Awoken by our annoying alarm at 05:45 on a cloudy Saturday morning after downing quite a few Peroni's the night before, was not my idea of starting the day as you mean to go on!
A quick shower and cup of tea made all the difference. The kids were as reluctant to muster from their births as they always are, but they eventually relented and made their way down stairs with their usual Kevin And Perry Esq teenager attitude, which we choose to ignore (most times). The time flew by and before we knew it the Taxi was waiting outside the door. The last few things were shoved in any space left in the suitcase and sherper tensing (that's me by the way) lugged it and all the other paraphernalia to the taxi driver to put in the boot. I know it was early but I have never met such a miserable person in my life. Well that aside and being only five minutes behind schedule we made it to Piccadilly Station with plenty of time to catch the train to London.
It's a good job that I prebooked our table seats on the train because it was packed out and the amount of electronic equipment brought out of pockets, bags and god knows where else, plonked on the table was mind boggling. Then the various magazines were stroon across the table and lastly the food and drinks took up any last remaining area of formica. Headphones were plugged in and the kids were off in their own worlds of mind numbing teen music interspersed with the occasional spat over sweets.
We arrived at our hotel at 10:30am, dumped the bags in the luggage room and went out into the now familiar area of the south bank. Walking out of the hotel right next to the London Eye never ceases to amaze me, then catching sight of the Houses Of Parliament, Westminster Tower and Saint Paul's Cathedral is a sight for sore eyes. We walked down to Tower Bridge, skirting the Thames almost all the way and watched it raise as one of the taller of the thousands of boats that were gathering for this weekends river pageant passed underneath. Walking past Tower Bridge we came to what is being dubbed The Avenue Of Sail, which is where the tall ships are being moored for the Pageant. Seeing the flags flying, bunting flapping to the rhythm of the breeze along the riverside was wonderful.
Our hotel room overlooks the newly refurbished Jubilee Gardens with a glimpse of the river, which might be our best place to view the pageant from this afternoon as I have been woken at 05:30 by sirens, barriers bein dropped off and assembled and the sound of torrential rain battering the windows.
Why Oh Why couldn't the weatherman be wrong as he usual is?
Never mind I am sure that the die hard royalist campers along the route have had it a lot worse than us in their ramshackled encampments!
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