out with their new purchase. It was really raining now, we had all been walking or standing since the morning and it was really time to stop for a sit down and refreshment. It was Saturday, raining, we were at Covent Garden. Every place was full with people probably with the same idea of getting out of the rain. We enter up then at a coffee shop all huddled around an outside table that was just about under the shop's canopy. By the time we left, it was hot and sunny again, we were all dry, refreshed and ready.
It was time to leave Covent Garden which is what everyone else in the area thought too as we waited to enter the lift down to the Tube. Poor Jack was nearly the victim of "suffocation by large person" as the woman behind him, not seeing little Jack in front of her, kept on pushing forwards. Not a nice way to go, fortunately Jack was saved, the large woman seemed a bit annoyed.
We got out the other end, back up to the surface at Victoria and it was nearly the end of our visit. Tom and Jack were certainly tired after a mass of different sights and sounds. Great fun had on the Tube trains and finding our way through the tunnels and holding on as the trains moved off. Even more fun had on the escalators which at the beginning both boys were more than scared off but by the end saw them more as a ride at an amusement park.
The day was finished at a pizza restaurant, eat as much as you like, which they did. With renewed energy we got on the train back home. The adults were only just staying awake, Tom and Jack talked the whole journey back!
