Thursday 13 the March - London

Today we went to the art gallery to see paintings of some old relatives of ours. They are Dad's relatives. They were famous for being artists and musicians. One of them sailed to Australia with Captain Cook.
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00944/Charles-Burney?LinkID=mp00662&search=sas&sText=burney&role=sit&rNo=0


Then we went to Horseguards to see the changing of the guards but it wasn't on until the afternoon because the guards were practicing for a parade.
Then we went to meet Daddy who was still at the gallery and we went to the Houses of Parliament. We had to go through security scanners and they took our photo to put on a pass. It was a bit scary.

We saw where people make up the rules for England.  The building was big and very old.  The first room we went into was the House of Commons. It was green. The second one was the house of Lords and it was red. The walls and ceiling were very fancy.

After parliament we were feeling hungry so we went to the river to eat our lunch. We could see the London Eye. It is very big and there was one red pod. We fed some peanuts to the pigeons.

After that we went to see Westminster Abbey. The Royal family get married there. The Queen was crowned there too.

Then we went to the park to feed the squirrels. They took the peanuts out of our hands. Their tails look really fluffy but they are actually not.

Greenwich

Today we went on a ferry to Greenwich. There were police on the ferry. We got a picture with them and Holly got to wear a police hat.

We saw the London Eye. It was huge and you get to stand up in the carriages. It looked cool.

We went past the Tower of London and under the Tower Bridge.

When we got to Greenwich we went to a museum called the Observatory. We saw a big red ball go up into the air and then come down again at 1 o'clock.
It sets the time around the whole world.

We had our picture taken on a line.  It is the meridian line which is the middle of the world.  We put one foot on one side the other on the other side.  One foot is in the Eastern Hemisphere and one foot is in the Western Hemisphere.

We had lunch in a pie shop with mushy peas and apple crumble with custard. It was delicious.

We walked through a tunnel that goes right under the river Thames. People were rolling skating in there.

We went to the train station and we caught a train where we could sit right at the front because there is no driver.  It is awesome because you can see what the driver could see.

Tower of London

Yesterday we went to the tower of London.  The Queens Royal guards were there guarding the queens jewels (the Crown Jewels).

There are birds that look a bit like crows, but they are Ravens. They are bigger and their beak is bigger and they are not allowed to go out of the castle walls. At night time they get locked up. They have different coloured bands and each one has its own name. We saw a red one called Hugine. She is a female and comes from North Somerset.

There are special guards called Yeoman Warders. We made friends with one whose name was Yeoman Warder Huggins.  He lives in the Tower.  He got us special tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys where they lock up the Tower Gates for the night. This ceremony has been done every single night for 700 years, except for one night in the war when 3 of the Warders got knocked of their feet by a bomb and the ceremony was late.

We saw them changing the guards. There are cobble stones in the Tower and the guards have metal plates on the bottom of their shoes and it is very slippery on the cobble stones. One of them nearly slipped over. You can tell who is in charge because he has stripes on his sleeves.

The first changing the guards the head guard had a red sash around his uniform, but the 2nd one didn't have it on.



We saw the ceremony of the Word.  This is where the guards go to the front of the tower to collect the password for the night from one of the Yeoman Warders. This happens every day so there is a different password every night to keep the Tower safe.

We did a tour with a Yeoman Warder.  This was a house where one of the Kings used to live.

We saw lots of crowns.  He showed us the chapel where the people who live at the Tower go to worship.

There was an armory. This is where they have guns, all the armour, canon balls and a display called the line of Kings where all the Kings are dressed in their armour. The horses had armour as well but they can't cover their whole body or they wouldn't be able to walk.

At the Tower there used to be lots of animals. It was like a zoo. They had lions, an elephant and monekys. There was a polar bear that used to swim in the moat. It was tied to a chain so it could not escape or attack people.

We went into the room where the Kings used to live.  There was a man there showing us things from a long time ago.  They used bone needles from animals and they didn't have paper so they used an animal skin which they dried and stretched it.  It was really strong and you couldn't tear it.  It lasts a long time.  The bone needles don't rip through the cloth when you put it through so it doesn't make a hole.
They wrote with a feather.  It is called a quill.  The have to cut it into a pen shape and dip it into the ink.

The bed had a blanket made of squirrel skin.

It was white and very fluffy.  They used the white fur off the tummy of the red squirrel.  In the Cinderella story, they weren't really glass slippers, they were squirrel fur slippers.

In the tower is a toilet,  The waste used to go into the river.

The Tower of London was really cool.

Horse Guards Parade - the changing of the guard

We went to the Horseguards parade where we saw the changing of the guard.
A man comes out and opens the gate behind the horses, new guards come out on their horses and they come in the back and take their place.

