Sazz In The City

Beautiful interiors of St Pauls Cathedral.
Allegedly.

Ah...well, it was inevitable really. We've been pretty busy since we arrived - and will be getting busier still - so today was deliberately scheduled as a pretty light day in terms of activities and tours. We had an open ticket to go and visit St. Paul's Cathedral, plus the last remnants of our 48hr bus pass to do the hop-on, drop-off, wake-up, hop-off tour of the city.

Well... none of that actually happened.

Yep. Jetlag got us. All of us. And - barring a short interlude where I managed to rouse myself sufficiently to cook some English sausages and bacon (huzzah!), basically the entire first half of the day was a complete bust!! None of our brave and fearless Transatlantic travelers could rouse themselves and as a result it was 2pm before we finally were able to get our collective asses in gear and keep ourselves awake!! Unfortunately, our St Paul's Cathedral tour was a casualty of this lassitude (I explained to ManpanionTM and Squids what we were missing - big church, lots of pointy bits), so oops - sorry, blogwatchers - I failed you.

Here are a couple of pictures I nicked from the Internet instead.... https://www.stpauls.co.uk/

Exterior of St Pauls Cathedral.
Didn't see this either. Oops.

It turns out I also screwed up on a couple of other things today - one, getting the times wrong for meeting up with the esteemed Ms.Little (I thought we were meeting up tomorrow instead!) and two) afternoon tea at Harvey Nichols (also somehow scheduled for tomorrow in my exhausted brain - oops!). So it was all going a bit Pete Tong but - in a fortunate twist of fate - our jet-lagged induced inertia meant that we were still all at the apartment at the time that Little arrived! We were just on the verge of getting our arses into gear, so fortunately Little's visit gave us the perfect excuse to go back to the Bunch of Grapes and get some food instead! Huzzah!!

Huzzah! Nothing better than a beer (or two)
with mates down at the local. I do miss a good
old British pub.

A good natter and a couple of pints and some plates of fish and chips later, we waved Sarah off in a cab (she was heading over Battersea way for a party) and then stopped off briefly in the M&S Simply Food that's just round the corner from the hotel to stock up on supplies. I took the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with a Millionaire's Shortcake biscuit - O.M. G. Just as good as I remember them to be. A few of those will definitely be coming home with me.... I also finally managed to find a crock of Stilton so couldn't resist. Simple pleasures.

Anyway, we got back to the apartment around 5.30pm, just enough time to unwind for a bit (sitting round gossiping for a couple of hours in the pub is hard work!) and to admire the handiwork of the housekeeper who'd been in to service the apartment in the fraction of a millesecond that we'd managed to leave it. As you can see from the cushions on the sofa, she'd certainly been hard at work while we were out loafing about.....

Then it was 6.15pm and time to leave to make the One Thing we had arranged today that we actually managed to make - a "Christmas Spectacular" concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The Royal Albert Hall was as impressive a venue as I remembered it to be, so this was definitely (for me at least) one of the highlights of our trip.

It didn't disappoint.

It was a mixture of music (both classical and modern) and opera, with some dancing thrown in too for good measure - the Jingle Belles (dancers who were sturdy of thigh and not all that great) plus a couple of dancers from a well-renowned Russian ballet troop (can't remember the name, but from Siberia). Here was the program for the evening:

http://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/events/2016/christmas-spectacular/

The Squids are less than impressed with the Sock Monkeys
chair reservations skillz.

The music was amazing and the acoustics simply stunning. The program was pretty varied including some of the festive classics like Sleigh Ride as well as the theme tune to the first Harry Potter film (which G.Squid was over the moon about) and the Fantasia theme as well. For some reason, I got a bit teary-eyed when they were playing the theme to ET towards the end - that is, until someone physically cycled across the stage with ET in his basket - which kinda broke the mood!! The ballet dancers were fantastic (they danced the pas de deux from Swan Lake) and I also picked up a few ideas for ManpanionTM's costume for Halloween next year. The opera singers were good (they sang the last song in Act 1 of La Boheme) but - despite my trying very very hard to enjoy opera and lose myself in the beauty of their INCREDIBLY LOUD AND STRONG VOICES - I still find all opera a crushing bore and ended up playing with the Sock Monkeys instead.

Sock Monkeys Don't Care.

They are just here to have a Good Time.

There were laser displays too and - right at the very end - a bunch of fireworks lighting up the upper deck in showers of gold sparks! Very unexpected and cool! The concert lasted just shy of two hours and afterwards we were able to flag down a cab pretty quickly and head back to the apartment, where late night snacks of eggs, toast, cereal and sandwiches with Brie and pork sausages were just the ticket to finish the evening off in style.

So.

I think its safe to say I learned two valuable lessons today.

One.

Always travel with Sock Monkeys. They serve a number of invaluable purposes, from holding your seat at the bar, to distracting you during an interminably long piece of opera, to photobombing your neighbors in the row in front of you who are taking a family reunion selfie. It was a classic moment - and one that our neighbors had no idea about. We were literally dying with suppressed laughter and imagining the moment when someone finally says "Hang on a minute..." and spots the Sock Monkey perfectly positioning behind their right shoulder.

