The last few outings with my parents

My parents left London today to return to Australia. Lucky them!

Since they arrived back in London on Saturday for the last leg of their trip, we have been to lots of places.

They came into town in the afternoon and as they still had the hire car, they picked me up from my place at Chalk Farm and took me to the Hampstead apartment they rented for the week, where I would stay with them for the next few days. This apartment was also shared by Genevieve and Damien and Damien's parents, and later in the week by Damien's sister and her partner.

On Sunday, we went to Cambridge. Here we had a very nice lunch at The Mitre pub and went for a punt tour on the Cam. I had a quick turn at punting, but I found it was somewhat counter intuitive, at least for someone used to canoes.

On Monday, I took a day off work and we went for another drive. This time, we started with Brighton. We visited the Royal Pavillion, which was built by George IV before he became king. It was his pleasure palace by the sea. We also walked along the Brighton Pier. I think it's an English thing to put carnival rides and gambling machines on piers.

Next we were heading towards Dover. On the way we stopped to have a look at the Long Man of Wilmington and to have lunch at a pub. Unfortunately, this meant we didn't get to Dover Castle until about 4:40pm and we decided that 10 pounds each was a bit much to spend to go in for the 20 minutes before closing time. Instead, we drove up a bit further and walked along the white cliffs.

On Tuesday, I had to go to work. This was also the day my parents returned their hire car, as they would spend the rest of their time in London. I also had to go to work on Wednesday.

Thursday was wonderful and a good choice for a day to take off work. It was a beautiful, sunny day, unlike Wednesday when it was overcast and rainy. Mum and Dad and I started the day with a quick visit to Hampstead Heath, to see some greenery and the view over London. We then headed into the West End. We got off the tube at Leicester Square and then walked to Picadilly Circus. We jumped on the tube again so we could meet the others at the London Eye at noon. When we got there, Damien's parents were already in the queue, but we joined as well. There were an odd number of people in our group, which was shame because of the offer that allows 2-for-1 tickets on the presentation of an Oyster card (the way to pay for public transport in London). However, my ever-enterprising Mum asked the guy behind us in the queue if he was alone and if he wanted to get his ticket for half price. He was and he did and additionally he was from Australia (lives in Melbourne but originally from Brisbane). To save time, we passed our money and Oysters to Damo's folks, and before too long, we all had tickets. We then queued again to go for our ride. It was good fun and the view is really good (seeing we had a clear day).

Next, lunch. Thai food. Not bad but not quite Go Hun. Mum and Dad and I then rushed off because we wanted to make it to the Temple Church before it closed, which we believed was at 3pm. We got there at three minutes to three, only to find it closed. The times posted said it was to close at 4pm, but an additional sign indicated a change of plans and it had closed at 12:30. We got lucky however and a tradie outside having a smoke let us look through the door so we could see the effigies of the knights on the floor.

No longer in such a hurry, we had a leisurely walk around the Inns of Court. We checked out the Royal Courts of Justice and the Old Bailey. We walked past St Pauls, and then headed off for Greenwich. I wanted to go and see the Thames flood barrier, but we decided it was too far out of the way. We had also all been to the observatory, so we just went for a walk under the Thames, through the pedestrian tunnel that was built in 1902.

We then headed back to see those West End sites we had missed on our way to the Eye: Cleopatra's needle and Trafalgar Square. Thoroughly worn out by all the walking, we happily headed back to Hamstead. We were going to go out for dinner, but Mum and I didn't real feel like it, given our late lunch. So we stayed in and I backed up all Dad's photos from the trip to CDs (about 3.6GB worth). I don't need to hear that I should have used a DVD because I have tried to burn a DVD from Gen's laptop before and it didn't work.

I didn't want to leave to go back to my place, but I had to. Mum and Dad had leave for the airport at 5:45 this morning and I had to go to work. And I couldn't leave too late because I was relying on public transport. I think I left around 11pm. Mum and Dad walked me to the bus stop, and unfortunately it was one of the few occasions that the bus turned up right away. We had to say our goodbyes quickly, and I was very sad to go. At least I'll be home again soon!