I did have to take Laura to the emergency dentist on saturday morning but by this stage all the pus had come out as she had hit it the previous night with her tooothbrush and burst it so all was left was a huge ulcer. Poor girl.
We then went onto the shop to buy the bridesmaid shoes. These are almost as expensive as her bridesmaid dress!! We then went (shhh - crab fishing) now to be known as 'nipper dipping' as each time we say the CF word it rains!! We took AJ's and Laura's best friends with us. We did quite well with getting small crabs, fish and shrimps so that was a success. I then had to leave early with Woody so that he could take part in a world record attempt to make the biggest neckie in the world at the main shopping centre. This was part of the 100 years of scouting celebration. They had a huge neckie and the foam things that children use to learn to swim with and rolled up this huge triangle of material into a neckie - complete with toggle. It appeared in the local newspapaer and they are applying for it to go in the Guiness Book of Records. It was quite a crowd puller but it was hilarious when the leader called out 'Oggy! Oggy! Oggy' and then there was complete silence from the 12 cubs that were there!! I think they were put off by the crowd watching!!!
My fingers are still numb but the nerve pain in my arm has gone but still struggle to do my bra up. I can't put any necklace on or earrings - I can't cope without my matching accessories!! A hangover from the 80s!! I can't peel veg so the children are doing that but even butttering toast is impossible!!! I have now driven but don't feel very confident in parking or doing hill starts as struggle with handbrake!!
Went out or lunch with my managers on tuesday and they had to cut up my bruschetta which is just plain embarassing!!!
Wednesday - I went up to london to meet mum so that we could go to Buckingham Palace to see teh Queen's wedding dress. We had a lovely walk through Green Park and just caught the end of the Chnaging of the Guard so that was good. We firstly went to the Carriage Mews which was vaguely interesting but I remembered feeling that way when I was 13 when we spent a week exploring london as our holiday. I suppose this time I could appreciate the work put into making the carriages and the Golden Coach is beautiful. It is the only one that looks a decent size - the others are tiny and must be such bone shakers, I wouldn't want to sit in one.!!
We then went into the Italian Art exhibition where we were given headsets so you could listen to commentaries about the paintings which was a good touch.
The last stop was the State Rooms at the Palace itself. Buckingham Palace is much more beautiful on the inside than the outside. again, they provided audiohead phones - as you can probably guess I had problems with mine and ended up trying out 3 sets of headphones until I could get it to work!! There is so much gold embellishing everywhere and it was truly lovely to go. Think they need to recover their thrones though - they were looking a bit thread bare at the edges!!
What they didn't tell you was that there were no toilets at the entrance and no toilets until the end and it could take over an hour to get through the State rooms. Not very helpful when on chemo!!
Most of the visitors were elderly and had trouble walking but there was no indication that there were a lot of stairs and no toilets so I felt quite sorry for some of these people. The Ball Room was much smaller than I thought and I could rememebr my uncle telling me he'd got told off for doing a waltz inthe Ball Room when he visited the Palace to meet one of the Princes about the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. He and another Youth Worker decided they couldn't just walk through the Ball Room -they should dance through it but got told off by a Security Guard!! Spoil Sports!!! I'm glad I saw that room because it just made me laugh to think my uncle did that and now I know where!!!!
The Queen's wedding dress was amazing with something like 10 000 handsewn sequins. It was very beautiful and it and the bridemaid dresses wouldn't look out of place today. She also wore very high heels!!! We learnt that she got a sewing machine as a wedding present and other very practical things because of course it was just after the war and there was still rationing. She was given a lot of cakes which were distributed around the country and her own wedding cake was 9 foot high!!
The room where they do the Investitures was also smaller than I thought but it gave us an opportunity to sit down to watch a video. Just before entering that room I found the Grand Entrance where an attendant had told me there was a secret loo. So I used the facilities - very posh soap and handwash etc so now I can boast that I have peed in the Palace!! The view over the garden on the first floor was lovely. we asked baout the heating as we could see a couple of small fireplaces and electric fires. the attendant said the Queen likes to have a window open all year round and it is advisable if you ever get invited to dinner there in the winter to put on your thermal underwear under your posh clothes!!
Eventually, we got outside and managed then to get some photos and a sit down and an ice cream.
A we left, we were left in a dilemma - do we go to Victoria or Hyde Park Corner. It seened more sensible to go to Hyde Park Corner then we were on the right line for Covent Garden but the attendants told us Victoria was closer and the sign siad 800metres so we headed off there. I don't know where we wnet wrong but it must have taken about 3o minutes to get to Victoria and I was exhausted so we had to sit for a coffee and cake to recover before we could go to Covent Garden.
In the lift at Covent Garden, I remembered that when I was 19, I stood next to a flasher who was wearing a green suit and carrying a burgundy briefcase!! I remember these girls laugjing and I thought they were laughing at me so I looked down and could then see why they were laughing!! It was difficult to know what to do cos I didn't see how I could do a 'citizen's arrest' so remember following for a short while in the hope I'd see a policeman!!! Of course, I didn't and just went back to shopping. This time there was no such incident!!
We just pootled around looking at the stalls and both mum and I bought necklaces. We decided not to eat there so wandered down to Charing Cross Road and found a Pizza Express. We had a very good waitress who noticed my bad arm and cut up my pizza for me in the kitchen which was good of her. however, why is it always so noisy in Pizza Express?? They seem to have wooden floors, high ceilings and the sound just echoes around!!
Anyway, we left there later than intended so didn't get home till about 930pm so long day but my feet stood up to it - no blisters and not too much ankle swelling either so pleased.
Thursday - I met up with 2 friends and after a long time in Starbucks, we did a little shopping before retiring for lunch!!! That evening, I went out with old work colleagues to a wonderful chinese. Unfortunately, I'd dropped my bag before I left the house so I didn't have my mobile phone and being a thursday meant hubby was out on his morris minor night so we had a babysitter. I'm sure you can guess what happened - poor Woody was sick 4 times and the poor babysitter couldn't get hold of us!!! I felt awful so next day so I bought her a bunch of flowers!!!