Two.

C'est la vie. You make plans to do a bunch of stuff - but sometimes your body just doesn't want to co-operate with them. And, at those moments, it probably best just to say "sod it" and go for Plan B (or C or D or ZZZZZ) instead. After all, we are, indeed, on holiday.

And with that, good night. Its super-busy tomorrow (promise!) so off to the land of nod I must go! Tomorrow, its "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" at the Tower.... :-)

Beautifully Christmassy decorations with the stage all lit up.

Me, ManpanionTM and The Squids about to settle in for a cracking
evening's entertainment. Not pictured: the Sock Monkeys.
They were back in the bar.

A teeny tiny panoramic picture of the Royal Albert Hall.
Note: not to scale.

Day 3: Our first full, non-jetlagged and being properly in our hotel apartment day in London. Today was one of the highlights of the trip (well, for me at any rate) as we had a kick-ass tour organized - just for the girls - of a pre-opening, private visit of Kensington Palace!!

Yep, rather than shuffle about in unison with the huddled masses, instead a wonderfully posh but lovely lady called Anna came to meet us at the hotel at 8.15am and serve as our private tour guide for the next 3 hrs or so. Our tour began at the Palace at 9am, so we had a bit of time to stop en route via taxi to take in the Albert Memorial - we'd seen it before through half-closed eyes on the SnoozeFest bus tour from yesterday but this time, accompanied by Anna's vivid narration, everything was brought to life.

The Albert Memorial in Hyde Park

Beautiful Kensington Palace, dusted with a heavy frost first thing in the morning

Unfortunately I have a terrible memory for conversations (Mumsie will attest to this) so I'm afraid I'm going to be truly rubbish at remembering the precise details (OK, OK... any details) of the stories that Anna told us.

And - on a side note - i just fell asleep for a few minutes after writing that and woke up to a screen full of "d"s - so I have probably mere moments before the jetlag hits again and I slump over my keyboard again and hit the d's once more. I shall try and write as quickly as I can.

Statue of Queen Victoria, carved by one of her daughters (seven kids!)

Anyhoo, off we trotted to Kensington via black cab (Girl Squids first ever cabbie experience!) and he dropped us off a couple mins walk from the palace gates, via the city's most expensive street, Billionaire's Row. It used to be called Millionaires Row, but hey ho - inflation and all that. No-one actually really knows how much the huge mansions sell for, as its all done by word of mouth plus the parties involved have to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevent them from revealing how much money changed hands. But Anna's reckoning was that the grand old mansions (many of which are now embassies, including the Israeli embassy) would sell for 100M GBP. That's quite a lotta dosh.

At 9am on the dot, a lady dressed in a black jacket and trousers with a red stripe down the side (shades of Household Cavalry) came out to meet us and escort us on our private, pre-opening tour of the Palace. Now, only about a third of the Palace is open to the public and - of course - its nowhere near where the current royals live - so, alas, no chance of bumping into a PJs-clad Wills and Kate or a hungover Harry, returning from a late night out! Nonetheless, there were 4 main exhibits that were on that we got to see in peace ahead of the regular opening hour of 10am. The exhibits covered the King's State Apartment (of King George II), the Queens State Apartment (of Mary II, who ruled with King George), the life of Victoria, as well as a fashion exhibit of the contemporary Royals (the Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Di).

A lovely crisp winter's morning. I've missed frost!

It was really well done but - like other exhibits in famous houses I've been too (like the Anne Frank house, for example) there is less to actually look at (other than paintings, tapestries and the wallpaper) than you'd actually expect. Other than larger items of furniture, most of the rooms we walked through were fairly bare - I guess a precaution against light-fingered tourists! But they did have a few knick-knacks and interesting items in display cases, especially the fashions of both the Stuart and Georgian eras (1690-1700's). You were allowed to take photos as long as you didnt use a flash, so please enjoy the pics I took. If a picture says a 1000 words, then settle on in for a 30,000 word blog!

Frost glittering on an ornate iron bench in Kensington
Palace gardens

The stunning - and iconic - gates of Kensington Palace. This is where its estimated
that one million bouquets of flowers were left in tribute when Princess Diana died.

Nice bit of gold leafing

Interior. One of the several grand staircases - this one called
the Kings Staircase. Note all the people painted in the stairwell -
these were portraits of actual people who visited the court -
including the guy whose job it was to wipe the King's bum!

Bonkers, right? But - in George II and Queen Caroline's time -
this was the absolute minimum width of a dress that you
had to be wearing in order to be allowed into the more inner,
fashionable sanctums. The wider the dress, the better!!

While, for the men, elaborately and heavily embroidered
jackets and waistcoats were de riguer.

With the correct apparel and right social connections, you
could look forward to an evening of dancing and gaiety at
the Palace.

