Friday, 18th July                            LONDON

Robyn writes: Well, the promised summer 'sort-of' heatwave is upon us. Today we reached around 32 degrees in London, which is enough to make any Aussie laugh....the problem here, is, of course, unlike Australia, that none of their bloody buildings or public transport methods are built for hot weather (despite the fact that they do get some most years) and that's why so many people die in their 'heatwaves". The media was full of messages warning people to keep inside and stay out of the sun, so of course the typical Pommy reaction to this is to race to the nearest park and lie IN the sun with as little clothing on as possible. True! We were keeping to the shade, wearing sunscreen and drinking heaps of water but there will be many, many sunburnt Britons out there tonight!

Typical London park!

The day started with a crash and several booms - we were all woken by a massive storm at around 5 this morning. Some of the lightning bolts seemed to be right next door, they were so close! This was followed by heavy rain so we dozed on and off until around 7 I decided I was awake, so got up for a cuppa. Cait turned up downstairs at around 7.30ish and we started getting ourselves organised. Lex and Mikeal staggered out a bit later and began cooking garlic mushrooms but by that stage we'd had breakfast.

The girls' plan for the morning was to go and do the Harry Potter thing at Platform 9 and 3/4, followed by Harrods, while the men were heading for the museum precinct. Cait and I managed to get out of the door before 9 ( a great improvement on previous days! ) and caught the overland train to Tower Bridge then the train to Kings Cross Station. We found the Platform 9 and 3/4 display with lots of other people - after a 25 minute wait in the queue, it was our turn so we had our photos taken pushing the cart through the wall to catch the Hogwarts Express! Then we headed into the Harry Potter store there for an enjoyable browse. We both got a few things then caught the underground to Knightsbridge and Harrods.

 Off to catch the Hogwarts Express!

We greatly enjoyed our few hours in Harrods, and bought several bits and pieces for gifts and souvenirs. It is truly an amazing store - but the prices are just as amazing and downright scary! Some of our personal favourites are below:

 Cait liked the iconic Harrods bears

 ...and the "Frozen" characters

 but the prices in the toy department were terrifying! That's 2500 pounds for the brown bear and 4500 pounds for the polar bear....

but at 40 000 pounds the 'toy' Hummer topped them all!

About 1.30, we realised we'd better get going to meet up with Lex and Mikeal, so we took the subway just one stop along to the Victoria & Albert, where we met up with them in the cafe. They had been enjoying the Natural History Museum.

You don't see many Dodos these days

However, the cafe was absolutely full, and when we couldn't get a table after several minutes, we headed out into the nearby streets to find somewhere else. We found a nice little pub, the Hour Glass, and got a table right next to the door where at least there was a bit of a breeze. We had a very enjoyable pub lunch there (accompanied by some local ales in Lex and Mikeal's case) then Lex went off to find a Photography Gallery he'd read about, and Cait, Mikeal and I took the tube to Hyde Park Station. At the park we had some icecream and sat on the grass (in the shade; we are not completely mad!) then walked through the park and past Wellington's Arch and the Aussie War Memorial to Green Park, where we took the tube to Embankment. From there, we got onto one of the river boats (finally - it took us over half an hour to get the tickets then wait for the ferry to come) and came home up the river to the O2. A nice cool and relaxing way to travel. Then we got onto a 129 bus and were finally home around 7 o'clock. Everything takes so long in London. Lex had got home about half an hour before us after enjoying the photos and then a walk along Oxford Street. We all had rather sore feet by this stage!

 A lovely pub lunch, followed by icecream in Hyde Park

 This little character came over to talk to us and seemed disappointed we didn't have food on us!

Aussie War Memorial

Once home, we all got ourselves organised and dressed ready to go out, as Cait and Mikeal were taking us out for tea. We had an absolutely lovely meal in a Nepalese restaurant nearby, the Royal Nepalese, and are currently all so full that there is a great deal of lying around and groaning going on! Today was Cait and Mikeal's last full day here as they fly out tomorrow night - we will miss them a lot and it's been lovely having them with us. There has been another storm rumbling around for some time so hopefully it might cool things down a bit so we can all sleep more comfortably.