Big Day Out!

We have planned for ages to take Ellie on a trip to London for the day. We particularly wanted to be able to take her to see the Changing of the Guard, and to the British Museum of Natural History as she loves bones and fossils. Our dilemma was that there was no way we could do that and take Tabitha with us, as dealing with her and the buggy while navigating the underground and the museum would have been very difficult. We managed to arrange for Tabitha to stay with her Nanna (my Mum) for the morning, and then to have her respite carer collect her at lunch time, take her out, and then bring her home and put her to bed, which meant we were free for a whole day to spend time with Ellie. I can't thank Mum and Jo enough for looking after Tabitha so well for us. She has got up this morning and is acting like nothing untoward happened yesterday, which is a good sign that she wasn't overly upset by the disruption.

On to our trip. We started off by driving to Reading, parking there, and catching the train to Paddington. It was cheaper to do that than driving to London and trying to park there! We got to Reading in time to have some breakfast, and here we are enjoying that in the station.

When we got to London, we walked from the station through Hyde Park, and down to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. On the way, we stopped at Marble Arch.





On to the Palace, where we arrived just in time to see the Changing of the Guard which Ellie watched from her Daddy's shoulders, although, I think she was more interested in watching the mounted Police. What a horse obsession she has!



We ate a packed lunch in Green Park, where Chris managed to catch a pidgeon, which was one of Ellie's favourite moments of the day. Then on the Underground, which fascinated Ellie, and confused Chris, luckily I was there to work out which tubes to get! Finally to the museum, which made Ellie remark that "This is just the best day out ever!". I managed to get a photo of her standing next to the Triceratops, which was one of the many exhibits we saw.




After that, we wandered into Knightsbridge to walk past Harrods, and we found a nice pub to have some dinner in. Then it was panic time to get back on the Underground and get back to Paddington before our train left! While we were waiting to cross the road, Chris stood with his tongue hanging out, looking at the Bugatti that drove passed us, which was soon followed by a white Rolls Royce, which had no proper number plates. Wonder who was in them....
We made it back to the train with 1 minute to spare, and finally made it home, tired but very happy to have had so much fun.