Dear Diary,
With our first meal of fish and chips and the lovely side-dish ‘mushy peas’ it cant be to hard to guess that we’ve made it to the UK. (when you’re not too fond of peas, mushy ones aren’t much better!!)
We left Sweden with a hiss and a roar towards London, spending our first 5 days in the capital. Our main objection was to see old friends and that we did! Our lovely host Steveo gave us a base in Clapham and from here we managed to jam in dinner & lunch dates as well as exploring the city markets, a few sights, some preliminary negotiation of the most intricate subway system known to man and a small blizzard! (Thanks for organizing dinner Jones & Danielle and for meeting us everyone else). We also got the chance to sing Christmas Carols with 1000 others in St Pauls Cathedral and although there were no awards we would happily challenge any individuals for noise and pitch accuracy in Drummer Boy or Come All Ye Faithful!
Our Christmas period was spent in Scotland, firstly 4 nights with our kiwi mates Nic & Morgs in Edinburgh where we completed another walking tour, watched mountains of snow come down, and paid our respects to a number of pubs and restaurants. Then since Santa was nearly here we jumped on a bus to Glasgow, and checked into a fancy smancy hotel with a chimney so he could deliver our presents! We explored Glasgow through the snow, drank mulled wine, went to Christmas Eve mass at an old local church, then stayed inside and watched the snow fall after we had eaten too much on Christmas day.
Back to England, Cousin Alan got us out to Reading, Winsor Castle and a 900 year old pub for lunch and let us stay us up for a few nights (Thanks Al). On return to London we set up at Danielle and Levin crews flat in Camden (thanks again guys) and collected our new travelling recruits Ma & Pa Duffy from Heathrow. Our new rookies have done quite well at overcoming jet lag and keeping up with full tourist pace!! In our week touring London we managed to complete a top deck bus tour, visit the queen and watch her guards change, enjoy a boat trip on the Themes, go up in the London eye, visit the wax museum, see Camden market, march to the Beatles in abbey road, see the National galleries, visit Harrods to buy cup cakes, see Stomp, walk The Regent, The Strand, Oxford St & Fleet St, see The Marble Arch, visit 10 Downing St, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben, take Communion at St Pauls (partially by mistake!), see a circus Winter Wonderland, and most importantly eat, drink, and get extremely lost on various occasions.
With everything ticked off on our wish lists we caught the tube at rush hour with our bags (entertaining!) and picked up a car to head for our first whirlwind tour stop of Northhampton…. will fill you in on this soon (time for breakfast!)
McDuff
Tristan and Michele
The parents are finally here for team Duffy trip around the UK!
Tris going to collect Ma & Pa Duffy at Heathrow
Christmas Day in Glasgow - white christmas!!! Our poundshop gifts to each other in our fancy hotel.
Michele keeping warm with mulled wine in Glasgow
Visiting the Queen.
