Walking in London, breaking out, getting drunk with Dan and blowing up the Houses of parliament!!

OK, its December and the last update was in October - so this has been the longest time I have left it without updating the blog. Because its bee so long, I'm going to update everything over this and the next post which I will put on in a few days.... Firstly, what happened at the end of October and the start of November........

The first bit of fun we had was when me and Buff took an early bus down to that there London one Saturday morning. We arrived after an easy journey and headed towards our hotel by tube......but the tube had a line closed and we would have had to make a big detour, so we began to walk..... It was fun as we wandered around and along the Thames towards St Paul's and The Tower of London. It was a long walk but we arrived at The tower of London to see the huge Poppy display that has been built over the summer in time for Remembrance Sunday. Its an awe inspiring sight that is now being dismantled, but well worth the visit to London to see it. We joined the throngs of people pushing and queuing to get a glimpse of the display. All 888,000 odd poppies surround the Tower of London and its hard to describe. Photos of it show the size of the display, but unless you managed to get down to see it yourself its really difficult to take in how many poppies there really are!

Here's a few photos...

After the tour of the tower we wandered through The City of London, past the Gherkin and the cheesegrater, to our hotel just to the north. The in the evening more walking back into the City to meet up with a couple of friends and have some dinner in a 'The olde Cheshire Cheese pub', on Fleet street, where we enjoyed a few beers and a good big pie!

Gherkin

Hunchback or fashion?

I have no idea where this photo was taken

On the Sunday we walked again  - Firstly, to Shad Thames and Ropewalk market, where we enjoyed a lovely breakfast and a look around the weird stalls and shops that sell everything from sausage rolls, pies, go karts and door handles! A really good fun wander. We headed back to The Thames and to Shakespeare's Globe theatre, where to took a tour around the fantastic outdoor theatre and surroundings. Something that Buffy really wanted to do whilst we were in London. We then continued along the Thames and past the MI5 Secret Intelligence service building - We didn't spot any spies though!

Old stuff

Go kart

Theatre

A wax house?

A wax house!!

We finally arrived for our bus back to Manchester after walking about 20 miles around London in about 30 hours  - a long, hard but really enjoyable weekend!

Secret squirrels live here

Probably the toilet window!

A few days after London, we had a new arrival....no not a baby - But Joel, all the way from Canada came to visit. It was a very busy and very good week so I will just fill you in on the highlights...

Thursday - Joel arrives, we attend the pub quiz, get drunk and win a prize!

Quiz...

Drinks and with Dan too!

Friday - Took Joel to Belle Vue Greyhounds, Buffy won two races, I won one and came second in 6. Joel didn't bet much - Got a little drunk and had a burger.

Saturday - Joel and Buffy busked in Urmston. Pub crawl in Manchester with Dan. Visited a lot of pubs, got very drunk, had a very good time, cant remember much!

Sunday - Manchester Derby on TV. Took Joel to The Smelly Melly pub. Didn't get that drunk, United lost. Watched a bonfire and fireworks that went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r- at the local golf club!

Monday - Quiet day.

Tuesday - Buffy and Joel take Taz to the beach. At night we went to The Fox open Mic night where Buffy ad Joel sang and got a little drunk!

Wednesday - Went to 'Breakout Manchester', a brilliant concept where we were locked in a room for an hour and had to solve puzzles and find keys to escape. We escaped with 21 seconds remaining. (Joel has an idea to open a similar business in Winnipeg!) Joel also had a great idea to recreate the celebration of Bonfire night. So he and Buffy spent a while building a model of the houses of parliament and big bin, before we unwrapped some cheap fireworks and blew them up. Chris joined us in the garden and lit the fireworks.....Now to say this was dangerous would be an understatement as we all took cover as the fireworks went off in every direction. Its a god job we had towels on the washing line to catch some of them!! How no one lost an eye I will never know. However, the video is great and this is now going to become a yearly tradition. Oh yeah, we were a little drunk too...

If you build it...

You can blow it up...

                                                      The 2014 gunpowder plot part 1!!

                                                           The gunpowder plot part 2
Thursday - Joel's last night and another great night at the Urmston Pub quiz - I don't know how we did, we got drunk!!

Friday - We dropped Joel at the airport on a typical wet and cold Manchester morning. I bumped the car into a minibus at the airport - the broken fog light was the only damage. It cost £12 to repair a few weeks later. Said a sad goodbye to Joel and returned home after a great week!!

Not much damage.

So that was that and took us up to the 7th of November. For the next week I was on call with work and then Buffy deserted me to go and visit Winnipeg for her parents combined birthday celebration. That all takes us up to 22nd November and I shall continue from here soon.......watch out...