The London Eye

Our last tourist event together :( - The London Eye. I got home from school, we had dinner and then we caught the bus to take us to The Eye. We were very lucky and didn't have to deal with long ques, and before long we could see all the sights of London from high in the sky.

We obviously don't know our London sights well enough though cos we couldn't really spot much. We did however manage to pick out 'The Gherkin', 'Big Ben & The Houses of Parliament' and the trains going into Waterloo station.

It was still a nice 'flight'. It is really wierd though cos they didn't really stop the eye when we got on so it was just like they try and get as many people on as time allows before the cart type thing starts on its way up again.

All good. Miss mom though.

Mary Poppins

"Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down ..." - Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre. One of the things that mom and I wanted to do before she landed up in hospital was go to the theatre so when mom was discharged we asked the doc what his opinion of the idea was and he said theatre should be fine as long as we are not rushing. To avoid rushing we landed up arriving 1 and a half hours early with packed toasted samies for dinner.

Our early arrival created the problem of finding a place to sit. So we went to Le Porchetta Pollo Bar and had drinks and ate our packed supper. We were a little concerned that they would not be too impressed with us eating our own packed dinner so we tried to be sneaky about it and every time a waiter came round we hid our samies under the table.


We managed to kill quite alot of time eating our samies and drinking cokes before making our way into the theatre where we acted all touristy and asked the poor sods who were taking tickets and selling programmes if we could take pics of them. Crazy tourists.

I got a little nervous while we were waiting for doors to open as an entire army of kids came in and the idea of sitting in a theatre full of kids kinda made me cringe. Wait ... lets rephrase - a theatre full of british kids. Luckily the theatre was not too full and mom and I even moved down the row during interval and sat with our legs over the seats in front of us for the entire 2nd half.

It was a great show and it left me going home wishing that I could be a Mary Poppins and manage the kids like she does.

University Hospital Lewisham

A week of touring a hospital. I suppose you have not really experienced London untill you have experienced the services of NHS (National Health Services). Still much better than Joburg Gen but I lets admit its not difficult to be better than that.

Mom and I were getting ready to check out London and see what there was to see but after our morning at Madame Tussauds she had thought she had seen enough. So instead we had an evening of driving in an ambulance and sitting in A & E. By 2 o'clock the next day we were still sitting in A & E waiting for a bed in a ward to become available.

Mom got checked out mon eve with antibiotics only to be checked back in on tues and this time she stayed for over a week.

For those who don't know she was diagnosed with a lung infection and pneumonia which caused type 1 respiratory failure. Well riddle me this, if it was the lung infection and respiratory failure that caused the respiratory failure then why did she still struggle to breathe after it was all cleared up?


Anyways it was an experience none the less even though it is one that I wish my mom did not have to go through.
The section of the hospital that mom ended up in is called Riverside and as you can see from the plaque it was opened by Rev Desmond Tutu himself and on my birthday this year. It has 6 floors of wards can you imagine how difficult it would have been to get a bed if this had not been opened?

Mom got some beautiful carnations from Craig and Benni but unfortunately the hospital does not allow flowers so that stayed at my place - they did last long enough for mom's return though.

Madame Tussauds

Our morning at Madame Tussauds was great, I could definitely go back. We had lots of fun “meeting” all the famous people but I think they had more fun “meeting” us. I have included most of our pics but the things I couldn’t include was our chamber live experience and our taxi ride.

Chamber live was basically like a horror tunnel but with live actors playing the roles of famous serial killers. Unlucky for mom she had to lead the group, half way through she stopped and we tried to let the people behind us go first but they refused so then I took the lead. REALLY scary stuff but great experience.

Our little taxi ride was basically a ride through London’s history leading up to the present. It included all the music and wax sculptures of people and places of those times.

^ Simon Cowell recieving my opinion on him.

^ Ant and Dek agree with my opinion of Simon.

^ This pirate didn't like me flirting with Captain Jack Sparrow below.

^ Mom and I found the treasure map - YAY!

^John Wayne trying to pick mom up - she didn't seem to mind though.

^ My "Incredible Hulk" nightmares have come true.

^ Charlie Chaplin didn't talk much so I just tried to mirror him instead.

^ Mom befriending Shane Warne and Brian Lara, maybe they will introduce us to Shaun.

^ Me keeping up with Lance Armstrong, lucky for him I had a busy day so I landed up pulling out of the race.

