By The original plan for today was to take a train to Windsor and tour the castle. This would have been really neat because of course they are prepping for a little wedding in a few days aren’t they? But we woke up this morning, looked at each other and said “I’m too tired for a big outing” at pretty much the same time. New plan formed, breakfast and then a trip to visit Kew gardens, which I very much wanted to do.
We went to breakfast, finished up, looked at each other and said “I’d rather just do shopping and go hang out in a garden around here” at pretty much the same time. Plan C now in place and off we went.
Celebrity citing, Rachel is pretty sure we walked by Caitlyn Jenner on the street this morning. I was hoping for a Royal this trip, but life is funny that way.
Pretty proficient with transit at this point, we bused off to Oxford Street where Rachel insisted we visited Selfridges, another fancy and expensive department store known for its window displays and long history. Coincidentally also owned by the Canadian Weston family we discovered.
Selfridges has all manner of things that make me wish I had more money than good sense. There was a 6500 pound animatronic stuffed unicorn. I mean of course I need one. But seriously, where was the staff meeting when someone said “I know! Let’s make a giant moving stuffed unicorn for children and make it so expensive only Saudi oil princes can afford it” and while they are at the store, they can also buy the mini gemstone encrusted Mercedes SUV for double the price of the unicorn. For real.
And just when I thought it was all high class high end, I turned the corner to find a large display of WWE wrestling figures. I could have purchased my own belt, like the one Hulk Hogan used to have. Don’t believe me? Check out the Randy the Macho Man Savage doll.
In the bottom floor on the way out, we discovered the “Wonder Room”. Wonder what’s in it? Pretty much stuff that’s so expensive there are no prices. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Beautiful watches and jewelry.
After that I went to Marks and Spencer’s, my grandmother’s favourite store. I must be getting old because I kind of liked the place, my daughter ditched me for Primark. She said it was because it was too expensive but I think she just didn’t want to tell me I was shopping at an old lady store.
Once I pried her away from Primark, we hit Waterstone’s a few blocks south. That’s a five storey book store. Know what I discovered there? A Russian section. With Russian books. In Russian. And newspapers. Now I’m no expert in foreign espionage but if you are worried that there are Russian spies in your city, I have a feeling you might want to look here first.
Book store visit complete, I left with the microfilm (see what I did there? You Cold War babies get it) and off we went to Fortnum & Mason where they specialize in tea and foodstuff along with some kitchenware, china, and clothing. It’s mainly about the tea though. We strolled around, they have a table with every one of their teas displayed on a jar you can smell and read the history of. Like Queen Anne’s tea specially created for Queen Anne, there is Royal tea, Wedding Breakfast tea (created for Will and Kate), Jubilee tea, and a whole bunch of others.
We have late lunch/early supper at their cafe so we could have some of their tea and more delicious scones with clotted cream and jam. Delicious. Guess what? The Weston family from Canada owns this one too.
Shopping done, no time for the parks, we went back to the hotel to drop off our goodies and rest before our last night’s outing for our last evening in London. Tomorrow night we sleep at the airport and fly out Friday morning.
Our last outing? The Haunted Ghost Tour bus. We drove through London and saw the sights one last time while being entertained with some of London’s darker stories. Executions, prisons, murders, and whatnot. As it turns out, the bus may also have been haunted, but I’ll not spoil it for you. Go and see for yourself.
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