High Tea, The Queen and Many, Many Dead Royals

Yesterday, as Annette already said, we went to visit the Queen at Windsor Castle. It was AMAZING. I enjoyed the changing of the guard, the doll house was really cool and touring the state apartments was very cool as well. Sam waved to the Queen and saw the first of three very cute English boys (the Royal Gardiner struck her fancy-she said we should get a castle so we can have one...)

High Tea was the ONLY thing I really wanted to do while we were in England and I was not disappointed! I totally enjoyed the tea and Matt thinks I should have no problem at all making it at home! I agree, as clotted cream is just overwhipped real cream that has not been sweetened (but I see no reason why the cream CAN'T be sweetened - it would be just as good).

So here is a picture of me eating my raisin scone with strawberry jam and cream...yum yum - and the best tea I've had while in London! (Although to be fair, I really haven't had a lot of tea as we haven't had the time to stop and enjoy it.)

Annette made a fantastic dinner last night of a pasta bar and Matt and I had great timing at the Waitrose..we were looking for some bread to have with dinner and while we were deciding the nice Waitrose bakery girl reduced the price of a fantastic fresh loaf of bread from 1.99 to only 59 pence! What a deal!!!

Today we had a busy day as well trying to fit in all the rest of the things we didn't get done as we leave for Paris tomorrow late morning!

The Weather today was more off than on, and was exactly what I expected British weather to be!

We got up early again and had everyone out the door by 8:30 again! (I KNOW!!! Two days in a row...can we do it again tomorrow so we don't miss our Chunnel trip? who knows! but cross your fingers for us) We made it to Westminster Abbey. I have to say it was my favourite Church we've seen, although Annette preferred St. Paul's. Why is it my favourite? Well, all the dead royals of course! Seriously, there was so much history and so much to learn, see, read and touch here that I just had a wonderful. We got a free audio guide which was fantastic as well to accompany and so many places to stop, look and listen.

Sam and I enjoyed trying to read y olde englishe - the u's are v's and the s's sometimes looked like f's.

While we were looking through the quire those wonderful eye's of my daughter found a crest in the knights hall belonging to a Hutchinson - Thomas Hutchinson is a not shamed knight...lucky us! So Les can now say that Thomas Hutchinson was a Knight and perhaps he's a descendant!

After our visit to the Abbey we went to Churchills secret underground lair... that was so cool - they did a painstaking job of placing items back in there using detailed photos, and as you walked through the bunker you really felt as though you were right there. We had lunch in a park across from the bunker and then moved on to the Banueting House. On our route we passed the stables and barracks of the Horse Guards.

As luck would have it the banqueting house was closed for renovations so we crossed back across the road to the Horse Guards. There is a small museum there to which we went through. Sam had her picture taken with a guard and Eric and Sam had one as well with a different guard. but sam sure didn't get close!!!

After that we headed to the Globe theater where there was a live dress rehearsal of Troilus and Cressida. it is an amazing site, an open thatched roof was very cool!

Finally we ended the day with a visit to the London Bridge Experience, we all agreed it was unique but not worth the price they were charging so it's a good thing we had our London Pass!

The night ended with take out fish and chips.. the best we've had here in London at a cheesy little shop in Brentford.

well we have to clean and get the items all packed up so we have to run now.