Claire's blog

So, it’s been a while since I posted. I got caught up in work and the run up to Christmas. But, finally, here are the pictures from London.

We stayed at the Southwark Rose Hotel, which turned out to be very nice, and close to the river. It was about lunchtime when we arrived, and the first thing we did (after dropping Dad off so he could get to his meeting) was take a walk along the river and visit the Globe which was fascinating.

Following that we took a walk a little further down the river to visit Tate Modern. Ok, so I didn’t like everything in there, but there are some fantastic works of art to see. We spent several hours there, and barely made a dent in the exhibitions so I think I’m going to have to go back sometime. The shop was fantastic, but I restrained myself and only came out with a book on Chagall instead of the 15-20 books and prints I wanted. The building is impressive – huge and slightly scary with an amazing entry hall, and with viewing decks on the third floor with a view over the Millenium Bridge and across the river.

The next day we spent shopping in the morning (my chance to buy some beads, I made it to the London Bead Co. and Buffy’s Beads). In the afternoon myself, Mum and Rob made it to a performance of Twelfth Night at The Albery, before meeting Dad after he’d finished work to go and see We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre. Twelfth Night was quite an unusual performance with the setting transferred to India, which actually worked really well, and We Will Rock You was brilliant fun.

Dad had the next day off, which gave us the chance to go for a fly on the Eye, which we followed up with a cruise down the river, giving me a chance to take stacks of pictures.

We finished up by wandering over to Trafalgar Square, via some Horse Guards and Downing Street, so we could sit on the lions 🙂

Don’t Dad and Rob look charming?

And finally, had to include a picture of HMS Belfast as this is where Dad had to give a talk and so was the reason for our trip to London!