A London Getaway

Today I spent the day in London with fellow Aussie and work colleague Kelly.  This was a treat on so many levels.

J  A day in London minus kids
J  A day in London minus husband
J  A day in London minus planning (whee hee thank you Kelly)

I caught the 9:37 train from Billericay and very diligently read 34 pages of my Stuarts and Tudors of England kids history book on the journey in.  Arrived at Liverpool St station and jumped on the underground to Queensway, where I met Kelly, but she was not alone.  There it was - right next to her - a bike!  A "Boris Bike" (named after London's Mayor Boris Johnson) to be precise. Bike docking stations are located throughout London giving you access to around 6,000 bikes at 400 locations and visitors and residents alike are encouraged to use the bikes as a new form of public transport.

We started off in Kensington Gardens and saw the soon to be home of Kate and Wills - Kensington Palace; the Albert Hall and Albert Memorial: the round pond, the Serpentine and the Princess Dianna memorial fountain.  Then it was across to Hyde Park corner, through the Wellington Arch and down Constitution Hill to Buckingham Palace.  Riding is a great way to see London, but we certainly didn't need bikes for our next destination - Harrods.

I went to Harrods when I was 19 and had memories of the fresh fish display, so that's where we headed.  The new parts of the store looked like David Jones, but the food halls were sort of how I remember them - I say sort of because age 19 was a long long time ago!  One thing both Kelly and I noticed was how completely over-staffed the store was, in fact if you'd taken the 60 staff out of the perfume section I think there would have been only 2 people left - me and Kelly!

After Harrods it was off to Covent Gardens for a bite to eat and then a quick visit to Trafalgar Square and Westminster Bridge and then back to Kelly's place in Kensington.  On the way we passed a street with £16m pound houses, one of which is owned by Dustin Hoffman.  Kelly passed him one day on the street!  I must be a groupie because I would have LOVED to have had a squiz at Dustin, or any other star but sigh - there were none about, not even Kylie.

Middle left, Dustin Hoffman's street.

And after a cup of tea and a welcome sit down it was back to Billericay.  Thank you Kelly, I had a ball J