Thursday and Friday 7/8 August 2008

For 6 weeks every summer Buckingham Palace opens its doors to visitors. For various reasons, we haven’t yet experienced the Summer Opening while living in London. So – I was delighted when Ray informed me that the opening was going on while Kristin and Paula are here. I booked us advance tickets and we queued with every other tourist in London to see the Queen’s State Rooms and the special exhibitions. It was quite impressive and the banquet hall was set for a State Dinner for up to 200 guests.

No photos were allowed inside, but we managed to capture a few of the outside garden and crowned our Queens for the day in the Buckingham Palace shop.

We also went to see Avenue Q in the West End on Thursday evening. It was quite entertaining – once you get past the idea of puppets and very adult humour.

On Friday we visited the V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum. This is one that I’ve wanted to see as it contains the fashions, jewellery, silver and accessories of Britain throughout the ages. There were also a fair number of sculptures and some pretty interesting tapestries. We met Ray at The Albert for a nice Steak and Ale pie and made it back to the flat before the rain caught us.