Up early in the morning, I had barely cleared the sleep from my eyes by the time we got to Paddington. Fid was so excited he didn't want to hear about checking what platform our train was leaving from, he just wanted to take action and head on through the gate. Luckily the Paddington bear store at His self titled station was too much for him to resist, but not for long.

An uneventful two hours saw us debark at Cardiff station, that means we're in Wales. The Welsh language is some kind of comedic cypher, a flood of irregular consonants floating without direction in a drought of vowels. Whilst I was enjoying the unfamiliar language, Fid was growing increasingly anxious about missing the first ball.

We're not meant to be here in Wales. Had Rob been better organised this whole week would have taken place a week or two later, we'd all be sitting at Lords. Instead we're in the Welsh "Summer" somewhere just south of 18 with a brisk breeze and occasional sprinkles of rain. But none of that quashes the excitement. We're through to our seats with minutes to go, crisis averted!

We've lost the toss, but that means a field full of Aussies to watch, if only I knew any of their names or field positions. We were 73-3 by lunch, I had to keep explaining to Fid that he won't be seeing us do any batting today, he couldn't get his head around "you score then we'll have a go" sportsmanship of cricket.

At lunch we headed for the head. The kind of queue length only reserved for European female toilet queues somehow emerged at the gents. But Fid found a way to make it worse. Bursting to relieve myself I lost Fid! I gave up my place in the queue and went searching for him. 3 minutes later he emerges from the gents. The queue however has gone from European ladies queue to Disneyworld spring break queue. We left the oval and went to the local pub, it turns out us and a thousand other Aussies had the same idea.

We couldn't have missed more than an over or two but they somehow jumped from 73 to 90+, there must have been an impressive few 6s in there. Explaining everything as best as I could to Fid only highlighted how little I know about the game, but he dug the atmosphere of the crowd and the carnival of it all. Plus he got to see me in convulsions trying to hold my bladder in the hunt for a relief safe from bobbies.

The other thing he doesn't know anything about are strikes. Today the tube staff may go on strike from 6:30pm through all of tomorrow. We left the game just in time to make the 3:55 back to Paddington with enough time to get the tube back to Piccadilly before the strike hits. We spent the train ride home talking about industrial action and unions, I don't known how much sunk in, but he looks like he's plotting to share this tactic with his sister the next time they're disgruntled. Luckily our poor parenting means we don't yet rely on them for any critical services :)

We arrived at Paddington at 6:15, we decided to risk buying a Paddington cushion cover for Boo, before hot footing it to the Piccadilly Line. We arrived at Piccadilly just as the closure was starting, some exits were already closed, the last train will be here in another 6 minutes, we won!

We met the girls in Soho and headed to M&M world in Leicester square. We fought the urge to make custom printed M&Ms or any other kind in fact. Fid got intoxicated by a bongo busker, he was very good, we pulled him away after 10 minutes or so and went looking for an English pub dinner.

While we were in the home of fire breathing dragons the girls were in another fantasy land, Harrods. All through dinner they told us about the nail bar, the ice cream bar, and all the crazy things they saw. But they seemed most excited to have slept in until 10am :)