Farewell to Essex. Hello London.

1/6/12

It's a big day today. We're leaving our friends in Essex and heading into our London apartment for a week.

Paige and I did a last minute shopping raid on TK Maxx (A huge outlet type of store) with Paige scoring a couple of dresses that will be perfect to wear to the shows we have booked in London. We told Paige not to bring much in the way of clothes with her because she could buy up big in London at a fraction of the price at home. That is why there has been a focus on shopping. I'm very proud of our girl. She hasn't gone into a feeding frenzy, but is very carefully choosing items that she will get a lot of use out of. She's a gem. I bought a new sat nav for the car so we can find our way around the UK for the next few weeks, and it works. Yahoo.

Early afternoon we packed up and said a very sad goodbye to the Oliver family. Julie, Brian, Emma, Louise, and Poppy were fabulous hosts and put up with the three Aussies invading and taking over their home with grace and nonchalance. Emma and Louise even gave up their bedrooms for us to sleep in. They are a truly lovely bunch of people and I really feel honoured that they are our friends. Thank you so much for having us guys. I'm sure we'll see you again soon. 

So off we went. Suzanne driving the car with the sat nav, and me following on the bike. It was a problem free trip into London and after a little bit of time we found our apartment. It's really cool with all we need for a base to explore London...and a little pub across the road.

The view of our apartment from the pub. It's to the right of the guys on the street and our little black Hyundai i30 is parked out the front. Can you believe we got a parking spot right outside the front door? In London?

The Cape of Good Hope, our local. Seeing as it is right across the road I might have to drop in for a pint.

Tonight was Paige's first visit to a London show, The Wizard of Oz.

Goose bump time. Walking down the street and seeing this sign was really cool.

And what a show it was. Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww! We settled into our sixth row seats and it was epic. Great cast (including Des O'Connor, yes, he's still alive), brilliant costumes, terrific singers, clever lighting and effects, and so on. They even had a real Toto, an extremely well trained West Highland White Terrier. Dorothy had a very strong resemblance to Emma Cammack, one of our painty friends. The show was a bit different to the movie and very, very funny. I was a little concerned that I thought the Wicked Witch was hot in one scene, even if she was green. When we got home Paige said "I could watch that every night for the rest of my life". Dad felt pretty damn pleased with himself.

Paige's Wizard of Oz souvenir complete with Toto and ruby slippers.

We're having a ball here in the UK. When is someone coming over to join us for a week or two?