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Thursday, June 15, 2017

Long Weekend in London

Last weekend we took the girls to London for a long weekend. We drove up on Friday morning and got to London mid-afternoon. We didn't have a lot of time on Friday so we decided to spend a couple of hours at the V & A Museum which is my favourite London museum.

On Saturday we had decided to visit the Tower of London in the morning. The girls have never been and Simon and I haven't been since our twenties. We did the Beefeater guided tour which is a very fun and informative tour around the Tower.


The Beefeaters live at the Tower and the gates are locked at midnight every night and you need a password issued daily by the Queen to get in after the gates are locked. There are other staff, like a doctor, who live there too. It's amazing to see bits of their daily lives, like kids' bikes outside a house and washing drying on the line, as you walk around the site.


Saturday was also World Wide Knit In Public Day so I did my bit by knitting at the Tower of London as well as on the tube.


I was being carefully watched by an elephant while knitting. In the photo above and below I'm wearing my new poncho which I finished on Friday. Unfortunately it's not as long as I wanted it so I'm going to rip out the cast off and add another lace repeat which was my original plan. I may try to finish it for Woolfest next week. The pattern will be released in July, hopefully.


You get a beautiful view of the London skyline from the Tower of London. In the photo below you can see the famous Shard building which is just one of many famous buildings you can see.


We also had views over the iconic Tower Bridge. After two terrorist attacks in London this year focused on bridges, I was a bit weary of crossing a bridge on foot. We did walk across the pedestrian Millenium Bridge though. Bearing in mind, we visited just a week after a major terrorist attack, we did feel perfectly safe in London. There were a few more police with guns than normal and ever museum and tourist venue we visited had security checks.


Saturday afternoon, Vanessa and I went shopping. Vanessa is starting her new job in July and was shopping for work clothes but we did manage a 10 minute visit to one of my favourite London stores, Liberty.


On Sunday, we went to Kensington Palace which I've wanted to visit for a while. There are only a small section of the palace open to the public as members of the Royal family including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry apparently live there.


There's currently an exhibition of Diana's clothes and it was really interesting to see dresses that I've seen regularly in photos over the years.

 

Sketches drawn by Diana's designers were on display and several of them had notes by Diana.

 

Do you recognise the dress below?


On Sunday evening Vanessa and I went to see Take That at the O2. Fantastic concert! I enjoyed it just as much as I did when I first saw Take That two years ago.

On Monday, the girls flew to visit my parents in Norway and Simon and I started the long drive home. We decided to stop off at Hampton Court for a couple of hours. Hampton Court is huge and amazing! We'll definitely need to go back to see more of this huge property.

There are several parts to the palace which was added over the years. So you can clearly see that some parts looks a lot older. Both at Hampton Court and at Kensington Palace, they told stories of various kings and queens of the past.


The gardens at Hampton Court were amazing and we only saw a fraction of it. Below is an older part of the palace.

On Sunday afternoon, I had a couple of hours to myself so I headed to Loop. Despite the tempting yarn on display I only bought a zipped pouch from Miesje Chafer as I love her prints and two small tins of 'Anywhere Balm' from Love & Leche. I also got three little silk drawstring pouches from the V & A Museum.


I was mainly knitting on my Navia Bummull shawl which I've named Murano. I'm really close to finishing it. Only one row to go as I write this. The pattern is with my tech editor and I'm hoping to have both the pattern and yarn at Woolfest next week. I will be offering kits for pre-order too, so if you won't be at Woolfest, you'll still be able to order kits for this beautiful shawl.


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