What to do SNOWED in, in London?

Snow is an amazing thing! It can make life exciting. It can make life very difficult...in London it was the latter. We were actually very lucky to get into Heathrow at all, as they closed the airport the next day. Our friends, Marga and Anders had missed their connecting flights and therefore stuck in London. No hotel room awaited them though unlike us. They had to crash at a friend's place...and I think they are still there (or else on the way home to Stockholm, having missed their Christmas celebrations with their family in Australia.

Anyway, back to us and London. London is cold, wet, and snowy! And I had a touch of  gastro, so spent the day in bed watching the snow fall outside. But I managed to haul myself out of bed to go the theatre that night to see Les Mis. We have been waiting 12 months to see this show and here we were sitting in the audience of the Queen's Theatre watching my favourite musical. And what a performance it was...it was brilliant. The performers were fantastic and we were compelled to get to our feet as they finished the spine chilling last song...we clapped and whistled and clapped for a long time...and then they were gone. It is always sad when the show comes to the end. We floated off to the Tube to get back to the hotel.

What else have we done in London:

D&C and Big Ben...in the freezing cold!

Jumped on the Big Bus - this bus travels around all the well known sights and provides commentary on each of these. It is a hop on hop off affair, so you can get off anywhere on the route, then jump back on later.

Our first stop was the Big Eye - you would have thought that I was over things that were high in the air, wouldn't you???? No, you have to do the London Eye - cos it's there! Well, once you are in one of the pods...that's it...you are stuck there. No way out now!! It starts off being quite cruisy and the view of London at night with the lights is lovely...but it keeps going higher and higher and the pod actually turns as the wheel (looks like a large bicycle wheel) and then you are headed towards the top of the wheel. It was at this point that the panic set in...there are seats in the middle of the pod...FOR GOOD REASON. I sat down with David who also looked a bit pale and tried to find a happy place...happy place...don't look down...happy...happy...once it's at the top it will start going down...that's a happy thought...don't look down. Then I became aware of the pod in front of us. These pods hold 25 folk! Just a well dressed couple & a waitress with champagne etc....At the very top of the wheel, I notice the young man on his knee holding the hand of his true love, proposing! It was very romantic...and took my mind off the stupidity of being that high in the air on a bicycle wheel. She did accept - would have been an awkward 30 minutes back down to the bottom otherwise!

D & C looking slightly terrified at the top of the London
Eye. Thinking happy thoughts...happy thoughts...

What else? We went to the changing of the guards! What a boring, boring thing to watch. The only interesting thing that happened was when one of the guard slipped over...I didn't laugh (much) at his misfortune but it did make for interest in a rather dull 45 minutes. So we can tick that off our list! (PS David here...I found it v interesting!...so much symbolism/ritual  & they are just ordinary guys...some very young & chatty as we observed when a couple came up close...why do each pair of guards come forward to the Palace & kick the gutter? Still don't know...then there is the checking of the box! etc etc..) But Buckingham Palace was interesting and the Queen was in...thought about popping in to say howdy, but needed to get down to No. 10 Downing St via the Horse Guards. So walked around some more and made our way to Trafalgar Square.

(Oh by the way, I have been trying to get photos of all of the Monopoly board properties. I doing okay, but struggling with the light blue properties like Euston Road. I might have to cut them out of the paper, but I'll do my best.)...[David again...many of you will know my Princess has expensive taste and will notice when you eventually see her little collection, that she has focussed on the Red set (Trafalgar Sq... etc) right up to Mayfair! Has 'em all from the wealthier "princess" parts of town!]

At Trafalgar Square we picked up a "Ghosts by Gaslight" night-time walking tour around the past dark "underside" of London. Now this was a lot of fun, going through backstreets and very narrow lanes...even dropped into Sweeney Todd's barber shop, now the actual Vicarage for nearby St Dunstance Church! - (aside...Gog & Magog live in the clocktower next to St Dunstance's...David's Yr10 City trip "CENSUS 10" kids will know these two...they have counterparts in Melbourne). Back to Sweeney...yes, the Barber shop was true, his house was real, the tunnel to Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop really exists...BUT is the story true about the many murders??? We will never know! But the mind boggles!

We also visited the Temple Church where part of the "da Vinci Code" was filmed, which was interesting. Spoiler Alert...the film isn't REAL people. We were told that many people, particularly Americans, visit all the sites in the film only to find, to their disappointment, that it is actually a novel. The vicar at the Temple Church, who allowed filming on site, embraced the attention at the da Vinci Code's release and held lectures to defunct the premises of the novel. Did well out of it. Other churches mentioned in the novel would not have anything to do with the filming, so alternative filming "locations" had to be found. Fascinating!

The Ice Skating Rink far far below the "Eye"...happy thoughts...
happy thoughts.

The next day we spent at St Paul's Cathedral, which was wonderful. We went to a Eucharist service in the afternoon, then pottered around the crypt which included visiting Lord Admiral Nelson's grave and others. Then we stayed on for "Evensong" prayer & worship with the "quire". We were invited to sit in the "quire" stalls for the service which was a real treat. It was a wonderful day in this house of God.
David went back the next day for a Carols service, but realised once he was there (a little late for the 4 pm start) that he had naively left his run and bit late and was not able to get inside as it was packed to the rafters. People had been queuing for 3 hours to get in! So he sat outside with the big screen in Paternoster Square.  He enjoyed it very much with his Starbuck's coffee & BLT...although a wee bit cold out there. (Chris says she saw me on BBC News that evening)


St Paul's Cathedral.


So we are off tomorrow if the weather remains the same - that is NO SNOW! and we will be having Christmas in Holland with our new friends Ed and Terry.

We wish everyone a wonderful Christ-filled Christmas. With our love, Chris and David

PS. I, David, wanted to end this blog with a special blessing...my clip of the magnificient singing of  "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" by the huge St Paul's Cathedral Carols congregation and then the special Christmas blessing by the Bishop...but alas, it looks like copyright restrictions block me uploading. Chris says "they" apparently can identify the location (GPS?!) of the filming/recording...content? who knows?! ....(this also happened with pictures we took of us at the big glass Pyramid at the Louvre!)
Anyway, you will have to imagine that amazing, heavenly, harmony of Charles Wesley's final verse..."Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!..." I can hear my Mum (Betty) in Adelaide & dear sister Marlene Pietsch & the St Paul's choir (Box Hill's that is!) back home...lifting harmonies of praise to the Prince of Peace!
May this Jesus fill your lives with peace and joy!

St Paul's from Paternoster Sq. Big screen, Carols finished. The Bethlehem star? No..a plane. The snow is clearing! We may yet leave London as scheduled!