Tuesday, Paulster and the munchkins went to the London Zoo without me.
Here are a few shots courtesy of Drama and Blondie:
We met up for dinner at Pizza Express in Ruislip. This is where I've got the manager collecting my corks for the unfinished cork board...
So finally, it was Wednesday and we were off for a big day in London. We had a tour of the Houses of Parliament scheduled for 2pm. It was really cool to see where the hustle and bustle takes place. The system is much like the US system, in that there are (now) three branches, the Legislature (the newest to be established in the UK), the House of Lords (some seats are STILL hereditary) and the House of Commons (your friendly MP--Minister of Parliament).
We started the tour in Westminster Hall--which is the oldest surviving part of the original Westminster Palace and boasts the largest timber roof structure in Northern Europe. Apparently, there's one larger in Padova, Italy.
Here's a picture of the details, and of the room.
Our tour had 21 other people in it and our tour guide was Sarah. She did a really nice job and tried to cater for the kids. Mollie volunteered to be "Black Rod"--who is the one who summons the House of Commons for the Queen. When she comes to open Parliament once per year, there is the requisite amount of pomp and circumstance. Thing is...she's not allowed to go to the House of Commons. She can only go so far as her ante-chamber where she puts on the State Crown and heads in to the House of Lords to sit on her throne of REAL gold! It's amazing. Of course, no pictures of the interior allowed...sadly.
The exterior had a cool fountain/sculpture thing that was fairly modern.
And no tour photo is complete without the tourists.
After our little tour, we were a bit peckish [hungry]. So we wandered over to La Tasca, one of regular haunts for some Spanish Tapas. Not sure how the girls woudl react, although we know they like Chorizo, since we cook it at home...
They opted to order from the kids menu, only to be told (after mine and Paulster's food had been delivered to the table) that they didn't have the selections that the kids ordered.
So, they braved it and ordered some "adult" selections. Bravo. One more place we can all go eat and be happy!
Once we ate dinner, we were off to the final event of the day...a West-End production of Mama Mia! And it was fab. The girls loved it, we loved it. Fantastic signing, dancing, lycra, disco balls all set to the music of ABBA! Wonderful. A late night trip home on the tube and that was Wednesday done.
Thursday was a day to get up early. We converted the dining room into our very own Beauty Shop. Ms. D, my hairdresser came to the house and there were haircuts for all the girls and a little colour for Cyn. Nothing drastic, just getting it all turned back to one colour...the ends had gotten a bit too sun-bleached, deviating a little too much from the "real" colour. The colour was so not dramatic that Paulster didn't even know that it had changed. Also, no one at work except Banana spotted the difference. Subtlety is the key!
Here's a picture of Drama once we put some hot rollers in her hair after the haircut.
She'll be auditioning for the role of Tracey Turnblad in Hairspray in a few years!
Nanny D arrived on Thursday evening to join us for the Staycation.
Friday was our Royal Day Out. We toured the Queen's Gallery, the Royal Mews and the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace. The State Rooms are only open for about 6 weeks during the summer. And they are definitely worth the wait. The special exhibit on display this year is of the gifts and clothing from the Queen's Very First State Visit after she assumed the throne. The clothing was spectacular. It was a bit crowded, but most people were using the audio guide, so it kept things moving along.
At the end of the State Rooms, you have to walk about a half mile through the gardens and out of the property. We played the "we have an elderly person in the party" card and got a special ride in a large golf cart out to the front of Buckingham Palace. It was kind of fun. Nanny waved at the crowd as if she were the Queen herself coming out to say Hello!
Here are a few shots of our Day Out.
We finished the Royal Day Out with a trip to the Royal Mews. This is where all the horses used for royal events are housed and trained as well as all of the Royal Carriages and the limosines (2 Bentleys and 2 Rolls Royces). There are several of the carriages that are used regularly. The main one is ridiculously large and gold and even getting it out of it's holding tank is quite the ordeal.
This little sleigh was nice. It's used every year for Santa to meet the kids and hand out gifts.
And that was pretty much the Staycation. With one last bit...
The girls were inspired by our touring so they wanted to create a tour of their own. Using their creativity, lots of paper and colours and cellotape [scotch tape], they created an art museum in Blondie's room. The ticket office was Drama's room and the gift shop was in Nanny's room. Nanny, Me and Paulster had to queue [line] up and move in an orderly fashion into the ticket booth where a "machine" (Blondie in the window sill with a box on her head) spit out the tickets once you "scanned" your ticket. Then we moved into the museum so see all of the art work on display.
Pretty creative, those two. Glad to see that we haven't managed to smash their imaginations just yet!
We spent the last couple of days just Freelaxing at home.
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