Paddington welcomed us to 'The Green Park' on the way to Buckingham Palace.

 

 

We had arrived just in time for the changing of the guard so we headed off

 for some more British pomp and ceremony...

 

 

We're not sure how Lizzie heard we were here but as you can see she clearly had!

 

 

Quite a welcome...

 

They weren't smiling but we were...

 

Two beautiful princesses and a palace...

 

 

Paddington welcomed us to the Churchill war rooms.

The Winston Churchill War Rooms were fascinating. What an extraordinary nerve centre for the Second War World! We loved how authentic everything was, as it was all closed up on the day after the war finished. Seeing the number of pin marks on maps on the wall was amazing. We liked the secret direct line phone to the white house behind the PM's toilet, and the PM's secretary's description of what a difficult man he was to work for.   

 

Squirrels everywhere much to the delight of our younger boys...

 

Paddington took his hat off to Big Ben too

 

Fun in the phone boxes...

 

Isaac writes - We were walking along a British  street, with Westminster Abbey on the right and dodgy red rectangular boxes on the left... nek minit I look over and wallah, the hooligans have been through town and popped a couple of stickers on the phone boxes with the Western Sydney logo on it.

 

Thirty six years ago Danielle sat on one of these lions eating an (Australian) peach that was so juicy it dripped juice off her elbow. Today our boys roar with the same lions at Trafalgar Square.

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And then the sun came out!! Beautiful light on Big Ben

 

 

These guys at Trafalgar square were weird and wonderful - just hanging around!

 

 

M and M World was just as weird and even more wonderful for some in our party!

The contrast of all this with the reality of the underground war rooms was a little stark!