So, hello, blog readers. How are you doing? I'm quite cold as its raining outside and slightly disgruntled as the dogs are taking up the whole sofa and I'm having to make do with the armchair! I'm reporting on all of the recent happenings as I'm bored of listing random crap on eBay that I don't want and I doubt anyone else will either.
Firstly I'll report on my long weekend in London... (1st-3rd May)
Two very good reasons for going (not thay I actually need any!): Ruth's 21st b'day and Tom's baptism.
So I got to London at 11.30am on Saturday and met Ruthie at Waterloo and we tubed it to our hotel on Tavistock Square - called, oddly enough, the Tavistock Hotel. We dumped our bags since we couldn't check in til 2pm and headed back out in to London, straight to Oxford Street to have a look around the shops. We bought matching flip flops as you can see here...
... in M&S, where we also got some Kir Royale and Percy Pigs! After a few hours we headed back tot the hotel, checked in, got our stuff and headed up to our room on the 7th floor. Great views of the Square and the BT tower from the window. Later, after consuming half the Percy Pigs and most of the Kir Royale whilst watching TV, we headed off to our free dinner at one of the Tavistock's sister hotels.
Service and food were both excellent here! We shared 2 starters; one of melon and one Prawn Cocktail. Then it was time for the carvery!! I had yummy lamb, with gravy, yorkie, roasties and veg. Man was that nice! For afters we had profiteroles. Did I mention it was free too!!
Day 2 saw us head back to Oxford St to get a few bits and pieces in the morning. However, because it was Sunday, most of the shops don't open til 12! We loitered in KFC drinking Fruit Shoots until we could get into Primark! Then it was back to the hotel - change clothes, collect presents/cards etc and set off for Waterloo. From Waterloo we headed to the little known town of Ashford where Tom lives and then to Ashford Baptist Church.
Once there we saw Sarah and her parents, plus all of Tom's family and Lois. Now, Sarah and I had been asked to read a verse (read passage) but didn't realise we actually to be Tom's sponsers! Sarah was nervous, but it all went well. We went up straight after his testimony to read Proverbs 3:1-12 from the Message which I love and suits Tom so well! Then of course there were the actual baptisms and lots of singing. Good times.
After the service we all went back to Tom's house for some well nice food and watched Tom opening his various presents/cards (all except mine cos he saved mine for his b'day). There were lots of books as well as the t-shirt Ruth got him. "Banana on my mind"
We left just before 9pm and got the train back to London, before heading back to the hotel. We sat in 1st class most of the way back as the guard said we could! I made sure to get it in the pic:
So that was the end of Day 2! On our last day, we began again with an awesome English brekkie at the hotel. Admittedly I only had bacon and sausages on both days with some Apple juice, but it was still well yum! As it was actually Ruth's birthday, she wore 2 b'day badges and the jewellery I'd bought for her! We were going to walk through Hyde Park (having seen Buckingham Palace) to Harrods but it was seriously raining so we got the tube straight to Knightsbridge. Our destination of course was Harrods and we spent a lovely couple of hours in there browsing everything and even saw the Diana and Dodi Memorial and Memorial Fountain. I bought Buster and Molly a cake each from the Canine Cookie Counter - got to love the novelty value there!
From Harrods we headed straight to Covent Garden! As we walked down from the Tube to the market there were plenty of street artists, including a Captain Jack Sparrow and a gorilla. We had a quick wander through the actual Covent Garden Market and then went in to a few actual shops including the Radley shop, Fat Face (where they were having VAT free!) and then ate waffles at an outdoor vendors to keep warm!
Finally though, the time came for us to have to head back to the Tavistock to collect our bags and then head off to Waterloo for the final time. Sad times. I wish I could go to London for a mini-holiday every weekend. Although if I heard one more announcement saying that the Jubilee Line was closed, I may have gone ga ga.
Ruth and I parted ways at Waterloo at about 3.30pm and I made it home for about 5pm. Ruth had work the next day so we couldn't be much later. That night there was rather a lot of sleeping to be done! It was a really lovely weekend, especially since I got to see Sarah, Tom and Ruth all in one weekend and in one place! Shouldn't be too long before I see Ruth and Tom again though, as Chris and Izzie's wedding at ABC is soon and Ruth said I could stay with her.
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Of course by the time I was back from London, it was the 4th May and only 2 days until the general election. Predictions said that we would see Labour lose a lot of support but not enough of it would go to the Conservatives for them to have a majority - we were expecting a hung parliament. Boy did we got one. The Conservatives got a very respectable 304 seats and in other shocking news, Brighton elected our first ever Green MP! The whole of the SouthEast: Sussex, Kent and Essex is now blue - Labour lost every single seat!!! Hooray.
Safe in the knowledge that my postal vote had been done a while ago, I stayed up til 2.15am watching the first election results come in and then the TV went straight back on at 9am, but by then it was already too late - the hung parliament had been declared, there weren't enough seats left undeclared for David Cameron to get a majority.
The latest news is that David Cameron has offered a coalition with the LibDems. I absolutely loved his speech where he announced it and really look forward to the possibility of him and Nick Clegg being in control together. Only problem? Technically speaking Gordo is still PM. He is expected to attempt to make a government in alliance with some other parties. Word on the street (and the TV) is that he wants an alliance with the Cleggites too, but they are sticking with what they said befor ethe election: the party with the largest number of seats/votes has the right tto seek to form a government first - and that is the Tories. Phew, politics is hard work!
They had a little break in their negotiations today as Brown, Cameron and Clegg joined Prince Charles and others to lay wreathes in honour of the 65th Anniversary of VE Day. This, IMHO, is a good thing. I'll be watching very closely to see what goes on next - who says what, offers what etc. Hopefully all will be revealled by the Queen's Speach (well it'd better be, cos that's when she opens Parliament!) and we won't have another election.
If we do however, I hope to High Heavens that they don't cack it up like they did on the 6th when thousands of people in London, Manchester, Sheffield and other big cities were turned away from Polling Stations at 10pm because there had been too many people trying to vote (up to 84% turnout in some areas!). On the other hand, some Polling Stations stayed open beyond 10pm which technically illegal soooooo who is right and who is wrong?
Anyway, this blog is long enough so I'll come in to land here. I'm off to work tomorrow, so ought to get on with things here. Until next time...don't keep your wand in your back pocket, its dangerous! :-p
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