^Johnny Wilkinson preparing for the kick - will it go over?

^ Mom with her "twin" the Queen mum. Personally I think mom must have aged quite well. Hee Hee Hee.

^ My new boyfriend, he doesn't have an Irish accent but he will do.

^ Mom with the Queen - notice how her husband stands in the background.

^ "Love love me do ... " Chilling with The Beatles.

^ De Klerk and Madiba, and mom finding out their opinion on world peace.

^ Mom is very passionate about her view points.

^ I am getting pointers from Mr Mandela so that I can be the best World leader in history (below). The background is my flag and our anthem will be "We are the Champions".

Trooping the Colour

Mom was very excited that we got tickets to see Trooping the Colour, well at least they were tickets to the official dress rehearsal, The Colonel’s review. Our tickets said that we must dress smart so we wore dresses instead of slacks and I even put on makeup. This didn’t help much because when we got there people were walking around in big summer hats and REALLY smart clothes. Luckily there were also the group of people who arrived in slacks, jeans, trainers etc. So we decided we were smart enough.

We found our seats and were addressed by a dude with a black fluffy hat, also had a bit of white and green fluffy stuff sticking out the side which we later found out meant that he was from the Welsh brigade. He showed us to our seats, which were 3 rows from the front.

While we were taking pics of our usher dude everyone started going “Ahhh…” and started standing up and pointing. So being the curious people we are, mom and I also had a look. We saw out in the distance a LITTLE boy all dressed up in the guard suit with a big fluffy hat. We had to include a pic even though the quality is not the best because of the distance.

One of the funny things during the entire parade was there are certain times that you are supposed to stand, out of respect or something. The problem is that we didn’t know when this was and in fact it seemed the majority of people didn’t really know when to stand. So there we all were standing and sitting like jack in the boxes not really knowing what we were doing. My favourite was standing for the Queen’s carriage, note I say the Queen’s carriage and not the Queen, it was only the dress rehearsal so the carriage was empty.

After the parade we took a stroll to the long line of flags that were flying down the street where we had spotted the SA flag – obviously we wanted a pic. It must have been our lucky day because underneath the flag was a gaggle of bobbies, and one of them was even kind enough to salute our flag. There were two other bobbies close by who were laughing at the others so mom said we had to get a pic of them too – quite cute I thought.

The rest of our pics were from our walk back to the station.

^ Mom making a "phone call"

^ Mom with "Women of WW 2 monument behind her

^ Me with some soldier dude

^ WW2 monument but notice the EXTRA long bus in the background.

Dublin City Bus Tour

Our last day in Ireland and we decided to make the most of it by doing as much sightseeing in Dublin as we could. Our first stop was the Guinness Storehouse. We were told that it is a must see but honestly the coolest thing about it was the gravity bar at the top with the panoramic view of Dublin. This is where I drank my secong ever pint of Guinness. I thought I had mastered "the art" but by the concentration on my face I obviously hadn't. :)




"Everyone's Irish on March 17th" ... then there are some like me who believe they are Irish every day of the year. But from now on I will be drinking a pint of Guinness to celebrate the momentous occasion of St Patricks Day.




The river that runs through Dublin is called the river Liffy, apparently nicknamed "sniffy liffy" because in Summer it can smell quite horrible. It is also said that the reason why Guinness is so dark is because they use the water from the Sniffy Liffy but this is not true they use only the purest of mountain water. I included a picture of the river Liffy with the Half Penny Bridge the crosses over it. The half penny bridge is a little pedestrian bridge and back in the day you used to have to pay half a penny to cross the bridge, hence the name, but it is now free.

Since St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and he got rid of all the snakes we just had to visit St Patricks Cathedral. It is very beautiful but I always think it is so wierd that the minute we walked in we began whispering. There is also a plaque that commemorates the soldiers who died in the South African war. I begin to wonder if the English ever fought a war for themselves or if they always got other countrires to do it for them. Kidding.







Next was Kleinmanham Gaol, we didn't have much of our day left and we didn't want to be too rushed getting to the airport so we did not pay to go in. They did let us into the museum though. So we had a look around before hopping back onto the bus.








Best place to buy gifts and memorabilia is Carrolls and boy oh boy did mom and I go to town. We did not buy the hats featured in the pic though - that was just for a happy photo shot. But if I do say myself I think we make quite a cute pair of Leprechauns. ;)