Ink and Incapability

Thursday, 10 July 2008

I may have let things slide a bit...

Ah.

I don't seem to have been here for a while...

but I have still been writing my trippie. I am that lazy that I will just post the link -

http://www.disab.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=9565

It's not finished yet either... I'm refusing to write the last day as that will be our first Florida extravaganza over with... booooo!!!

Sunday, 20 January 2008

Oo-de-lally Tour: The Adventure Begins!!

Friday 14th - Sunday 16th September: The adventure begins!

FINALLY(!) the day had arrived. Well, the day before the day had arrived. Either way it felt great and the adventure was underway at last…

Our holiday officially started at 3pm on Friday 14th September as we had both managed to secure an early finish from work and joyfully waved goodbye to the place until 4th October. We took the opportunity to celebrate by treating ourselves to a lovely carvery dinner - inclusive of a yummy ice cream sundae which had all the gooey chocolaty properties that I look for in a dessert! As I remember it I spent the rest of the evening being excited and nervous in turn, before progressing to full blown Fi Worrywart mode for bedtime. A sporadic nights sleep ensued which was unfortunate as we had to be up early to take the orange dude to the vet for his booster and annual prod and poke. Then again, I had no problem being up in time as I had in fact been awake since 6am - that wide eyed type of awake that you get when you are consumed with irrational thoughts such as “What if immigration don’t let me in??!”.

Spike (one of our moggies) soon took my mind away from its paranoid ramblings as he utterly loathes going to the vets. The problem is not so much the vets itself, but more so the journey to the vets. He hates being in his carry box, detests being in the car, and likes to make his feelings known by shouting for the duration of the journey. However we made it there and back again without serious incident and Mark even managed to get his haircut in between. The moggie maintenance was completed on our return home as we pinned Weasel (the other one) down and clipped her claws and applied the plastic cone in the hope that this would stop her digging holes in her own head - an ongoing problem as she has some quite serious personal issues!

With the moggies sorted out we were left with finalising the packing and checking the travel documents at least four hundred times… it is a miracle that the ink was not rubbed off of the tickets and I think my unnecessary worrying actually peaked when I started to ask the disboards (I will admit to having internet message board "friends"!) packing questions - as if the decision whether to take a cardigan or not merit’s a serious discussion! Clearly the only course of action was to go to bed - so we did.

The wide eyed awake look was back with a vengeance on the morning of 16th September, and was only assuaged slightly at 10.45am by a successful foray into the world of Virgin Atlantics Online Check-In facility. This was surprisingly easy and was thankfully eliminated from my worry list!

M's dad came to pick us up at 2pm and we were on the road by 2.45pm, having briefed him in where to put the re-cycling and how to keep the moggins alive for two weeks. We arrived at Gatwick South Terminal after a short and uneventful journey and headed directly for the Virgin Atlantic Twilight Check-in desk. I have to say that this is a brilliant service - if only for the smug feeling you get as you waltz past the hordes of people waiting to check hours before their flight and realise that a) there is no queue at the Virgin check in desk, and b) after handing your bags over, all you have to do is find some dinner, drink some lager, and fall into bed… that is if you have booked the Gatwick Hilton, which we had! So no queues for us and no problems, with the luggage weighing in comfortably under the 23kg allowance and the boarding cards showing the desired seat numbers 63A & 63C.

Everything was going so well that we opted for a beer stop at the “Village Inn” before heading back through the terminal to the Hilton. We encountered an objectionable man at the Hilton check in desk - the type of self important tosser who feels that he shouldn’t have to wait regardless of the fact other people are already being served. He struggled with directions such as “Wait Here to be Served” and required a map directing him to his room. Cretin.

Armed with our room number (2246) and completely map-free we somehow managed to locate our allocated digs for the night… it involved a lift and some corridors - real tricky stuff!

Having done the obligatory bed jumping and rummaging through the free toiletries we headed back again to the terminal for dinner. We’d had a tip off from my mum that the prices in the Hilton were a bit OTT and frankly why choose overpriced nosh when you could be at Frankie & Benny’s stuffing yourself with their fine Italian American fare?? We shared some potato skins and a napolena garlic flatbread for starters and then Mark had the New York Chicken, and I opted for the Chicken Parmigana.Too stuffed to have dessert at the restaurant but unwilling to forego a treat, we stopped off at Krispy Kremes for some takeaway goo and dragged ourselves back to the hotel.

