A last minute trip to London with the family.

A few weeks ago, my children's school started a project about London and since then both of my kids have been asking us questions about the city such as, "How many people live there?", "How tall is the London Eye?" and "Why do you and mummy have to pay for a family of filthy rich parasites to live in a palace in London?" (they didn't ask the last question unfortunately)

Last Friday I finished work for the day and, unusually for me did something spontaneous. At 4pm I started looking at transport and hotels in London, and by 5pm I had booked a 6pm train and a Travelodge at London Docklands. I probably should have booked the 7pm train if I'm honest because it was challenging to say the least, getting everyone ready, (including the dog who we had to drop to a relatives house).

We were about halfway to the station when my son informed us that he had forgotten to bring his little rucksack with his clothes in it, this was shortly followed by my girlfriend who remembered she had forgotten her coat. "Not to worry", I said. "As long as we've got each other and my wallet everything else can be taken care of".

We arrived at the station and made a dash for platform 7, only just making it before the train departed. We managed to find a carriage with a table that was free, and sat down. It wasn't until about 15 mins into the journey that we realised we had inadvertantly sat down in a 'Quiet Carriage'.

Two children aged 6 and 8 maintaining a level of quiet for three and a half hours on a train, considering their levels of excitement about going to London, was something I did not think would be possible, but to the children's credit they were very well behaved and in fact, as we got off at Paddington Station the lady that had been sitting opposite us studying a book on biology, made a point of saying how impressed she was by their behaviour.

Here's a pic of me and the kids on the train.

We arrvied at Paddinton at 21:30 and began our journey across London to the Docklands area. Ideally I would have liked to have booked a more central hotel but unfortunately the cheaper ones were all booked and the others were over £100 a night.

By the time we got to our hotel is was about 22:30 and the kids were very tired. They didn't take long to fall asleep.

We got up early to make the most of the day and took advantage of the Travelodge all you can eat breakfast for £8.95 with kids eating for free. Considering London prices it would have been all but impossible for all of us to have eaten breakfast elsewhere for £17 so it was a good deal and I made a point of eating two plates of English breakfast so I wouldn't have to buy any food at London prices until much later in the day.

Here's a pic of the kids with their breakfast with our full english breakfasts on the table too.

We started off by heading to the Tower of London because as a member of the CSSC I was able to get free admission for all of us which saved a whopping £70.

We took a guided tour from a Yeoman Warder which was very interesting. He was quick to point out that he wasn't just a costumed tour guide and that to be considered for the job of Yeoman Warder you had to meet the following criteria.

All Yeoman Warders are retired members of the armed services; to be appointed, one must be "a former Warrant Officer, class 1 or 2, (or the equivalent rank in other services) and in exceptional circumstances, a Staff Sergeant" from the Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, or Royal Marines; must have earned the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal; and must have served for 22 years in the regular armed services.

Additionally, all Yeoman Warders live withing the Tower itself and are permitted to bring their families along with them. Our guide was a single man living in a four bedroom house with two bathrooms. One thing is for sure, he doesn't have to worry about getting burgled !!

I did record some video of the Yeoman speaking but since you can't embed DTube videos and I don't want to use YouTube you will have to settle for a picture of the famous guardsmen with the big hats instead.

There are good views to be had of Tower Bridge from the Tower of London.

Of course, no visit to the Tower would be complete without a look at the Crown Jewels. Unfortunately, they do not allow any photos to be taken in the chambers where the Jewels are kept but I did take a photo of the family outside the building.

Thanks to a supersticious king that lived hundreds of years ago, there are always at least 6 Ravens in the Tower grounds at all times. Our Yeoman guide told us that they clip the wings of the birds so they cannot fly away from the tower and they are cared for by one of the Yeomans. For more info on the Ravens and their history go here.

One interesting fact our Yeoman guide had about the Ravens is that they have been known to live for over 30 years inside the tower compared to an average lifespan in the wild of between 10-15 years.

Here's a picture of my daughter with two of the Ravens in the background

It still amazes me that the Tower of London is over 1000 years old.

After we had finished at the Tower we decided to head for the London Eye but when we got there the queues were massive so we decided to come back later when it would hopefully be a bit quieter. This didn't work out too well for us because when we got back to the Eye at around 17:30 we were told that all tickets for that day had been booked and we would have to return the following day.

We headed back to the hotel shortly after that as the kids were tired and I booked tickets online to make sure we were able to get on the Eye the following day.

We got up early again on the Sunday and had breakfast in the hotel before heading to the Museum of London Docklands because it was so close to the hotel and it was surprisingly interesting.

My son had wanted to get a picture next to the City of London flag or coat of arms and as luck would have it, they had one in the museum. I tried to explain to my son that the City of London was a independent state like Washington DC and the Vatican and it was the financial control arm of the elites (with Washington being the military arm and the Vatican being the religious arm) but I decided to leave it until he was a bit older as he started looking at me blankly (he's only 6).

As we left the Docklands Museum and headed for the nearest train station we walked through an area that reminded me of come of the big cities of the USA with all the tall buildings.

Before we knew it, it was time for the London Eye so we headed back down that way and entered the queue with our pre booked tickets. The queuing experience was a bit annoying because of the constant beeping coming from the hand held metal detectors that were being used to scan people in the queue. I was carrying a 60 litre rucksack so we were slightly delayed while they put it through a proper metal detector machine (like at an airport) but we eventually made it to the capsule.

The London Eye was the thing my son was most excited about so it was lovely to see his excited little face when the capsule door shut and it started moving up.

Here's a photo of him in the capsule, doing a catalogue pointing pose

It cost £80 for all of us to go on the London Eye and each capsule holds at least 10 people so Coca-Cola who now run the eye must be making a fortune.

Here are a few photos taken from the Eye.

One of the great things about London is the quality of the street entertainers/artists. In Plymouth we are often subjected to drunk guitarists or people dressed in ridiculous costumes playing the panpipes to some backing music, but in London it's a different story.

We caught the end of a escapologist act just after exiting the London Eye and I was surprised at how forthright he was about how much he expected people to give him for entertaining them. £5 seemed to be the lowest acceptable figure according to the entertainer. London prices I suppose !!

Here's a pic of Ollie with a street entertainer.

That's about it for London. We didn't see half of what we wanted to see and I was really disappointed that I didn't get to visit the Natural History Museum but it gives me a good excuse to arrange another trip.

One final random photo. As we were walking over a bridge, we noticed a load of broken skateboards had been left on one of the bridge supports. Not sure why but here's a pic.