We are now in the middle of our week of entertaining J-M, currently over here from the Silverwood's domain in Ireland. She is being treated to a week of delights and entertainments. Top of the list is undoubtedly the London trip on Tuesday - the excitement of a train ride up there, underground trains, just being there and walking the streets ("It's not as busy as I thought") and Harrods (mainly the food halls which are truly spectacular, and where J-M bought fudge just for the green Harrods bag), the toy dept and the outrageously priced young-people's fashion dept (tiny ra-ra skirt for £200+ anyone? Little jacket for £1099?).
From there we move on by taxi to China Town (Gerrard Street, naturally) for a Chinese meal at lunchtime (delicious and she fell upon it, but the place would never win any awards for fast service!). From there to Hamley's and circuit after circuit of several of the floors; pink overload in the "girls' floor", and lots of time (and plenty of money) spent in the "Build a Bear" dept.
In Harrods, by the way we'd just missed some celeb 'babe' or other from Girls Aloud in there launch her new make up range, getting only a glance at the back of her head as she disappeared into a area crammed with screaming herberts (who'd all queued, presumably) chased by 20-30 'entourage' people. Mum tried to blag a way through some displays to get closer, but a very polite young shop assistant said "Ahem.... I'm afraid that area of the shop is currently closed, I'm very sorry".
Mum and Dad had not met BuildaBear before but they have now - you buy an empty soft toy bear "skin" and you take it to the stuffing dept where a friendly assistant talks the child through stuffing it, giving it a little heart to stuff inside, and letting him/her press the on-switch with a foot, making pledges to always love the bear etc and then, inevitably, there are many many opportunities to spend money on outfits and other BuildaBear related stuff. J-M started the week with a fixed 'spending money' budget and managed to make quite a dent in it just in that one dept.
From there we walked down through some of the posher shopping streets of London, New Bond Street for one, past Cartier jewellery, Dolce and Gabbana, YSL etc - every one of them with doors closed and hefty security men guarding the door. We guess they need to see a Platinum Card before they'll even let you set foot. Our destination at that stage was Buckingham Palace but by then J-M's feet were blistered from walking too long in pinchy-shoes. We'd tried to find softer shoes for sale but could find none in her size.
It was a good day, all be it exhausting.
More on this adventure tomorrow
Deeski
1 comment:
Sounds like she is having a great time, see you Saturday
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