I had a lovely hot bath - much appreciated as we don’t have a tub at home, only a shower - and then ticked another thing off of the worry list by filling in the Visa Waiver forms that we’d picked up at the Twilight Check-in desk. Somehow we also managed to fit in a game of Yatzee (M won), watched an episode of Medium, and some other activities that I won’t go into! Had no trouble getting to sleep after all of that - alarm set for 7.30am with the intention of heading to passport control at 8am… went to sleep with everything crossed for no delays and keeping our chosen seats!

Monday 17th September: Leeeeeaving on a jet plane!!

It was 7am and I had been awake for at least an hour, maybe more. Having admitted to myself that I was not going back to sleep I snuck into the bathroom to start writing my journal - I’d had some unfortunate dreams as an aeroplane had crashed in Phuket on 16th September and obviously it was splashed all over the evening news. Not great considering what we were about to do! Still I was thinking positive thoughts and did not have long to wait for the 7.30am alarm and the official start of “Flight Day”!!

We checked out at 8.30am and headed for passport control. When I saw the queue I was VERY happy that we had used the Twilight Check-In and stayed overnight at the airport - all those people that didn’t must have been up at stupid-O’clock to be on time to check in and join the big assed passport queue. Somehow there are also people in the world that don’t know that airport security is a bit tighter than it used to be, and can’t grasp simple ideas like not bringing all their toiletries in their hand luggage. Thankfully we were not in this group - the only problem we had was M leaving his mobile phone in his pocket and setting off the alarm… mildly embarrassing for him!

Even more queuing ensued after passport control - this time for brekky. We opted for Upper Crust as all the table service places were rammed. I was very good and had a fruit salad and water - M was not quite so good with a pastry, blueberry muffin and an Oasis drink. We managed to find a seat to eat our brekky, got some snacks from the WH Smith and by then it was 10am and time to get to Gate 17. On arrival we discovered that our plane would be Ruby Tuesday and we only had 15 minutes to wait before we started to board - wealthier people first (1st class & Premium Economy) and then economy passengers. We were on fairly quickly as they filled up from the rear and thankfully we had managed to keep the seats that we chose way back on 2nd January!

My wish was granted and we did not experience any delays - setting off basically on time at 11am UK time. The first order of the day was drinks and snacks in the way of diet coke and some sour cream and chive flavoured pretzels. Shrek the 3rd started almost immediately on the seatback entertainment screens and we both opted to watch it. A bad decision as it’s pretty poor. Lunch was served during the film - choices were meatball marinara, chicken tikka, or vegetarian cottage pie. I don’t know who’s idea it was to serve curry on a plane but it was a bad one! M and I both had the meatballs - it came with a pasta and mozzarella salad, small brown and white roll, crackers and cheese, and a mini GU chocolate pot. Drinks were a small bottle of water and tea/coffee for afters. You could have had wine but it was a bit early for me. I thought the food was fine - I liked everything, especially the chocolate pot! Mark professes to be a bit of a plane food connoisseur and he gave it two stars which isn’t bad as our Frankie and Benny’s dinner achieved three stars… I’m assuming he scores out of five although I have never actually asked.

Following the food I read a magazine, did some puzzles, listened to my music and watched the information thing on the seatback TV. This became a bit compulsive until I realised that we had been flying for about five hours and were STILL over the Atlantic… then it just got boring. For posterities sake however I can reveal that our flying stats were:Flying time - 8 ½ HoursETA - 14.22Altitude - 35,000ft - 38,000ftSpeed - 605 MPH / 498 MPHWe got higher and went slower due to turbulence bad enough to have the seatbelt sign switched on. Obviously at this point I realised that I need the loo… On the up side, the stewardesses came round with the ice-cream. We both watched another film to pass some more time - I watched Reign Over Me which was very good and made me cry, and M went for Oceans 13 which he seemed to like. We also had a snack later in the flight in the form of sandwhich and cookie.

We finally landed (on time) at 2.30pm and joined the scrum for immigration. I really had not been looking forward to this moment… It took at least an hour and was a bit nerve wracking. Still, my online investigation stood me in good stead - my form was filled in correctly and I managed the fingerprint/eye scan thing without too much fumbling… even with a shaky finger and sweaty paws! The official asked my reason for travel, who I was travelling with, when I was last in the USA and when I was returning home. It is not a particularly pleasant process but we were both through and our bags were waiting for us on the other side. We did a quick tour of Orlando International Airport before locating the Mears transport desk and our shuttle - number 35, driven by Marcella. Only a short journey later and we were checking into room number 912 and the Sheraton Studio City… a surreal experience having been planning it for so long!

