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Today Mike and I decided to visit Kensington Palace where the royal families resided before Buckingham Palace became their permanent residence. The highlight of the visit was the "Garden Tour". Our volunteer guide spent well over an hour with a group of five visitors traversing from one corner to another of the property explaining the history of the palace, stories of its inhabitants and the palace's impact in London's overall development. In the beginning of the tour he remarked that although it was called the "Garden Tour" he didn't know anything about plants so not to ask! He was a historian and so history we got! It was excellent! I have to say that the various tour guides we had both in Ireland and in London were outstanding. Following the tour we enjoyed high tea in The Orangery on the palace grounds. This is a beautiful building originally designed to house fruit and flowering trees which could not survive the cold weather of London. Queen Anne used to enjoy her time amongst the trees, reading and enjoying the views of her gardens. The building is essentially one long room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the gardens and lawn area surrounding the palace. The white clothed tables offered a welcome respite from walking the property and we were pampered with china, silver and lovely food served with elegance and panache. I don't know how the British partake in high tea each day and stay so thin! It consisted of finger sandwiches, pastries, and candies as well as tea of course...a feast for two to be sure! We opted to each order a Pimm's Cup, a traditional British cocktail that Philippa had made for us when she was visiting in Santa Barbara.
That night Mike and I went to see Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. I had purchased the tickets months ago so we had really good seats in the small theatre. The first time our family had seen Phantom was many years ago when we took Grammy and Pop Pop for Christmas. Emily was about seven and Eric eleven and we took a limo to Los Angeles. It was a really big treat for everyone. I think Pop Pop was skeptical about the whole idea but he ended up absolutely loving every minute of the evening and it has long been one of our families' favorite memories. Phantom has been playing in London for the past 23 years...needless to say they have it down just right! What a wonderful show. Because the theatre is so small, the inherent drama, costumes and music seemed bigger than life! We went back to the same restaurant we had been with Eric and Philippa the night before and had dinner again! Now that's satisfaction.
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