Kensington Palace was out first stop today... Filled with stories of the people who over the years have given this place life... stories of George II and Queen Carolne - their lavish parties and her medically gruesome death; the love story of Victoria and Albert ...

 

Some of us got into the royal spirit of things...

 

Look comfortable girls?

 

Playing board games in royal style

 

This beautiful sun filled room had quite a view of Kensington Park

 

princess fashion through the years...

 

Diana lined the walls on the way to the toilets...

 

 

 

Paddington showed us the way to lunch overlooking Hyde Park

 

 

Hamish and Danielle enjoyed a beautiful Christmas concert put on by Christian  performers from the West End who belong to a group called 'West End Has Faith'. It was wonderful!

 

The others loved going to church at St Helens Bishopsgate for their student carols service... at least a thousand people - standing room only! What an encouragement to meet with so many young people to celebrate the birth of our Saviour.

 

We were all served mulled wine and mince pies for supper - Yum!! 

crowds, queens and castles

 

Today was an absolutely beautiful sunny day and even though the weather report said 4 degrees, somehow the sun made it feel much warmer... Westminster Abbey was grand and ornate.

 

 

 

Just for the record, we did holiday together...

 

 

It was a perfect day for the London eye!

 

 

Caught off guard!

 Golden elegance...

 



 

Tyndale is remembered here in this park in London - an English  visionary committed to having the Bible translated into the language of the people. For this he was persecuted and eventually captured and executed in Belgium. His last words were "Lord open the eyes of the King of England"...

 

The history of this obelisk along the river Thames was AMAZING! Could Rameses the Great have been Pharaoh at the time the Israelites were in Egypt???

 

 

 

 

Lunch in a green space away from the crowds...

 

 

 

Hamleys was a 7 level high mad, huge and overwhelmingly crowded toy shop filled with multitudes of excited children and stressed out, overheated parents. Our main aim was to find a toilet before expiring (finally success on the 5th floor) and exit ASAP with the same number of children we entered with (preferably the same ones). We found our queen of Lego and her corgi on the upper level overseeing the madness... always with a smile!     

 

Annie, Isaac and Bethany enjoyed watching a Tottenham and Crystal Palace football game in the afternoon at Whiteheart Lane. When asked to described the game they used words such as: loud, crowded, full, good football, loud, cold, loud, busy, green, loud...

 

 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!