You'll find us all.... Doin' the Lambeth Walk. Oi!

Hello readers. 'tis I.

Well what a week it's been. The weather has been all over the place and so have I! Last week it was decided (at fairly short notice, I might add) that a return trip to London was required since we didn't get to do everything last time we were there.

After some fairly rapid telephone calls, we managed to sort out the details. So at 8:45 on Saturday, Me, Marcus, Jenny, Carl, and Adam met at Solihull station. We boarded the 9:06am train and got underway. After a rather uneventful journey we arrived at Marylebone Station at 11:20am and walked down to Baker street (Elimentary, my dear Marcus!) for a McDonalds.

After devouring my McBurger and McFries, and drinking my McMilkshake I felt quite McSick but I plodded along and the feeling went away after about 15 minutes or so. Luckily Jenny had spotted a booth selling tickets for London attractions so we bought fast-track tickets for the London Dungeons. We hopped on the tube and rocketed across London. At the first look at the queue to get in to the place I could have snogged Jenny there and then... It was HUGE! but thanks to her we could go straight in to the entrance to the left and beat everyone else inside.

We went round the inside area until we got to the main attraction, which you go round in groups. A freakishly tall zombie addressed us and led us in to "The halls of the Lost" which is a large maze of mirrors. After 15 minutes we "found" our way out (it is actually very simple but the exit is behind a sliding mirror panel and they choose when to open it for you!)

We were lead through a series of rooms each giving a talk on old London folk-lore. We had a surgeon "disect" a corps, a torture expert demonstrate the instruments of his trade, and then we went in to an old style courtroom....

.... Where they tried Jenny for dancing naked through Birmingham. chanting "Beelzebub Beelzebub" The "Judge" and the prosecutor were hilarious and in the end found her guilty of summoning a hideous demon.....

.... Which turned out to be me! After Jenny pleaded not guilty (whilst actually standing in the box) the judge looked at me and said "So how do you explain the condition of that mans face?"

... Charming!

They then lead us out to a mock up of the streets and started talking about Jack the Ripper. There were acurate mock-ups of the locations the murders took place and a talk on how he butchered his victims. That section culminated with a fiery blast erupting from the wall as a sign that Jacks spirit was present... (Ooh, er...)

We then got on a boat ride (which is bloody scary) and ended up outside the shop of Sweeney todd. We were took in and sat down and then the lights went out...

... and then there were footsteps...

... And a voice started to speak and say stuff like "Looks like you need a shave..." and " Untidy, very untidy... Fancy a bit off the top?" and then something touches the back of your head and the seats tilt backwards a bit... Everyone screamed and then we were "rescued" and took out

The last section was all about the fire of London and was acually not that interesting. We were in there for about 2 and a half hours in total so it is well worth the money.

After coming out and grabbing an icecream, Marcus got a call of his mate Steve asking him if he wanted to go to an open-air gig. We told him that it would be OK and would meet up with him later, so he got the bus and we walked over London bridge to the Tube, and went across London to the Natural History Museum. On the way there I got a few good Photo's.

A nice one of the tower, and it's support beams

A panoramic shot of the Tower of London... Quite good I reckon!

Once inside the museum we were actually running out of time. We had about an hour and a half to see everything! We realised that was impossible so did the sections we wanted to see most.

The Dino' watching over the entrance hall.

A Triceratops

Adams favorite Dinosaur (I can't remember what it's called... Turbittosaur, I think)

T-Rex (one of my favorite bands!)

Actually, we onlt went to London to stare at the fancy birds!

A full size model of a blue whale... It's penis is 13 feet long... Which is nice

After trekking round the museum we were kicked out at 5:00pm because it was closing. We decided to walk up to Harrods (see below) and get the tube back up to baker street for some grub and a pint.

Harrods.... Looks a dump, don't it?

We boarded the tube again (no Indiana Jones style stunts to report this time readers!) and headed off to Baker street. We went in to The Globe which is a very nice pub with good beer. I had a nice cold Magners to refresh the vocal chords, By-'eck it were luvvleh!

Marcus phoned to check where we were and to tell us that he was stopping the night at Steve's so we could catch the train when we liked. We said that was no problem and went over to Weatherspoons for some food. I ended up ordering what I thought was a bottle of cider (no Magners... Terrible!) but it turned out to be some sort of Apple/Pear wine thing. It tasted like Lambrussco but came with a pint glass. I finished it quickly before anyone thought I was a puff and put the bottle on the table behind us.

After our meals we played the quiz machine for a bit before heading back to the station. The train left at 9:40 by which time we were all pretty tired.

Here's the proof!...

Here we see sleeping beauty's not so beautiful cousin fast asleep. I took this about a minute before his arm slipped and he woke himself up by nearly hitting his head on the table! (It gave everyone a good laugh though)

The train rolled in to Solihull at about 11:50. Adam and Carl had their cars but Jenny gave me a lift home. All-in-all it was another succesfull trip.

I am off now to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2...

TTFN readers