Christmas present weekend - Part 2

So to continue, but a warning as I didn't have the camera I have had to rely on Google for the pictures. We did have an early start the next morning in order to get to Hounslow for 9am to meet Becky and Tom at our hotel for the night. Whilst David and Tom sat and had coffee Becky and I were up and away on the tube to London central - Covent Garden was our final tube stop and waiting for us was Jonathan's girlfriend, Amy. By now I was in need of coffee and it wasn't hard to find somewhere. Charlotte arrived a few minutes later and the drinks having been finished we set off for our first mystery destination - Christophers, where we were having brunch.

 We were so busy avoiding people that we never noticed that we had walked right passed my niece, nephew and his partner, all of who had been invited to join us by Becky- what a lovely surprise! I'm always very touched when I know that the 'cousins' have got together of their own accord. We had a lovely brunch and after went our separate ways. We ladies took a tube to Oxford Circus to go to Liberty. I had never been there - what a gorgeous building

I just loved everything about it, but oh so expensive! We spent a long time wandering round it before moving on to our next destination near Elephant and Castle. It was a place I had been following on Instagram and was really keen to go to Mercato Metropolitano

and amazing space inside and out filled with street food stalls and an unbelievable deli

It was so warm that we were able to sit outside in the sun. If you like Borough Market you'll LOVE this place (all pictures from Google images). On leaving there we got the bus to the Southbank and ended up in Giraffe for cocktails.

Again it was so lovely to be able to sit in the sun and we did sit, right until it was time for us to get to our next venue - the Gielgud Theatre. Becky had bought us tickets to see The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. 

I had bought Charlotte the book when it first came out and Becky had read it some years later so to see it on stage was fascinating. It finished just after 10pm so after a visit to the sushi shop for supplies for Becky and Charlotte we made our way back to the hotel at Hounslow to find all the male family members already in their rooms having had a 'heavy' day at the rugby! And just to prove they did go there a couple of pictures from the camera

It was so lovely to get together as a family in London, Becky and Tom did us proud with all the arrangements and we'll have the memories for many years. 

Christmas present weekend - Part 1

For our Christmas presents from Becky and Tom, David had a ticket to go and see England play Scotland at Twickenham with Tom, my other son in law Angus and my son Jonathan and I had a day in London with Becky and Charlotte. In order to maximise our time away we decided to take the caravan near Uxbridge, leaving it there on the Saturday to go and stay with the family at a hotel in Hounslow. We were join in Uxbridge by some very long standing friends on our first night who had just taken delivery of a motorhome. The weather was lovely and we enjoyed a very pleasant walk from the caravan site which took in a canal side pub.

 As you will see there were some very nice properties along the tow path. I've always fancied living along a canal. Pete and Iris moved on the next day so we occupied ourselves by taking a trip in to Windsor.

We were really taken with the shopping centre that is in the old station

After 'mooching' round it we walked down to the river and over the bridge to Eton, up to the end of the High Street before retracing our footsteps but instead of going back into town we took a 'right' over the bridge and found a spot in the park by the diamond jubilee fountain to have our sandwiches.

The afternoon was getting on by this time and it wasn't the warmest of days so we decided to call it a day and make our way back to the warmth of the caravan.

We were going to need an early start the next morning but you can read all about that in Part 2!