The room was as expected with two double beds, TV, and a plethora of towels - and we had a view of Wet n Wild. Unpacked and settled in, we headed out for a bit of a nosey around. First impressions - the roads are big in America! We spotted Sweet Tomatoes which was my number one pick for dinner and then decided to have a dip in the hotel pool before eating. We had something very important to do first though - walk to Wet n Wild which was just over the road from the hotel and collect our four park flex tickets. This successfully

achieved (another thing ticked off the worry list!) and we quickly got our swimming togs on. The hotel pool was quite dinky but deep and a good temperature although it was very blustery around the pool area. We were both hungry after our swim so changed and mooched back up the road to Sweet Tomatoes.

This is a fabulous little eatery where you pay about $10 each for what is essentially a buffet with salad bar, soups, baked potatos, different kinds of breads, desserts etc. Dinner was YUM - we basically ate

everything and particularly enjoyed the cheesy bread and soups. Couldn’t resist the chocolate brownies and make your own sundae for dessert either!

I was still only about 9pm at this point and it seemed rude not to have a round of crazy golf as Congo River Golf was located right next to the hotel.

The course was great but sadly I lost to M 60/57 - booo!!

It is also rude not to have a drink in your hotel bar on your first night - however we only managed a lager apiece before remembering that we had been up for at least 22 hours and tiredness finally kicked in. We went to bed supremely happy at the thought of SeaWorld in the morning…

Thursday, 3 January 2008

Happy New Year!!

Ok, so I've been a pretty rubbish blogger since we went on our holiday but it is a new year and I am determined to get my Florida Trip report up and start planning our next big thing!

Christmas was cool - went far too quickly but I got some lovely gifts and got to see the family so it is all good. Also went to a party with friends on 28/12/07 and had a great time catching up with people. News Year's eve was our usual quiet affair - we stayed in and got a bit boozy together which was cool :o)

There is so much to say about our Florida holiday - but suffice to say it was AMAZING!!
I have started writing the trip report and will be posting the first instalment shortly...

Sunday, 9 September 2007

5 Year Anniversary

Tomorrow (10/09/07) is M and I's 5 year anniversary!

I'll save the soppy stuff for him but just wanted to say that feel really lucky to have my lovely M and I hope I make him as happy as he makes me :o)

Pampered Me...

I'm so spoilt...

Yesterday I went over to the parents house and Mum and I went for a bit of R&R at her gym/Spa place. We had a splash about in the pool and sat in the sauna and spa pool for a while before making our way to the beauty area to have a full body massage!

It was of course lovely - thankyou mum for treating me yet again :o)

Mum had also got a picture of M and I from my birthday blown up and framed (it's the one of us together on the front of the boat that I posted in my last entry) and also gave us some $'s for our holiday... I'm going to do so much shopping it's not funny!!

Birthday Picnic

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and we went out for the day on my parents boat and stopped for a picnic in Henley. Attendees were myself and M, mum and dad, my brother and sister and their OH's, my nephew, and the two dogs. It was the first nice weather we have had for ages - M actually managed to get sunburn!

It was a well nice day - Mum had packed a lush picnic and my sister and nephew had made cake... YUM! I do have pics of everyone but have not asked if they mind them being posted on t'internet so I will just post a couple of M and I...

I got lots of lovely gifts - including a new posh MP3 player and camera, and lots of $'s for our holiday. Thanks everyone for my presents and for coming out for the day - hope you all had fun too :o)

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Potter & Dinton Pastures

It came to me that I have never said anything about The Deathly Hallows... How I could be so remise I don't know, but suffice to say that when it comes to Snape I WAS RIGHT!!!

Shall say no more in case anyone hasn't read it yet. We were up at 7am and down to Asda to get a copy each. I finished mine in 1 1/2 days - closely beaten by the reading machine that is Jax but at least no one got the chance to spoil it for me :o)

Here I am, changed back into my PJ's and embarking on the reading marathon:

Also went to Dinton Pastures today (25/08/07) which was lovely as usual. Walked all around Black Swan Lake, Lavells Lake, Herons Water, and traipsed around in some kind of copse for a while. Took a few pics - did see bunnies and Herons but no pictures of them as again I had the never-ready camera with me!:

Sunday, 19 August 2007

The oo-de-tinerary

SO, we spent a lot of time creating an itinerary to try to fit the "Must Do's" into without dying of exhaustion in the process.

