November Holiday

Wednesday 11th November

Lie in for me up early (ish) for Tina at around 08:30, fairly leisurely shower and breakfast though this new electric kettle is fantastic, so much quicker than boiling the kettle on the hob – why didn’t we get one sooner.

Catch the number 3 bus but due to a Remembrance ceremony it terminates at Lambeth Palace but the driver advises us to get off at Brixton and catch the tube. Charges us £4 but I’ve only got a tenner and he says he’ll give us change by the time we reach our stop.

This is a rather splendid bus as it has both a display and an announcement for each stop so you know when you need to get off. Reach Brixton and as everyone has been paying by Oyster card the driver still has no change so hands us back our £10 note – go him!

Take the Victoria line up to Oxford Circus and change for the Central line to St. Paul’s. On arrival have a tea and a coffee and Tina has a scrummy piece of carrot cake then we’re off to the Cathedral.

Take the audio tour as there are no guided tours till one o’ clock. All very interesting but whilst it is very impressive it wasn’t as atmospheric as Ely cathedral this one was too spacious and light.

It’s lunchtime and neither of us is sure what we want to eat so we opt for Hard Rock café and take the tube to Hyde Park Corner, having rung the restaurant first to enquire which was the nearest tube.

Have nachos to share followed by open steak sandwiches with mushrooms, onion and cheese, but way too much could have stopped after the nachos but we did have a nice bottle of Pinot.

Still only 3:00 p.m. so decide to go over to Harrods as it’s only one stop away. Go to Pet’s Kingdom and buy a very nice collar for our new doggy (still not sure whether to rename or not)

After a quick whiz round the jewellery department and the food halls where we purchased some baklava we headed back to Victoria station and the train home. We were knackered as we had been walking lots.

Texted the kids and Alex asked whether we had been to Crystal Palace Reptiles yet, which we hadn’t so when we got back to the station we walked up the steep hill and went to CPR – not all its cracked up to be a) it’s mainly an aquarium and b) all the interesting snakes are in small RUB’s + very expensive. Saw a couple of GTP’s. Also saw a python eating a rat.

Headed back along Crystal Palace Parade and Tina even commented that it wasn’t as far as she thought, but we were both pretty knackered by the time we got back and sat down for a nice cuppa tea.