Weekend in London

Clare and I have just got back from a lovely weekend in London celebrating Clare's birthday. It was a star-studded holiday because after seeing Oliver, we waited at the stage door and met up with Jodie Prenger, winner of the TV talent competition "I'd do anything"!


Then we just happened to bump into Mr Bean himself... Rowan Atkinson!



On the Saturday, we decided to go to the Victoria and Albert museum, pictured below.


This was the view when you looked up from eating your sandwiches in the cafeteria. There was even a concert pianist playing in the background which, considering the price of the food, was the least they could do!


Of course, we checked out the performing arts exhibition and couldn't resist trying on a few costumes...


I personally can't see the difference with this one though!


We also checked out the National History museum, saw some dinosaurs and had a minor altercation with a pushy Italian couple! Don't worry though...no-one was hurt, although they did leave the exhibition (and I suspect the museum) rather quickly!


Determined to prove that we were still rebels at the age of 30, we drank in the middle of Leicester Square.... shame it was only Pink Lemonade!


And finally, Clare decided it was all too much for her and had a quick snooze before going home!

Well, that's some of our holiday snaps! Hope you enjoyed them!

Rescue at Warwick Castle

Well, I'm long overdue a blog entry so here's a little tale from our recent holiday. We went to Warwickshire for a week staying at a beautiful Mill Cottage in Braunston. We spent the time unwinding after Clare's stressful school inspection and using our National Trust Membership to visit lots of lovely old houses in the area. 

We spent one of the days out visiting Warwick Castle, which is one of Britain's most complete castles. It was built in 1068 by William the Conquerer and has loads to do there including knights fighting and a scary dungeon.

Whilst we were there, we noticed a fire engine and ambulance had arrived in the Courtyard. We later found out that a man had suffered a heart attack climbing the very steep spiral staircase in one of the turrets (Don't panic though....I understand he's ok now!). The Firefighters couldn't quite work out how to get him down safely from the turret so eventually an RAF rescue helicoptor airlifted him off the top of the turret. 

Despite a huge amount of wind and dust blown down by the helicoptor's rotor blades, I managed to capture the rescue on video. It's two minutes long but about halfway through you can see someone being winched up. Towards the end, I pan around so you can get a good view of the castle as well. 

What excitment and they didn't charge us any extra!