The horses stay on guard for one hour at a time.  The guards on foot stand out there for 2 hours.
A man got in trouble for patting a horse. The guard backed the horse into the box and yelled at the man. Then the guard on foot marched over and told the man to stop but he didn't listen. The horse guard pressed his alarm button and the other horse guard came over and stopped. It was exciting.

We saw 3 police horses waiting to escort horse guards. Their names were Kingsman, Lionheart and Justice. The white horse was the friendly one.

The changing of the guard is cool because we get to see the horses and the guards uniforms.

We went into the guards museum.  We saw what the stables look like. We saw the horses coming back into the stables after the parade.  Aidan got to try on a uniform.

 The helmet was very big and the boots were really long.

Holly did not want to.  They fed the horses hay.

After lunch we went to St Paul's Cathedral.

We climbed the stairs to the top of the dome.  There were 534 stairs. It was a long way.  Half way is the whispering gallery. Aidan went around one side of the dome and Holly stayed on the other side.  If you whisper into the wall you can hear it in the wall on the other side.

The stairs were a bit freaky and very narrow.  The top was very high.  There is a ball at the top that looks small but can fit 10 people in it, but you can't go into it. It is the little gold ball right at the top in the picture up above.

 When you are up the top you can look down through a little window in the floor and you can see the Cathedral floor down below. This is what you can see.

SS Great Britrain

Today we went to see the SS Great Britain. It is a big ship. It is old.

There were really good displays that showed us what it was like on the ship. The ship sailed from Bristol  to Australia.
We got to see the engine and to pretend to steer the ship. it was hard work. You needed 2 people.

We had challenges to do. One of the things we had to do was make a bed and lie in it. The beds were narrow and hard to get into. They were bunk beds. There used to be rats on the ship.

 There were chickens, cows and pigs on the ship to feed the people. There was a model of the kitchen with food and dirty dishes.

There was a big dining room. It

was only for the rich people in 1st class. The food was set out very prettily with jellies and things. The rich people's rooms were nicer.

Outside the boats were all the things in the docks. There was a horse and carriage.

The ship was cool. Holly's favorite part was model of the lady who had a baby on board. Aidan's favourite part was the kitchen with the cat chasing the rats.

Blaise House, Saturday

On Saturday we went to a town called Henbury on the bus. We sat at the front of the bus. You can see a lot.

We went to the museum in Blaise House.

 It had lots of old toys, clothes and a school room. The desks had opening lids to put your books. The desks had ink pots for writing.

There was a room with all toilets and washing machines. They had to wash in a tub with a stick to move it around and around. It took all day and it was usually Monday.

There was a roller called a mangle to squeeze the water out of the clothes.

Lots of people were walking their dogs in the park.

 There was a big playground that was lots of fun. There was a very big slide. It was very muddy.

We walked up a hill to a castle, called a folly. We couldn't go inside but it was cool to look at.

The next day we went to watch Dad referee rugby.

 It was raining and it was very cold and muddy. We did not like being out in the rain.
We

had a hot chocolate to warm up.

In the afternoon we went to the museum. We saw mummies from Egypt. They were wrapped in bandages.

Adventures in Bristol and Bath

On Wednesday Dad's friend Andy picked us up from our flat.
He drove us all around Bristol. We both fell asleep in the car because of jet jag.
We saw the Clifton Suspension bridge.  We drove over it and walked over it too. We went to the information centre and Holly drew her own bridge design and coloured it in. The lady in the shop put it on the wall.

(Holly) We walked up a hill to see the Cabot Tower. It was closed but we saw 3 squirrels on the way and we fed them crackers. The squirrel came and got the cracker out of my hand and bit me! But it was still fun. Squirrels are cute and I like their bushy tails.

We have been on double decker buses and we can sit right at the front. You can see lots of stuff.

(Aidan) Yesterday we went to Bath on the train. I sat next to a lady on the train. We told her about seeing kangaroos in our garden. She was scared of spiders and frogs and snakes and she doesn't want to visit Australia.

We walked into town from the train station to do a walking tour. We saw the old buildings from the town that were built in the 1700's, a long, long time ago.

People went to Bath to sit in the thermal water pools. They did this to help them if they were sick. They would stay in the water for a long time.

When it started to rain we went under cover and there was a man feeding pigeons. He gave us a some bird seed and lots of pigeons landed on us, even on our head.  It was cool.

After lunch we went to see the Roman baths. They were built in the 800's, thousands of years ago. The town was called Aquae Sulis. The baths were hot and they had steam coming out of them.

The
 water comes from underground. There were films to watch that showed us how the Roman's used to clean themselves in the baths. They used to swim naked.
There were some ducks swimming in the bath.

There were people dressed up as Romans. They were very funny. They wanted to buy us as slaves to help them work in the baths.

We had a sticker trail to follow and a guide to listen to. At the end we got a certificate. We got to taste the water. It was horrible.

We also saw Bath Abbey.