Day 2 in London.
Certainly a first – we actually had to wake the children up this time. Breakfast was served by Miss Trute in our lodge and we were ready for the outdoor centre in plenty of time.
We left the lodge in drizzle but arrived (it’s nextdoor!) to blazing sun! Climbing first and some holds surprised us with water inside them! Yet another first for this trip, was that we were allowed to go caving! The instructors knew We are an Adventurous and a Confident bunch (two of our school values) so they gave instructions, met us at the big chambers in between, and left us in the capable hands of Miss Sobey, pushing… with lots of love & care… from behind.
After a lovely picnic lunch we got the train to St James’ Park’s to meet the Queen’s squirrels, as the Queen’s swans didn’t get much of a look in. A walk past Buckingham Palace and then back down to Horse Parade, but no sight of guards, soldiers or police this year.
There was a real muggy feeling of a storm front and thunder rumbles as we came up to Boris’s back door. We walked round to Parliament Square and managed to hide under the shop fronts from a HUGE lightning storm (I really do wonder if that was Big Ben that got hit by a strike!) and some massive, bouncing rain too!
Literally half an hour later, supported by the Tesco Express chocolate counter, we left under blue skies to the National Covid Memorial. An emotive and sombre moment taking in the 150,000 painted hearts, representing the people who have died of Covid through this pandemic.
Onward to the London Eye and the newly cleaned, blue skies mesmerized the children with some excellent views! The eagle-eyed amongst them spotted the wooden play equipment underneath us and so we went there straight after, hopping over the locked gate as we couldn’t resist the sad faces they pulled at us!
Not sure how many times we corrected them with “Pizza Express, NOT Pizza Hut,” but that was just a lovely stop off! Really nice & friendly staff and everyone agreed it was a well deserved and gorgeous pizza and brownie!
At that point I’ll stop. Tubes, trains, round to the hostel for bedtime routine and a final edit to this diary blog! Phew… a lovely, busy, packed, but tiring day!
Edit: Miss Sobey screamed a little bit when she saw the spiders.
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