Yesterday's marathon sightseeing efforts meant we had ticked most of the tourist spots off our 'to see in London' list. Stu very happily returned to work today ... looking forward to the 'day off' to recover from us dragging him all around London :) We set off on our own today and headed back to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. If you're ever thinking about going, my suggestion ... don't bother, search for a video on YouTube instead! It wa...

Stu had taken today off of work to show us around London. It was great to have a local for navigating the public transport. We took a double-decker bus and then the underground to Buckingham Palace. When Aicha (Stu's flatmate) heard that we were going to Buckingham Palace she decided to put off her work for the day and come along too as Stu and Aicha had never been to Buckingham Palace! Guess you are not often a tourist in your own city! Thankfully Stu had pre...

Our train trip to Braintree (the closest station to Halstead) was a little stressful as we didn't realise that every weekend in London is tube maintenance weekend and some of the lines on our route were closed. Thankfully, the tube system is quite interconnected and we found our way around the closures without drama. We were met at Braintree (hee hee - I still think that name's funny) by Stu and Phil, my mother's cousin and uncle. Ten minutes later we were hom...

This morning we packed and dragged our suitcases uphill to Waverley station to catch a train to London. The trip was very pleasant and we were able to do a bit of blogging and take in some of the English countryside which is mostly green with hills and farms and stuff. Once in London we successfully navigated the tube and caught the last train of the day to Milton Keynes to meet up with Alex and Sina, family friends from Zimbabwe, who I hadn't seen for nine yea...

I forgot to turn my phone off last night and unfortunately, the NZ Blood Service decided to ring at 4.30am our time. I have to admit that my one word replies were a little less than polite! Oops - I'll try to restore the relationship when I'm back in NZ time :) A little later on, we went to visit Edinburgh castle. The queues were fairly long to get tickets, but they moved quickly and a chat with a friendly American helped pass the time. We entered the castle i...