Hello chaps!

Oh my god. London in the summer is the place to be. Temps in high 20's no rain & always a gentle breeze blowing. It was fantastic to arrive at Kerry & Matts South Ken flat...like greeting an old faithful friend. Then straight off to petite delice for the best coffee & vanilla slice in London. All thoughts of stretching out on the bed & sleeping the day away were soon dispelled as we found ourselves in London on the hottest day of the year. Temp 30C and everyone in shorts, summer dresses & flip flops. 1st order of the day was a trip to Oxford St for a gander at the shops & grab Dan some shoes. Construction everywhere you looked in London. The old girl is tarting herself up for the 2012 Olympics. Everyday the pavements were just a teeming mass of bodies as people of all nationalities enjoy the weather and the sales. We met up with the other family traveling with us...Darin, Barb,Tom & Anthony Maher... & traipsed off to Covent garden. Yet more construction put a bit of a dampener on an otherwise happening place. We quickly realised that traveling as 4 adults was going to be a much more expensive exercise than we had originally intended. Sitting at an outdoor cafe we quickly consumed 20 large beers between the 8 of us & it set the tone for the rest of the week. Lunch at Gordon ramsays at claridges the next day was the highlight in London for the 8 of us. Dressed in our glad rags we piled into a black cab & happily discovered we had an infamous cockney cab driver who kept us entertained as we tootled by Hyde park and down brook St. Claridges was an an absolute delight. The art deco decor was elegant with lots of ornate cornicing, chandeliers, muted pastel colours & large ornately etched mirrors. At the entrance to claridges a concierge escorted us through the lobby to our table where 4 waiters pulled out each of our chairs for us and to our delight the table was set with crisp white linen, silver cutlery and an orchid centre piece in a beautiful antique silver vase. The spell was broken when the waiter presented us with the wine list on an iPad! Impressive none the less as we put our chosen drinks on the iPads wishlist which the waiter then whisked off & organized for us. A set menu was decided on with 4 courses on offer for £30. Starter was a sublime cold pea soup with the tiniest, sweetest most perfectly formed mushrooms. The food philistines amongst us were pretty dubious that this would be anything but unpleasant but were soon swooning after the first mouthful went down. We all agreed this was the favourite dish amongst us all. What a surprise....John & Daniel enjoying peas! The rest of the meal was equally scrumptious & was washed down with copious amounts of wine. The restaurant quickly filled with diners including a few tables of elegantly dressed women in hats and dapper men that had just had an audience with the Queen. What a start to our European holiday!

Each morning would see John & I jogging around Kensington gardens & stopping for a latte at the lido by the Serpentine river. A perfect spot. The weather was lovely, London strollers were out in force, dogs and their owners everywhere, frolicking through the lush verdant grass, people on horseback, nannies and their wards, children playing in the Princess Diana memorial fountain & it was great to be back in London. Tom & I managed to get in a few art galleries of modern art & all the while the shops were beckoning us with their sales. I managed to perform a bit of speed shopping & was finally satisfied. A highlight of my shopping expeditions was going to a little jewellery showroom that I had sourced on the net. I hadnt realised it was not actually a shop but an ornately furnished showroom. We had to do a bit of searching through some quaint back streets until we finally reached a little cobble stoned mews and after walking up & down a few times we finally found the address & realized that we needed to ring the doorbell for admission. We found ourselves in the company of a couple of delightful young english women who warmly welcomed us. Once again an iPad was flourished from which I made my selections. These were then procured by the lovely young things & were brought to me on velvet trays. All very posh & a lovely shopping experience. We were invited to stay on for a function with champers & canapés that evening to be hosted by the retail editor of english vogue. I politely declined as John urged me to stay but we already had arrangements to meet our aussie friends the mahers, clay & Catriona Golledge, rob macdonald (Dob) & mark segal (Gull). Catriona was equally excited about my jewelry shopping as I was & we both lamented the missed opportunity of rubbing shoulders with fashion royalty.

Food played a major part in our traipsing. A tiny Indian restaurant in south Ken did not disappoint and another raucous night ensued in typical Aussie style with the addition of our friend clay who kept the younger boys entertained with his many anecdotes & stories. Equally, the many varied cheeses on offer at waitroses was a highlight for us as well as the massive raspberries, blueberries, tiny sweet strawberries and the cheapest bananas Barb has seen in a long time.

Eventually it was time to leave but we could have easily have stayed another week. On the last night I caught up with Carole, one of my dearest friends who also was a bridesmaid at our wedding. Carole has the classic english peaches & cream complexion and it was like stepping back to the last time we saw each other & we immediately lapsed back into our old familiar way with one another. Not wanting to see her go at the end of the night...well suffice to say it was a real wrench to say goodbye.

But, Berlin was beckoning & it time to also bid London an Aussie 'see ya later'!