A trip to London

For Tilda's 8th birthday, we went to London for 3 days (a 9 hr drive from Aberfeldy with Ian), to do a little sight seeing AND go to Harry Potter world at Warner Bros studios (which was a surprise birthday present!).  We had a great time discovering a little bit of London AND the Harry Potter 'experience' was fantastic!  There is SO much to do in London, a couple of days barely scratches the surface, but we got the hang of the buses and did a lot of walking.  I used Google maps to plot ourselves, which really helped get our bearings and re-familiarise myself with London.  And despite it's size and busyness we found Londoners friendly and helpful.  Would be happy to come back again, although stay a bit further out (tube so good) as Paddington apartment was small and expensive.

Ian was in London for work, so on Monday I took Tilda on a tour of a little bit of central London, focussing on locations that she's seen in movies (eg. 101 Dalmatians, Harry Potter and other shows), to make it more relevant and exciting for her.  We lucked it with a sunny morning and walked to Buckingham Palace and just happened upon the Change of the Guard, which was already a bit crowded but which we saw bits of.  Nothing too exciting really - the queens army band play and they march around a bit, but fun to just happen upon it since it only happens every 2 days.

Then we walked through St James park (101 Dalmatians) up to Trafalgar Square (Outnumbered), and popped into the National Art Gallery and b-lined it to the Van Gogh room to say hello to the paintings I used to visit regularly when I lived in London.  Fortunately Tilda likes art galleries too so she was happy to join me.  Lovely cafe there with good coffee!!  Yeah!!  First decent flat white in London!!!...

Then we did a part of a DIY mystery walking tour (brilliant online tour done by a dad - great!) of London streets tucked away off Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road that evoke a sense of Harry Potter, as well as some actual film locations.  Tilda enjoyed this.  So overall lots of walking!

On Tuesday, we went to Harry Potter world at Warner Bros (at Watford, outskirts of London).  It's basically a tour of the sets and behind the scenes art department, props etc, as well as fun interactive things for kids, like 'flying' a broomstick and sitting in the magical car etc.  It's a fantastic exhibition and we both loved it!!  Made me miss the film industry, and it really did come across from all the video interviews that this was a big 'family' and essentially the same crew working together for 10+ years.  Apparently the 1st AD couldn't say wrap on the last day of filming, he kept going off set to sob!

A bizarre thing happened on Tuesday morning...  as we were getting on the Tube at Paddington in peak hour commuter traffic, I bumped into the one person I know in London, Danny, an old (English) friend I knew in Sydney (I was going to text him that morning).  In a population of 8 million, we just bumped into eachother!!  He didn't even know I was in London at that point!  Bizarre hey!  We caught up at King Cross station the next morning before we caught our train to Scotland - a pleasant 4.5 hour express trip, beats doing it by car any day!!

Fiona had dinner and a cupcake with candle for Tilda, and we all sang a great rendition, with true operatic gusto, of Happy Birthday to her!