When I say "We", I should probably say "M" as I am a teensy bit guilty of getting a bit sidetracked by 1. The Brits Guide to Orlando book, 2. The DIS message boards, 3. The planning DVD's, and 4. Singing the oo-de-lally song!

I think he did a great job on it though:

We start on Sunday 16/09/2007 - DAY ZERO

16/09: Train or (hopefully) lift to Gatwick, Twilight check in, Dinner, Overnight stay at the Gatwick Hilton.

WEEK 1:

17/09: "Leeeaaving, on a jet plane..." Take off 10.45am... Arrive, get through immigration (I'm scared!) and make our way to I-Drive and the SSC Hotel.
18/09: SeaWorld and Dolphin Nursery Tour. Lunch or Dinner at the Sharks Underwater Grill and possible afternoon visit to WNW.
19/09: Typhoon Lagoon - evening at Downtown Disney
20/09: Coach from SW to Busch Gardens in Tampa - evening on I-Drive after what I anticipate is going to be our most tiring day.
21/09: Universal Studios - Blue Man Show in the evening
22/09: Discovery Cove... swimming with a Dolphin... just another day really ;o) Dinner at Universal CityWalk

Jax and Toms Engagement Party - sadly we will be missing the party of the year as, while we are living it up with our new flippered friends, one of my oldest and best friends is celebrating her engagement. Jax - I'm sorry we can't come but you won't be able to keep us away from the wedding - we'll be there with bells on!! We hope you & Tom have a fantabulous night at your party and expect to see lots and lots of photos on our return :o)

23/09: Island of Adventure and/or Shopping, evening at CityWalk

WEEK 2:

24/09: Wet n Wild and SeaWorld,maybe a bit more shopping
25/09: Blizzard Beach, Downtown Disney in the evening
26/09: SeaWorld & Dine with Shamu
27/09: Animal Kingdom, Dinner at the Rainforest Cafe
28/09: Islands of Adventure, Universal CityWalk in the evening
29/09: MGM, Medieval Times Dinner Show in the evening
30/09: Last Day... BOOOOOOOOO. No plan as yet - re-do our favourite park or maybe head for Magic Kingdom or Epcot. We shall see. Some kind of sumptuous feast in the evening!
01/10: Flight Home... lets not think about this bit yet :o(

So there it is - our basic itinerary. Who knows if we will keep to it but at least we know that it is possible to fit everything in! The plan is to rise early and get to the parks for opening, and then have more relaxing afternoons. WNW is just over the road from our hotel so I'm hoping we can just dip in there as and when to chill, have some silly fun, and cool down!

OOOO-DE-LALLY for the OO-DE-TINERARY!!!

Timeline

Spend, Spend... no SAVE!!

With all the big decisions made and the itinerary decided on (coming up soon) we proceeded to book and purchase everything we could. M was furtively changing £'s into $'s and we were topping up our savings account whenever possible. In between the big decisions and purchases we also made good headway with all the "Little Things"...

We bought extra luggage to carry our holiday shopping home in, both got some Crocs, M got a new biometric passport, and I bought a cheap waterproof watch as am completely paranoid about missing our Dolphin Swim slot at DC!!

We bought some new summer kit, shades, and tiny toiletries. Ordered some bags from Captain Bags for carrying liquid on the plane (I'm going to want my deoderant!). The list goes on and on and we are not finished yet!

A lot of time and effort has gone into planning this trip and happily M keeps a journal so we do have a timeline of the main events:

Florida Planning Timeline

27/06/06 - Decided to go
17/07/06 - Began Research
01/01/07 - Booked Flights/Hotel/4 Park Flex Ticket online with Vigin
01/01/07 - Booked Discovery Cove (WOOOOHOOOO!!)
02/01/07 - Picked seats on plane
03/01/07 - Purchased Holiday Insurance
06/01/07 - Confirmation arrived from Virgin
09/01/07 - Confirmation Arrived from Discovery Cove
30/01/07 - Booked Dolphin Nursery Tour
08/02/07 - M new passport arrived
26/02/07 - Booked Dine with Shamu
27/02/07 - Purchased Disney Tickets
27/02/07 - Purchased Medieval Times Dinner Show Tickets
27/02/07 - M changed more $'s - hits his $1000 target
05/03/07 - SeaWorld made announcement re the new Aquatica WaterPark which cements our plans for a 2010 return trip!!
08/03/07 - Disney and Medieval Times Tickets arrive
17/04/07 - Booked Blue Man Group Tickets
06/07/07 - Transferred savings to pay holiday balance
06/07/07 - Ordered AMEX TC Card (that was a mistake - but at least we are travelling before they withdraw it!)
12/07/07 - Amex TC Card arrived
13/07/07 - Holiday Balance Paid!!
25/07/07 - Purchased funky Mickey trip report book and started writing
31/07/07 - Booked Gatwick Hilton for our pre-flight stay

It has not escaped my notice that we began our planning on 17/07/06, and finally paid the Holiday Balance 13/07/07 - almost a year to the day!

