London - the apartment, the mouse and the first thirteenth birthday

In keeping with tradition, Venice airport provided a bit of drama with me being taken from the customs queue and asked if I was a diabetic. With a puzzled look I said I wasn't and he asked to search my bag! Turn out the torch we bought from the street seller in Piazza Navona is a laser pointer, after the customs officer blinded his boss, we were waved on our way with the torch giggling like schoolgirls!!

We flew with Monarch air from Venice to Gatwick who I hadn't heard of but can highly recommend. We took a bus to the plane and walked up the stairs like the queen does, another International first! Anyway a lovely flight with a gorgeous Scotsman next to me, piercing blue eyes with a very strong accent. Given the drama of Venice, we decided to treat ourselves to a car from the airport. Vinod was waiting for us with a sign with our name on it, we felt quite special.

The apartment was lovely enough despite us being in Hackney (sorry Hieu and Rach - I know you said not to) but the signs telling you to lock the door behind you and lock the windows before you leave and the swipe token to get in and the CCTV were enough to put doubt in the strongest mind.

I tried not to judge but we were staying above a club that the owners had run for 15 years, but I never saw anyone go in or out and became a bit suspicious - a google search later showed me that the club was a venue for discreet and high class lap dances - bloody hell!

After the couch broke we were feeling a bit down in the dumps and the last straw came when the pipes that ran through the apartment had water running through them constantly - a rush, a trickle, a torrent and a drip constantly for four hours. I finally lost my cool (I know - shocking right?!!) and emailed the owner. As I'm waiting for his reply, I hear a noise in the bag in the kitchen, yep, you guessed it - a mouse making itself at home in the rubbish!!

12.30am, I called the owner, said we were packing and we left the apartment for a hotel that was 100m down the road.

We finally fell asleep in the new hotel only to be woken at 7.45am by a fire alarm ringing through the hotel.

Two days there saw us relax a bit, spend up big on room service and try to work out where it all went so terribly wrong!! Truth be told by this stage we were laughing at the horror of it all, helped by some text messages from Aus talking about mice and cheese!

In the middle of all this was Sarah's 13th birthday - it started out ok with a breakfast of bacon & egg sandwich. We made our way to Harrods and walked around marvelling at the sights and the prices. Afternoon tea at their French patisserie was delicious and the macarons we took with us lasted as long as could be expected!! We then got lost (a lot) and it rained (a lot), we got seriously cranky with each other (a lot) and walked for miles. By the time we got back to the apartment, we decided that instead of the best birthday ever it was in fact the worst one and we vowed to try again with birthday number two the next day.