A beautiful London summer's day greeted us this morning and we set about making the most of it. After unsuccessfully attempting to hire a bike for Courtney to train on at the Rapha shop in London, we eventually found a bike shop willing to hire a bike to a 16 year old girl, down by the Borough Market, making the trip there on the bike share bikes. It was quite euphoric riding the streets of London on our bikes. It was not something we did when we lived here ten years ago, and being able to do it as a family was very satisfying. We wound our way along the Thames, stopping in a few spots to take photos outside such iconic buildings as Westminster and Big Ben. After a few failed attempts at finding the bike shop, we eventually located it right at the back end of the Borough Market.

After hiring bikes for both Courtney and Mitchell for 3 days,(I had brought my road bike from home) we parked the bikes and proceeded to enjoy some of the amazing market food. My paella was as good as anything Andrew Dugan has ever served up, whilst Courtney and Wendy enjoyed a felafel and Mitchell couldn't go past the exotic plain cheese sandwich.

Our return trip back was just as exhilarating, with the sun shining and both kids fully kitted up in their cycling gear, it was quite clear they were rapt to be riding bikes in London. We snapped pictures of them posing outside St Pauls Cathedral, and had a buzz sailing along Fleet Street, dodging in and out of cars and buses.

We finished the ride off with a quick dash up to Regent's Park for Courtney, Mitchell and myself, but not before Courtney nearly got us all locked up by the constabulary for riding on the footpath. An overly zealous community police officer was very eager to punish Courtney for her crime, asking for her ID, insisting she was being rude by not looking at him as he spoke (it could have been that he couldn't see her eyes through her glasses) and reaching for the 'book' at least a half a dozen times, before eventually common sense prevailed and we were free to go. It's fair to say Courtney was a bit vague about it all and completely nonplussed by the speed at which it all escalated and subsequently defused.

We capped the day off nicely by seeing the West End musical Motown, a tribute to the Motown music label and all of the acts which were discovered by its founder Berry Gordy Jr. Though a bit tired by the end, the day couldn't have gone any better.