London – Saturday 12th July

After Andrew and Xavier collected our UK hire car for the remaining 9 days of our holiday in the South West of England, we met up with Simon, Mel, Giles and Morgan.  We had never met Morgan and it had been many years since we had last seen Simon, Mel and Giles, in Perth where we first met in 2007.

We had a nice brunch together in the Russell Square Café, and then the adults sat down to talk in the park while the kids ran around together.

Afterwards we caught a bus in to Trafalgar Square again, this time to see the National Gallery.

At Elle’s suggestion, we initially went to the gift shop and all selected a postcard of a favourite painting to seek out in the gallery.  William selected one that we all liked, after seeing an image of it on the Van Gogh walk in St Remy de Provence, titled A Wheatfield, with cypresses.  Andrew soon found out from a museum attendant that photos were not allowed in the gallery, soon after taking this photo of William with his post card in front of the original painting.

After the gallery, we asked the kids if they had anywhere else they wanted to go, and both Grace and William voted to return to the Natural History Museum.  Below are William and his favourite animal (Komodo dragon), and a Plesiosaur walk by.

Final stop was the Rio Tinto Earth Science Atrium, where William was pleased to find some Obsidian (which he knew from an ipad game was very hard).

We then took the metro to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens, where the kids enjoyed playing on the pirate ship and in the sand.

Another ‘tube’ ride and short walk later, we found a nice Turkish restaurant called Antalya near the Russell Square apartment.  There we had a very nice dinner, although Xavier once again crashed mid-meal.