Up Next: The Itinerary

Attractions & Tickets

Another round of research ensued and we decided that the following attractions are essentials:

1. Discovery Cove (DC)
2. SeaWorld (SW)
3. Universal Studios (US)
4. Islands of Adventure (IOA)
5. Disneys MGM Studios (MGM)
6. Disneys Animal Kingdom (AK)
7. Busch Gardens (BG)
8. Blizzard Beach (BB)
9. Typhoon Lagoon (TL)
10. Wet n Wild (WNW)

Now thats a whole lotta fun!

Obviously we have not included the other two Disney parks, Magic Kingdom and Epcot, in this list. A lot of the Disney Addicts will think we are mad for choosing BG over Magic Kingdom, or that I am more excited about SW than any of the Disney Parks but hey, it's our holiday and we have planned it around the things that we think we will enjoy the most. If we have enough time/money we may still visit Magic Kingdom but its not going on the essentials list!

ANYWAY... looking at all the brochures and websites it became obvious that choosing the tickets was not going to be a simple task... there are 4 & 5 park flex tickets, 2 day passes with extra days free, different prices from different agents, the option to book through Virgin or the parks direct, and about 200 types (seriously - there actually ARE that many) of Disney tickets... our minds were well and truly boggled!

Not to be deterred we worked out that the following three tickets would cover everything on the essentials list:

1. 4 Park Flex Ticket (SW, US, IOD, WNW)
2. Discovery Cove with Dolphin Swim (WOOOOHOOOO!!) + 7 days entry to Busch Gardens
3. 2 + 3 Disney Tickets (2x main parks plus 3 visits to waterparks / fun)

We opted for booking the Flex Tickets through Virgin as the price seemed pretty standard across the board. Discovery Cove was booked direct, and the Disney Tickets were purchased online from Ticket Mania. Now that we knew which attractions we would definately be visiting we had the task of creating an itinerary to fit it all in. Our research had also revealed a number of little extra's that it seemed rude not to partake of...

Tours, Dinners, & Shows

It seemed a bit of a waste to go all the way to Florida and not treat ourselves to some of the extra FUN on offer so we also booked:

1. Dolphin Nursery Tour @ SW
2. Medieval Times Dinner Show
3. Dine With Shamu @ SW
4. Blue Man Group @ US

I love seeing the list of things we are going to do - it's VERY exciting!!! I literally CANNOT wait to get to Discovery Cove. Have a look at the reviews here for an idea of why I'm so looking forward to this day. M is a bit aprehensive about the dolphins not liking him (I know - he's silly!) but I'm thinking I will need to be restrained from throwing myself in fully clothed and will probably burst into tears (in a good way) on meeting my dolphin friend!

I do tend to get a bit obsessed about DC and SW, but then I remember about all the other cool places we are going and think my head may EXPLODE with excitment!! The anticipation for this holiday is HUGE and although I feel like we have been waiting to go forever, planning it has actually been really good fun as well :o)

UP Next: Timeline & Itinerary

ALL together now.... OO-DE-LALLY!!!

Oo-de-lally Tour 2007 - Pre-Trip Report

As it is now under a month (29 days to be exact!!) till our Florida Extravaganza I thought it was about time to write my Pre-Trip Report and share our year of planning the (hopefully) perfect holiday.

The trip will henceforth be known as the Oo-de-lally Tour 2007 - I will expect everyone to join me in periodic renditions of the "Oo-de-lally oo-de-lally Golly What a Day" song from Robin Hood, and you may of course shout "OO-DE-LALLY!!" whenever it seems appropriate ;o)

So, without further ado I present....

Oo-de-lally Tour 2007 - Pre-Trip Report

Decisions, Decisions!

So many things to decide on and so much choice to choose from! I honestly can't remember the first conversation we had about this trip - but I'm pretty certain it started with the words "I wonder how much it would cost..." and ended with the words "Who cares how much it costs!"

