Well the school trip to London went pretty much without a hitch - the only slight downer at the end was a girl realising she'd lost her mp3 player minutes before arriving in Dunkirk. The strange thing is, she's sure she lost it (ie someone stole it) when she left her bag on the coach in the tunnel, but I was on the coach the whole time with the driver and we were stopping every single kid who got on for a chewing gum check so I was looking right over by where her bag was anyway. With a bit of luck, she'll have found it in her luggage over the weekend.
Anyway, apart from that, a great time was had by all. The programme was pretty hectic. We left at 6.30am on Wednesday morning, arrived in London around 10.30, picked up our guide for a coach tour around London to see the sights. (I'd never seen the London Eye, the "gherkin" or the "crash helmet" - Ken Livingstone's town hall - so I was learning things too ! ) We finished off on foot to see Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards and have picnic lunch in St James's Park. Then it was back to the coach and off to the Museum of London. At 6.30 we headed off to meet the host families. Ten minutes of chaos ensued because the UK coordinator's list didn't match ours (someone forgot to send on a fax to say one of the families was on holiday) and some of the families had been switched around - not too much of a problem in itself, but the families on the French side all had the phone numbers for the original familes ... and some of the parents got VERY stressed when they rang and couldn't speak to their kids ! Managed to iron it all out and had a roast chicken dinner with our host family then off to bed.
Next day, gorgeous sunshine again. In the morning, the Tower of London. In the afternoon, shopping at covent garden - I legged it down to Boots to use up my pigsback vouchers !!! Back to the families for spaghetti bolognese and no stressed parents on the phone this time !
Final day, Friday we headed back to Parliament Square for a quick photo shoot and got a boat down to Greenwich - even got a little bit sunburnt !!! At Greenwich, picnic lunch (my first job on the coach every morning was sandwich filling identification !!!) then the maritime museum and up the hill to the Observatory. Back on the coach, off to the tunnel and had a manic 20-minute shopping session at Sainsbury's at Ashford. Which means ten minutes shopping and ten minutes queueing but I still managed to get two big bags of bacon, sausages, swede, parsnips, meatballs, cheese sauce, cranberry sauce, apple sauce, mr men cake mix, dora cake mix, party rings, smiley face biscuits, magazines, gravy granules, ... !!! On to the tunnel and back home at 9.45pm as planned. Where Juliette slept soundly through to the next morning but Sophie woke up and got all excited because Mummy was home !!! Just as well it was the weekend straight afterwards !!!
