Weekend out in London with Riette & co.
So the weekend just past I went into London Central to see Riette!
Now this was the first time I have seen her in over a month and out of the 6 years of friendship, that has been the longest we went without seeing each other so as can be expected the reunion went like this!
Night before:
-(me) Ok let meet at Trafalgar Square at 11am
-(Riette) sounds great I’ll be there
Day of:
Carmi – at Trafalgar Square, next to the blue roster! At 11:05 am
Riette – no where to be seen!
10 mins later
Carmi sees Riette, Riette see’s Carmi! And the running starts!
We race towards each other and cried! And I think our hug lasted a solid few minutes!
But as always she was late, but I don’t think it would have been a proper reunion if she wasn’t late!
Her cousin Emma was also there, she was going to be our tour guide for the day and the first stop was the museum right in Trafalgar Square!
The museum had some old beautiful paintings, with the real meaning and showed off the artists’ interpretation and talent, how we chose to appreciate this you ask? We played spot the animals in all the paintings!
Then to M&M world where Riette and I went “full retard” as this was like heaven! They give you M&Ms with London attractions on them, which literally changed our lives. But Emma and the lady giving the M&Ms didn’t share our enthusiasm!
We strolled on into the London stores and had a great time looking at all the souvenirs and found Peanut butter
Cup ice cream! Riette bought cute tea cups and tea bags!
On to lunch we went and a accidentally walked into the best store ever Fortnum and Mason. It sells over priced everything and is very posh, but had the best ever cake and tart known to man ( that you know posh people have at “high teas”) so again “fat teenage girl” mode kicks in and we could not help ourselves! Chocolate eclair and mini cronut. Later we bought lunch and went for a picnic in a park!
After lunch we decided to call it and head home because Riette and Emma had theatre tickets to Matilda and had to go home and get ready! So off to Hammersmith we went! And what a beautiful part of England it is!!
So after being left to fend for myself for 30mins at their very nice house Andrew (Riette’s other cousin) and I went to a pub for my first night out/pint since I got to England. I drank beer the way that would make my dad proud ( without pulling a face and handling it like a man)!
Riette joined us after her musical. She and I destroyed it on the dance floor pulling moves out like the robot and some hoe down moves! We left at about 12:30-1ish so not too late!
The next morning it was just us two left on our own to explore the big city. Us two little Sunshine Coast girls train and bus hopping all through London!
First up Hamelys
And at this point I want to involve Riette, this is her summery of the experience from her blog (https://iamgoingonanadventuree.wordpress.com)
“We went “full retard”. 5 levels of toys. 5 LEVELS OF TOYS. Oh and a cupcake bar, a milkshake bar and even a life sized Will and Kate Lego statue. Everywhere there are children romping around. Adults too. Demonstrations of “the best selling toy in store” at every corner. Remote cars that go up walls, little pianos that play through your bodies, coins that fly, giant teddy bears, build-a-bear, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and even a jelly bean section. It was incredible.
On the subject of incredible, Hamleys milkshake bar is wonderful, every flavour in the world was there. I kid you not. Marshmellow,mint, peanut butter, nutella, chocolate, hershys, everything. We had the BEST nutella milkshake. Flavour explosion.” – Riette De Jager
We went to the portobello markets and bought the best pesto, tomato and mozzarella cheese sandwich on olive bread with an amazing chocolate filled donut! The market was amazing with all our favourite things old classic books and food! We were walking past this stall where a guy with so much personality was selling a CD with great music all the classics and everyone one of them got sold he and his partner would shout “And another one sold” so I’m not sure if we bought it for the music or just to yell with him! We also stopped at the humming bird bakery for a raspberry cheesecake brownie! Riette really showed off her skills with that one!!
At this point it started to drizzle and walked arm in arm under my tiny umbrella to where the London pride parade was starting! It was a great atmosphere everyone was dancing, singing and cheering!
After the parade we walked around for a bit to find a place to eat and at that time EVERYTHING was full and busy! But we found an Italian cafe where we sat and talked for a while!
We had a few hours left so we decided it’s time to get lost and we really did! Then we found a pub where all the people from the parade were hanging out so it was crazy busy and just such and interesting vibe!
The time has come little ones when I had to hope back on the train and head home after a great weekend!