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am just digging through our photos from the holiday and have picked a few from edinburgh which were taken both in the main castle and also when wandering around the streets on sunday. when you open each pic, there should be a little caption in the bottom left, but it's all pretty much self explanatory. as you can see, sunday was really quite an amazing day - although it was a tad chilly...
got home this afternoon after a pretty decent flight from heathrow. we had a tough final day in london, with penny, charlie, tim, sarah and me all getting sick on the last day (rachel felt a bit icky, but didn't have the 'symptoms' that the others exhibited). poor little charlie was in a really bad way when we left, and was about to go and see his doctor - although sarah let us know that he was on the mend this afternoon. the flight was sweet - the flight was full so we didn't get our points upgrades, but we had exit row seats reserved so despite being the gathering place for people waiting for the toilet, we had an absolute load of legroom. we even had the seat next to us free, but someone pounced on it shortly after takeoff.
the cats have forgiven us for ditching them for so long, and poppy has even had his first couch cuddle with rachel.
i have a load of photos to download, but they can wait. here are some that i took on my phone. in order: rachel and penny, rachel on the london eye, charlie in wandsworth common (with sarah and penny in the background), rachel and tim consulting the london a to z while charlie takes in cbeebies, and sam and katy in edinburgh.
had a lovely afternoon in hammersmith at a pub, where we caught up with kirsty, her hubby james, anna moo, nic, steve & emma, dale, ricky and fen. gorgeous day, great food and great company. perfect way to catch up. bbq at jonathan and laura's last night, j's parents were in town, and it was a nice chance to catch up with them. delicious feed of burgers, snags and chucken - I could hardly move by the end of the evening...
heading to covent garden today to meet up with john and jane pascoe, and then am going to kill a bit of time with the camera while rach has her baby shower at tim and sarah's place.
barbara's favourite 2 year old does a jigsaw with mum :-)
another quiet day in london - we're babysitting gorgeous penny for a few hours while charlie and sarah check out the local primary school (for charlie in 2011!) dinner in clapham with michael des tombe tonight and dinner with anna and kieran tomorrow at the uk headquarters of the 'pinot noir club (est 2008)'.
our trip so far seems to be an eating tour - sweet. had our first toad in the hole last night, courtesy of tim.
finally, another cute gift for cracker the unborn: a little kilt from damon and lynn (aka the bride and groom)...
just had a lovely morning out with sarah and the kids; then lunch with jane loveday and a ride on the london eye (although i had forgotten how bleurgh the tube is). will add some more photos later on, but here's one from my phone taken from the downward bit on the london eye. what a view...
made it to balham and are now hanging with sarah, charlie and penny. after a bit of yelling (at me) penny is now asleep and charlie is doing jigsaw puzzles with rachel. charlie is hilarious - he says "uh oh" and "cup of tea!" constantly! here's a photo of feeding time at the zoo:
just back from edinburgh and we're looking out at a wet and gloomy tuesday morning in london. had an amazing time in edinburgh and the wedding was fantastic - a spot of rain during the day, but the ceremony was lovely, the reception was absolutely marvellous, and we met - and reunited with - some awesome people. i took a load of film photos which won't be ready for a few weeks, but we did take a few with rachel's camera. damon and lynn looked fantastic (damon was in a kilt!) and everything went beautifully. i was actually playing music with paul (the best man) when he met damon and so after dinner when they were bashing out a few tunes on the guitar, they invited me up on stage for a few kiwi songs - great fun. thankfully i had tanked up on red wine so wasn't nervous at all...
sunday we wandered around edinburgh and went to a lovely michelin star restaurant "number 1" in the balmoral hotel. loved it - great food and great staff in a beautiful old building. a bit of an indulgence, but hey - it's not a regular occurrence :-)
monday we saw the castle (photos are on my other camera sorry) and then caught manju and sunethra for lunch at a small organic cafe in downtown edinburgh (urbanangel). took a bus trip around the sights to kill a bit of time and then we had a cheeky wine in a beautiful old bank building called "the dome" before heading to the airport.
a few photos from the wedding are below, but i've got plenty more from the weekend on the other camera - but i'll sort those out when we head to sarah and tim's place today (we're staying with them for the rest of the week).
landed safely in london after an uberlong flight - 12.5 hours. thankfully we managed to upgrade to premium economy using points, which put us upstairs in the nice quiet bit. i ate a monster amount of food and watched a ridiculous amount of tv - all good. the crew were awesome and i even managed a bit of sleep despite it being a daytime flight. had a great dinner with katy, sam, anna and kieran at a local bar / restaurant "the duke" and today we had a lazy day, with a coffee in richmond, a 1.5 mile walk down the river, and then a great pasta lunch in a little italian-style cafe. i had forgotten how good gnocchi is...
currently chilling out at sam and katy's place and tonight it's dinner in covent garden.
off to edinburgh tomorrow afternoon from gatwick and then back monday. sorry, this isn't very thrilling but here are a few photos from the morning walk. click on them to make them bigger:
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a partner at my work has just come back from london and brought with her cracker's first outfit - it's a cute little one-month old outfit from marks & spencer and it's just adorable. it's also winter weight, which is handy, given that cracker is due to arrive in january - one of the coldest months in hk. click to see the little picture a bit closer.
