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Just returned from a weekend in London, a great, and busy, time was had!

We travelled down on the Friday night after work by train into Kings Cross, we were then met by Andrew, friend and guide (who had stayed at work waiting for us to arrive to save travelling home then back), who showed us to our hotel, only a 15min walk away. We stayed at The Royal National Hotel, owned by The Imperial Group, which is a large hotel in the Russel Square area of London. After a little mishap with the room number, i.e. we were given wrong room and door card meaning I scared the life out of some poor woman by barging in at 22:30 while she was trying to sleep, we headed back to reception where it was cleared up and we headed to our “proper” room to hoy in our bag and then down to the bar to quench the travellers thirst before heading back up to bed to build up our strength for a busy Saturday.

Saturday morning began brightly at 07:30 with a full English breakfast to set us up for the day, champion! Andrew met us just after 09:30 and off we went for a wander, last time we were down Bev didn’t get a good look round Covent Garden so that was our first stop of the day.

While we were there we stopped for coffee where Andrew chose the Hot Chocolate, it was literally hot chocolate, it came in a very hot metal jug to keep it liquid we assume and it was bloody lovely, made my Latte taste like crap ;-) There was a street entertainer trying his best to get a reaction from the 3 or 4 people around, but I found him too slow, we stood there 5 mins and all he’d done was talk about what he was going to do and try to interact. Would have been fine with a big crowd around but not when the street was empty :-)

We wandered around a bit more after that and ended up at Carnaby Street, where we decided to pop into Carnaby Burger Co for lunch, bloody hell take your appetite if you’re going there, the burgers are huge!

After lunch it was time for one of the main reasons we went, We Will Rock You! at the Dominion Theatre, I’ve wanted to see it for ages but Bev wasn’t interested until last month when Bethany played Scaramouche in her school version of it, ‘Schools Will Rock You’. It was bloody brilliant and I recommend it to everyone. It also showed how well the school did in their version as it was just like seeing it for the second time, but with better singers, Bethany not included in that of course ;-)

We left the theatre buzzing and headed off for something to drink, heading back to Covent Garden where we were pleased to see a slightly larger crowd for the street entertainers. We saw huge paella pans cooking enough to feed the five thousand and set about looking for somewhere with space to get a drink. We chose a cafe with outdoor seating back in Covent Garden, Le Pain Quotidien, where I found a nice organic cider called Dunkertons Premium Organic that I recommend if you can find it. Just as we were coming to the end of our drinks the wind began to pick up and a few drops of rain fell, which, considering the weather had forecast heavy rain most of the day, wasn’t bad. We headed off to our next port of call, The Adelphi Theatre for Sweeney Todd, Bev’s choice cos it has Michael Ball in it. I’d recommend going to see this too, it’s dark and morbid but utterly brilliant overall. Imelda Staunton is brilliant and although Michael Ball looks nothing like himself and Bev was disappointed as she couldn’t see his dimples he portrays Sweeney Todd brilliantly, so much so that they got a standing ovation at the end, well deserved.

After that it was a short walk back to our hotel for a couple of drinks to round off a very full day before heading to bed.

Next morning it was up early for breakfast and then straight for the train home following Andrew’s directions for getting to Kings Cross, as he was working and not available to guide, easy!

Next time I think we’ll check out of our hotel and then store our luggage at Kings Cross and get the later train home as it seemed to be a hurried weekend with a very very full Saturday.

We were almost tempted to head off to Hogwarts instead of home as they had kindly signposted Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross in the new section. ;-)

Well done for anyone who stayed to the end, cos I’m crap at writing this stuff down but wanted to keep a record of this :-)

Here’s a couple of photos as a thanks for hanging in there ;-)