I do know that we started our research on 17/07/06 with the two biggies - When? & Where?

When? was suprisingly easy - we decided on 17/09/07 - 01/10/07. There are no UK school holidays and no American holidays between these dates, and all the guidebooks say it is one of the quietest times of year and that the weather is more bearable.

Where? posed more of a problem. It was obvious from the start that we were going to stay on International Drive but as for which hotel - what a minefield! Eventually after many hours of scouring the brochures and reading online reviews we finally agreed on the Sheraton Studio City. It seems to be in a good position on I-Drive (right opposite Wet n Wild) and has free shuttles to Universal Studios & Disney if we need them. M also has a bit of a movie obsession - once we had read about the Sheraton Studio City's 50's movie theming it seemed a given that we would stay here.

So with the two big decisions made and a general consensus that we would take the easy option and book a package deal through Virgin, we were left with planning the actual fun!!

OO-DE-LALLY Indeedy!!

Up Next: Attractions & Tickets.

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

Paintballing Pic...

Here is the pic of my workmates and I at the paintballing - you can barely see my face as I have my mask thing on my head :o/

Monday, 2 July 2007

Achy Me

Went paintballing yesterday - It was fun but I don't half hurt today!!

Went with workmates - after the first couple of games we really got into it and started doing quite well I thought. Only problem was that the other team were cheating like hell. This however did not go un-noticed by the marshalls and although they won more games than us they were docked so many points for cheating (not going out when shot / not using the submit rule / starting before the whistle went / still shooting after final whistle gone... etc etc) that we won the overall battle.

YAY!

Seriously though it was a bit embarrasing. They just see who has come on the day and split you into even teams. We had 11 people from work and 2 other randoms. The other team were made up of 3 different groups. I started out thinking it was the group of younger lads who were cheating but oh no - it was the big burly grown men! Sad but true.

I don't really see the point of playing if you are not going to do it properly. Hey ho - I thought the marshalls dealt with it quite well and I'd like to go back and have another go. I think it would be more fun if everyone was playing properly so hopefully next time we will have better opponants...

Will see if I can get hold of the photo that one of my workmates took and also upload the piccy of my worst bruise.

It's quite impressive!

(Edit to add bruise pic... ouch!)

Saturday, 30 June 2007

www.pointmydinner.blogspot.com

I have created a new blog to keep track of my Weightwatcher friendly recipes / dinners... feel free to have a look at:

www.pointmydinner.blogspot.com

Also if any of my fellow WW-going friends want to add any recipe ideas that would be great :o)

Monday, 25 June 2007

24/06/07 - London / National Gallery / National Portrait Gallery

Lets do something different I said - so we went to a couple of art galleries.

This was to be M's first visit to a gallery of any kind so I was a bit aprehensive as to whether he would like it or not - turns out he prefers the architecture of the buildings to the actual art but at least he was game! In fact the National and National Portrait Galleries are on his list of things he wants to do (a very long list it is too) along with sightseeing in London gernerally so he was actually pretty keen on the whole idea :o)

You're obviously not allowed to take photo's in the galleries but we also did a bit of tourist piccy taking outside - the weather was shit so none of them turned out great :o(

As per usual I am waiting for M to upload his pics -hoping that he will have some better ones!

After we had looked around the Galleries and I had established that I really don't like Van Gogh or Cezanne we were both hungry so headed for Leicester Square to get some lunch. We didn't know before hand but they had West End Live going on in Leicester Square this weekend - the first we knew about it was seeing a big fat stage in the square with Sue Pollard singing on it :o/

Confused? We were! Until that is a nice lady gave us a free programme which explained that West End Live is like a mini musical festival where there are performances from participating West End Shows. It is also sponsered by various organisations who had tents / little exhibition areas around the stage.

We met Shaun the Sheep, Paddington Bear, had our pictures taken with the stars of Ratatouille: Rat-a-too-ee and Doctor Who. We saw the Batmobile, the Pink Panther car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, James Bond's car, and I stood inside a bubble! To top it all of they gave us each a plastic bag with a load of freebies in when we left. How jammy are we?!

Oh and if you are wondering - Sue Pollard is apparently in Menopause the Musical...

After all the excitment of West End Live we really were hungry so went to Garfunkels for lunch - M had a yummy looking club sandwich and I had the spiciest Penne Arrabiata in the world. Obviously ate far too much so tried to walk it off with more sightseeing...

Down the Mall to Buckingham Palace: