London: Sickness Free and Well Lush (A huge entry covering Thursday , Friday and Saturday)

Jacqui that title is for you as I know you love it. People really do say ‘well’ for ‘very’ though. Well fab, well hot, well good, well late, etc etc. As is obvious from my last post, our first day was well bad. Being ill really ate into our time and we had to miss visits we had intended to organise (Sorry Erin and Dale!), as well as the special dinner with Rob and Sandy. There wasn’t much we could do but make the most of the time we had left, and thankfully the bug or whatever it was that I had was gone by the morning. We caught the tube to Knightsbridge and walked through Harrods. It was incredible. Shop dressing there is not just marketing products but creating works of art. Here is a dress made of pegs.


There were a lot of madly expensive items – high end fashion, designer bags, shoes, and even babies and children’s wear, jewellery, strange ornaments, china, a bath made from one single piece of carved crystal (about half a million pounds if you’re looking for a new bath by the way)… but our favourite areas were the amazing food halls (yellow Thai watermelon anyone? Spanish plums? Fois gras? Sea salted chocolates {trust me they work!}?), the pet fashion department (yes it was hilarious), and the fabulous toy department. It was a kid’s dream. I took a photo of myself with a life size Ben Ten to show the kids back at work.


We then walked through the eastern side of Hyde Park. It is so big you would need most of a day to really see all of the park. Here is David by a lake that was created for a queen (I can’t remember which!).


Next was Top Shop, M&S, H&M, Primark and a bunch of other English clothing shops to browse through over towards Bond Street. David got some nice linen trousers and a really funky t-shirt, and I got a skirt, some luminous turquoise eyeliner and some more underwear as I forgot to pack some items that I wanted! Here I am on my way to shopping heaven- the marble arch just before Oxford St.


After figuring out which Pret A Manger was Ed’s work (they are everywhere here!) we met up and grabbed a quick lunch together. They really do great sandwiches and salads, and they also sell fizzy elderflower, a drink I became very fond of in England.
As an aside, I hope Pret branches out to Australia. They have very fresh food, they do a lot of work for charity and even allow staff to take time for helping the homeless whom they also distribute their leftovers to each day, they serve healthy snacks like fruit and yoghurt and nut/seed slices and porridge, and they seem to treat their staff well – company parties sound amazing hired dodgem cars and everything!
Anyway, enough about the sandwich shop… we met up with Ed and took a long walk over to the Tate Gallery. The Tate exhibits modern art and changes regularly, a bit like the MCA in Circular Quay but bigger and with more of the particularly famous artists of the last hundred years in amongst the contemporary works – for example, Andy Warhol, Picasso, Lichtenstein, Dali. It was wonderful and we took our time to walk through. It is now free to attend and they no longer actively prevent people taking photos. We didn’t take any though – you could find a better quality image on google, and those who were snapping away were barely bothering to look at the artwork in the flesh! So we don’t have any Tate photos for you, but here we are on the walk over to it.


We went home to Rob and Sandy, who made us a beautiful huge salad for dinner and we stayed up for a while chatting with the two of them. It was really nice to hang out together and catch up.

On Friday morning David and I caught the tube again, this time to Green Park. We walked to Buckingham Palace….


And through St James’ Park (an immediate favourite) and past the Horse Guard…


To Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, via Wesminster Abbey…


And over the bridge to the London Eye.


It was truly spectacular. The Eye is pricey and the lines can be long (we waited about an hour, the ‘flight’ is half an hour) but we really felt it was definitely worth it. What an experience! Afterward Ed took us to Covent Gardens. As our wedding gift he bought us lunch and drinks and took us to see some excellent street theatre. We did a bit of shopping in the area and got some cool thank you gifts for Rob and Sandy too.


For dinner Sandy made us some more traditional English food (bangers and mash with caramelized onions!). We had a shot of Polish vodka with gold leaf in it and then Ed, David and I hit the town.


First was Camden Town for a drink in a goth/punk pub which was actually really laidback and cool. Excuse my stupid squinty face, this is the only photo I have that shows where we were (and also shows my new skirt!). I look like I was three sheets to the wind but I was actually not!

Check out my crazy club make up!


Then we caught a (double decker!) bus to Farringdon, to a very cool nightclub called Fabric. The music was so loud I thought I was going to go deaf, and generally the people there were cooler than cool, but we had a really great time and Ed showed us his favourite rooms with different kinds of music – Fabric has several levels and lots of different bars!




On Saturday we simply had to have a sleep in. Two days of walking for about 5 hours each time, followed by dancing for half the night was just too much. In the afternoon we went to Camden Markets though, and it was amazing! The amount of different foods you can get is incredible, you can eat down by the water and shop all day. The markets are not in one area as I had thought, but all over town. I bought some crazy rainbow hair ties and tights with feathers printed all over them. I was very tempted to buy a gorgeous little vintage design dress but the price of 95 pounds stopped me. Back with Rob and Sandy we all went out for dinner at a brilliant Indian restaurant. Rob and Sandy were so generous and bought us a huge variety of delicious curries, followed by brandies back home. It was a lovely end to our stay with them.