The higher the status, the wider the frock! But looking on the
bright side - i'm sure they had built-in cupholders, so....

The King's Gallery

One of Victoria's bedrobes

Embroidery on the cuff of a jacket of Prince Albert's. Can't decide
whether this is adorable or vomit-inducing

A private portrait of the young Queen Victoria meant just for
Prince Albert's eyes - and no-one else. In its day, the loosely flowing
hair, the flushed expression and the amount of bare skin meant
this would be considered borderline pornographic at the time.
Ah...gotta love the Victorians.

A teeny tiny riding jacket of Queen Victoria's
(from a younger age)

Mourning clothes. Albert died fairly young and she spent 40yrs
in mourning, wearing nothing but black, until she died.

Queen Victoria was a keen watercolorist - this was one of her
paintings.

This was the bed that poor old Queen Mary II died from smallpox
in, aged only 32. Bummer.

Now on to the fashion bits. A collection of frocks worn by the
Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Di

One of my favs - worn by Princess Margaret in the 50's (I think)

Famous Catherine Walker dress worn by Princess Di

And another. Funnily enough - i remember some of these dresses
from growing up in the UK and seeing Princess Di on telly and in
the papers wearing these.

Worn by Princess Margaret

Another Catherine Walker dress worn by Diana

Oh YEAH. No words necessary.
Cornish clotted cream, how I have missed thee.

So the tour was fun but after an hour, it was over and both our Kensington Palace guide and Anna said their farewells and left us to enjoy the rest of the morning. In my mind, that meant immediately going to the tea room, The Orangery, for a cup of tea and a scone with clotted creat, so thats what we did. YUM!!

We left the palace around 11.30am and came back to the hotel - where we found out the boys were rather behind schedule, so figured out they wouldnt be back in time to join us for lunch. After a quick rest, we then headed out to Covent Garden for a wander round and to get some lunch. It was absolutely packed (as you'd expect) but it was fun enough, with the requisite number of street performers and kick-ass violin quartets playing! We decamped into a pub for lunch where I indulged in a steak-and-ale pie and chips (which had obviously been baked in a volcano as it was HOT!) and Girl Squid had a veggie burrito. It was yummy enough and very filling, so job's a good 'un.

Lady juggling knives upside down on a trapeze, under giant fake mistletoe and
silver baubles. As you do.

Cool and groovy violin ensemble, making Covent Garden's toes
collectively tap.

After lunch, we then decided on the spur of the moment to take a trip to Kings Cross Station as a certain Squid is a mad Harry Potter fan and she wanted to go and see the wall between platforms 9 and 10. It was a short 3 stop ride on the Picadilly line, so was easy to get to (yes, dear readers, by now, we are in full possession of 7-day Zone1-2 Oyster cards, so HA! We are now unstoppable!*).

Yey!! Harry Potter devotees unite!

We arrived and made our way straight to the platform where, to G.Squid's disappointment, there was no real proper wall to be found between the two platforms (hurrumph) so we had to make do with the best we could find, and mug(gle) for the camera there instead. It was only then as we casually made our way back to the main station concourse that we became aware of the seething mass of humanity that we'd somehow completely missed on our way in, crushing in and out of the Harry Potter shop at "Platform 9 &3/4) and the HUMUNGOUS line to have your picture taken under a Platform 9 & 3/4 signpost, along with the trolley cart half-disappearing through the wall!! G.Squid went to duly avail herself of a souvenir train ticket while I politely enquired about the length of the wait to take a picture and, upon learning the line was literally out of the station doors, very rapidly gave up on that idea.

GSquid wonders "Is this the way to Hogwarts??"

Nope. Apparently this is!

And this was the queue to take photos of the Platform sign (which you can see
on the far left). Crazy balls.

By this time, by a miracle, ManpanionTM and Boy Squid had found us (I'd texted them to come join us after their morning's activities, not really expecting success!) but they made it!! Their itinerary for the day was a tour of Chelsea Football Club's grounds and Museuem. Boy Squid is bigly into football, so this tour was specifically a treat for him to go behind the scenes of a Premier League football club (ManpanionTM, not so much). It was a public tour, rather than a private one, and - by the time they arrived - they had to wait for the 1.10pm tour. The tour took them through the club's locker rooms (apparently v swanky) as well as the locker room for the visiting team (v skanky) plus the pitch itself, so i guess that probably hit on all the highlights!

Anyway, we all trooped back to the hotel together where we all then crashed out til about 7.30pm, when we got up and headed out in search of supper. After an abortive attempt at pizza in Harrods (got there just as they were closing, unfortunately) we ended up at this little pizza joint in South Kensington instead. The pizzas were great (very creamy mozzarella), the service not quite so great but it did the job and we finally headed home replete around 10pm. And now its past midnight and i'm struggling to stay awake, so thats it for now blogwatchers. I hope you enjoy our Day 3 - and more to come tomorrow! Toodle-pip!

* ps this plan becomes a bit more stoppable if one of us forgets our Oyster card.