Barcelona 15th March

On Saturday it was Aidan's birthday.  We were going to Barcelona.  We caught a train and then a plane.
In Barcelona we are staying in a house that belongs to the International Police Association.
The house is big and fancy. It has a big deck on the roof.

Barcelona is big and hot. We are wearing shorts.

We can get around by bus or by underground train. They call it the Metro.

Today we went to the top of a mountain. It is called Tibidabo. We had to go on a funicular. It is a train that can go up really steep hills using pulleys. It was fun.

At the top was an amusement park and a church. The church was decorated with lots of mosaics. They looked like paintings.

Windsor Castle Friday 14th March

Today we got up early so we could go to Windsor Castle.

We caught the train from Paddington.  The weather was cold because it was foggy.

When we got there we saw a flag on the top of the round tower. It was the British flag. This means that the Queen is not at the castle.

We saw the battlements that the archers hid behind and the arrow loops where they shot their arrows.

We saw Queen Mary's dollhouse. It was as big as a whiteboard. The taps and lights realy worked and the plates on the table were real silver.  Everything was really tiny.

There were 2 big dolls that were given to Queen Elizabeth when she was a girl. They had their own shoes and gloves and there was a little blue car that they could drive in.

After that we went to the art gallery and then into the main part of the castle. There were lots of teapots and plates.

There was a statue of Queen Victoria with her dog which was her favourite pet.  We saw the room where the Queen has special dinners for people who visit her.
There were lots of shields on the walls. Some of them were blank because when a knight does something wrong they take his colours off the wall but leave the empty shield to show that he is in disgrace.

There is heaps of rooms in the Castle. They are big.

When we had finished in the apartments we went outside again. We saw the Queens flag flying.

 This means that the Queen is at the castle. We talked to a guide and he said that the Queen arrived about 45 minutes ago and he told us that she would take her corgis for a walk in her private garden in the afternoon.

We saw the changing of the guards from their guard stations. There were 4 guards who marched around the castle. Later we saw the Inspector come to check the guard on duty and then we had our picture with the guard.  The Inspector had to look up, because the brim of his hat was really low over his eyes.

We looked in St Georges chapel. When we left the castle we sat in a cafe and had pizza for lunch.

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.