Saturday Adventure

Saturday was so nice! Mom and I both slept in - until about 9:30 AM. I cannot tell you the last time I did that - but I would quickly give it up for an early morning family snuggle with Richard, Amber and Alexa.

Anyway, we got up late and started moving late. I thought it would be a great idea to start a load of laundry before we left for the day, but wanted to hang it to dry before we left. Not the best idea. It took the front loading washer about 2 hours to wash the load of delicates. I am not sure I set everything right on the machine. At least we ate breakfast while it was washing. Then we hung everything up to dry on a clothes rack and set off to London for the day.

First we went to Piccadilly Circus and saw a few sights and visited a bookstore called Waterstones. It is very much like a Barnes & Noble. We picked up a few books on London and then were on our way to Knightsbridge - home of Harrod's Department Store. I think this may be the greatest and most beautiful and diverse store in the world! It has a very detailed map you get when you walk in just to navigate its varied floors, halls and restaurants.


















http://www.harrods.com/harrodsstore/

Since we were hungry, we walked quickly through the food halls, candy shop and Pet Kingdom on our way to the Terrace Bar to participate in High Tea. It was extremely delicious and laid back and fun. Too bad the view was closed off to maintain warmth in the terrace. Otherwise, we would also have had a beautiful view of Knightsbridge and the park. We had little sandwiches, fantastic scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam and some of the best pastries I have ever had. Of course, we also had tasty tea and bubbly champagne as well.

After a thoroughly enjoyable tea, we headed to Toy Kingdom - the fantasy of every child. This is where I heard the story of the anatomically correct boy doll that my niece received for Christmas. This was a little weird, because I often hear stories of my sister's young children after she posts them on her blog from my mother. In this case, I heard the story from my mom before she read the blog. O-k, back to topic - we had a fun time looking through the princess stuff, dolls and doll houses. I even picked up a surprise for Alexa from Toy Kingdom.

The picture below is just the beginning of Toy Kingdom:

Next we made our way to the Discount Christmas section. (I think I may have missed telling you that Harrod's was having their once a year sale and it was the last day - it was kind of a mad house there.) I was able to snag some very cute Harrod's Bear ornaments and I have one for each family for next Christmas - sorry to ruin the surprise. I also picked up a few gifts for my mother-in-law. My favorite thing in this part of the store though was a very sequined stocking that had a Naughty on one side and Nice on the other. It was the most jeweled and ornate stocking I have ever seen - but I could not bring myself to pay 20 quid for it.

Then we decided to check out the sale in Women's Wear. It was a crowded mass of women. We saw some beautiful coats and cloaks and decided to take a look. Of course, they were brands like Pink and Armani. The sale price was still beyond us at 500 up to 1600 pounds. We decided we were out of our league.

Next we headed to the lower ground level and entered the Harrod's Souvenir area. This was far more than a crowded madhouse. For example, Harrod's has these large stuffed bears with a sweater that says Harrod's that they sell at Christmastime. These bears were all over the department store for sale extremely cheap. I think they were somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds. Anyway, in this area, sales clerks would bring the bears out in large plastic bags and themassive crowd of customers would mob them and take the bears right out of the bag before they could get to the intended table. I was honestly concerned for the sales clerk's safety. It was an amazing souvenir shop none the less, and I was able to find a few more things for Richard and Amber while we were there.
Here is the bear everyone wanted so badly:

Our last stop was the bakery on the west side of Harrod's. I picked up some tea on the way for my English friend, Sharon (I will tell you all she has done for me here in another blog). Then we wormed our way into the bakery to pick up a few European rolls Mom wanted. She said they were like what she used to eat in Germany as a child. With that done, we headed out into the normal world again.

Mom then experienced the loveliness of the crowded tube (see earlier blog for squashy details). I took a quick picture of her in Knightsbridge station and I will add it in a few days. Then we caught a fast train to Surbiton and a bus home and we quickly collapsed on the sofa - thoroughly exhausted and satisfied from our day at Harrod's.

By the way, the clothes we had hung to dry before we left were still mostly wet...