London - Sarah's first 13th birthday

Those familiar with the blob will know that Sarah's 13th birthday didn't quite turn out as planned, before it all turned to crap, we did take some nice pictures and have a good wander round. Shortly after these pictures were taken (and in some cases during these shots) things went a bit pear shaped for Sarah. I carried on taking photos regardless; this (unsurprisingly) did not make me a very popular mum!

We started the day off at Harrods, had a look around, paid far too much for Harrods stuff but enjoyed looking at all the jewellery, the clothes and particularly the pet sections (a French Bulldog was going for the very reasonable price of £2,600 - it was also possibly the ugliest dog ever). They sold all sorts of things your puppy might like from diamond collars (we didn't even look at the price) to pup-corn which is like popcorn but specially made for dogs (Sarah found out it was liver flavoured). Now truth be told we are a bit of a soft touch where the puppy is concerned and she often gets the things regular people would scoff at like her own cheeseburger from McDonalds for instance but even we decided that pup-corn was a bit much. When we looked at the price £14 seemed a tad excessive. Not so for the lady Sarah spotted later who had 5 bags in her hands! We continued on to see the doggy day spa where they can get a clip and take a walk on the treadmill whilst watching 101 Dalmatians (not kidding)!

We decided to walk for a bit and found Trafalgar Square - no pigeons - they fly a hawk around the square three times a week to keep them away. Have to say it was a bit sad but the statues are happier for them being scared away.

We walked down towards Big Ben and were reminded that it was school term in London - never seen so many school groups. The rain came down and we continued to walk. I may have got us lost twice but only the cranky 13 year old was keeping score! By this stage we were wet and a bit over the whole thing so we walked across the Jubilee bridge to Waterloo and got the bus home. As I've mentioned before, we vowed to start the birthday again the next day!