A London Adventure--Day 1

Leaving Portland

Our youngest granddaughter turned one last month. As I shared last year, I spent almost three months getting to know Miss Ada as well as enjoying every day with our youngest daughter. 

My husband, Bob, is not a traveller.  Many people in a small space causes him distress and airplane travel is unpleasant on his ears. Even with noise canceling headphones, the humm from the engines plays havoc with his hearing. His hearing is compromised on a good day.

He agreed to go and he suggested we take our oldest granddaughter with us. My husband loves his grandchildren. We asked Miss Keira's parents about the trip and they said yes. 

Sharing the contents of her backpack

We invited Miss Keira saying that being a decade old deserved a celebration and would she like to travel to London with us during her Spring Vacation? Keira was excited. Her younger sister definitely was not excited about her sister's trip. Perhaps when she has decade status, we will book another trip. She turns ten in November.

We left Wednesday evening March 22 and returned Friday evening March 3l. Keira had Thursday and Friday off for school conferences so that was why we could leave mid week. We asked her to make a list of where she wanted to go. In about ten minutes, she had more destinations written than I thought we could fit into the trip!

K's parents did provide us with a notorized form which stated we had permission for K to travel with us. During our research, we learned we would need to keep this form handy and one of us would be the designated person to walk through security and customs.

Arrived Heathrow and waiting for a bag

Interestingly, not once during the trip were we asked to produce the documentation though! It made sense to have it as there are cases of non custodial parents taking a child away from the custodial parent.

Leaving Portland, our flight was delayed because the plane was an hour late in arriving. Crew then spent an hour cleaning the plane so we boarded two hours late. We were supposed to leave at 7:30; but, we didn't leave until 9:30pm. 

I thought that K would want to sit by the window; but, she didn't. I took the window seat and I was asleep shortly after take off. It had been a long day. Miss K tapped my shoulder because the flight attendants were serving a snack. She didn't want me to miss the snack! What a blessing she is!

Walking home from nursery school

We did have dinner and we all were able to sleep a little during the flight. I probably slept five hours of the nine hour flight. She might have slept four. She watched a movie, she played games on her tablet and she commented that she never thought that classical music could lull her to sleep!

Nicole's partner picked us up from the airport. He had a black coffee for Bob, a hot chocolate for Keira and a latte with oat milk for me. K was impressed. We loaded our bags into the car and headed for Central London. It was about an hour drive. We drove by Buckingham Palace and had to wait for a motorcade to pass. We surmised it was Kate going to a gown fitting for the coronation. It could have been any royal or it could have been the prime minister. The windows of the sedans were all dark so we had no clue.

Peri Peri Chicken from Nando's

Seeing a royal was the first item on K's list though. It was a rainy blustery day in London and because we were two hours late in arriving, our driver dropped me at my nail appointment. Later he even came to pick me up. I had a manicure/pedicure at West Lane Studio. 

While I was at the salon, K and Bob picked up Ada from nursery school and got acquainted with the flat. Because it was raining and my knee was sore, Nicole's partner picked me up from the salon which was nice. 

For dinner we ordered in from Nando's. It was a nice way to complete a long day. I can't remember if first ate at a Nando's in France or if it was in Australia. Where ever it was, it is a place we try to find at least once when we are traveling. 

The chicken is good and the sides vary from country to country. In England, one of the sides was a wheat berry type salad that was delicious. 

Keira thought the chips (fries) were delicious. She decided that she would rate the English chips during her stay. We thought that was her way of letting us know she planned to order chips as often as was possible!!

Stay tuned next Wednesday, I plan to post about what we did on day two of our London Adventure! Oh and if you missed my scrap cooking post that was inspired by a professional chef, click here.