westminster |

I posted part 1 of my birthday day out in London yesterday, and as promised, here is part 2.

On our way to Buckingham Palace, we found ourselves at St.James Park. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and it was absolutely gorgeous walking through the park at this time of the day. There were beautiful yellow daffodils, blossom on the trees, flowers growing, green grass- beautiful! The lake looked lovely with the water fountain and ‘duck island’ in the middle.

Anyone who knows me know’s I’m an animal lover – so seeing all the cute ducks, swans and pelicans was sweet, the pigeons not so much- I hate it when things fly near me! This duck was so funny, doesn’t it just look like he’s posing for the camera?! He turned around, looked at me, tilted his head then started walking towards me – I think he was hoping for food, but we had none… sorry Mr Duck.

Berkay was trying to get the pigeons to sit on his arm, ewwwww. A nearby man who was obviously a regular at the park spotted him and gave him a handful of bird seed from a huge sack he had, he told him to hold his hand down low and feed the birds… and he did! Look how happy he looks, he’s an animal lover too.

We spotted some squirrels who were surprisingly not shy at all – they were obviously used to being photographed as I held my camera literally an inch away from his face and he just sat there eating his nut…cute!

When we came to the end of the park, we could see Buckingham Palace, or ‘The Queen’s house’ as Berkay calls it. We made our way over and dont the typical touristy things, took a photo of the guard, took a photo of each other standing outside the gates.. thought about popping in to visit my old mukka Queenie for some tea and scones…

There’s something about London that makes you feel patriotic. I’m not the least bit patrotic normally, I’m normally moaning about the country, but standing outside Buckingham Palace and looking out accross The Mall, seeing all the Union Jack flags – it really made me feel..well… British.

We walked to St James Park station, again relying on my phone’s GPS to guide us, what a lifesaver that was – and got off at Leicester Square. It was really busy with street performers, people laying on the benches and grass, there was even a dog playing in the water fountain – sweet! One of the street performers was a magician, he had a little mouse with him… we missed most of the act, but at the end he put his little pet mouse on the floor and let everyone go and stroke it. ‘Please be careful with her’ he said … it melted my heart! Nothing cuter than a man and his pet mouse hehe!

The main reason we were at Leicester Square was for M&M’s world! I’ve been to the one in New York before while I was there on a school trip, but I’d never been to the London one. The smell when you walk in … oh.my.god. Chocolate heaven! After a while it all looks the same, and you get sick of seeing all the overpriced merchandise – but some of it is cute. I think I purchased the cheaperst thing in the shop – a £3.50 fluffy m&m purse. There are giant M&M statues all around the store – all 4 levels of it – making for some perfect photo opportunities..

The best part about the whole place are the walls with tubes stacked full of M&M’s in every single colour possible, chocolate ones, peanut ones, crispy ones… ahhh, I’ve just realised I still have some left over from the bag we made up – as soon as I finish this post I’m going to tuck into them!

After a good 45 minutes in chocolate heaven, we walked all the way to Oxford Street – and to the massive Primark. We didn’t get much, a few bits for our friends baby twins, and a pretty awesome pug duvet cover for me. What’s the point of having birthday money if you can’t spend it eh?

We met up with my dad, stepmum, brother and sister for dinner. We all went to a little Indian restaurant near Aldgate, in London. It was really yummy.. Berkay went for a hot dish and think he regretted it later!

How cute is my baby sister? ❤ She adores Berkay.. and me. She follows me around like a little sheep when I come home from work. Bless. She gave me lots of birthday cuddles, and helped me show off one of my birthday presents- a sweet picture for my wall made by my step mum. A photo of me, Berkay and Boncuk and the word ‘Happiness’ – that says it all.

This post is over a week late – there were so many photos to go through! I’ve had to split it into two parts as there were just so many good ones – so here is part 1 of our little adventure in London!

It was my birthday on Friday 11th April, I had booked the day off work so I could spend it with Berkay, and we decided to go to London.

After opening some presents from family at home, we headed off and got the train to the O2 at North Greenwich – where we got on a boat. It was a thamesclipper boat (information can be found by clicking here if you’re visiting London soon and interested) which only cost us £4.50 as we had a TFL travelcard for the day too, which makes the price cheaper. I’ve been on one before a few years ago but forgot what they were like inside – quite fancy! The chairs are leather and so comfortable, although unless you sit on the 6 seater ones facing each other, they are a little squished – like being on an aeroplane. Berkay was impressed – it was definitely different to the typical ‘boat tour’ ones he’s used to seeing in Turkey – and so much faster.

We sat inside for the first 15mins, then stood outside on the deck for the last 25mins to get a better view of everything, which provided plenty of photo opportunities. It would have been better if it were sunny, but the clouds went away later in the afternoon.
We had a good view of all the sites -Canary Wharf, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Shard, the Globe, London Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral, the London eye, Big Ben..

The trip down the river Thames lasted around 40 minutes, from the O2 to Embankment, where we got off.
We walked over the bridge at Embankment – stopping to pose for more photos – before finding somewhere to eat. The only place we could find along South Bank without a huge queue was ‘EAT’ – what a simple name for a restaurant, and how could we refuse 😉 We ate al fresco on a bench overlooking embankment and Big Ben – it was just starting to warm up so it was lovely!

After lunch we walked along South Bank past the street perfomers, some of which were really impressive – others just plain weird.
We stopped near the Southbank centre at the ‘Udderbelly’ festival – nothing was going on but it was free to walk around so we had a little look around – they had areas of grass and trees with little gazebos and benches, the trees all had fairy lights on and it was so cute – would be great to sit there with a drink in the evening, but I’m sure it gets really busy when the comedy, music and circus acts are on during the festival. The main part was an upside down cow – hence udderbelly- which I assume had a stage inside, but it was closed so I’m not sure. There were little stalls around the outside selling wraps, hot dogs, burgers and beer, but they looked expensive so we avoided them. The festival is on from April 10th – July apparently, but I’m not really sure what it’s all about, the upside down cow was enough to impress me!

Walking past the London eye I noticed the surrounding area of trees had carrots in. Weird – a special Easter thing I’m assuming! I thought I was seeing things for a while.

Next we headed across Westminster Bridge, posing for yet more photos, and carried on walking. We were hoping to arrive at St James’ Park – in order to find our way to Buckingham Palace. I used my phone GPS, which was a life saver that day, and we eventually arrived at our destination.. but those photos shall be in part 2! On route to St James’ Park, we stopped at this typical, London red telephone box. Berkay had no idea why I was asking him to pose for a photo with it, but he played along, pretending to make a phonecall and stepping inside – big mistake because it seems someone had been using it as a urinal. Lovely. Needless to say I avoided that one and posed for a photo in the next one we came across.

Part 2 will be coming up tomorrow 🙂