A night in London before the big trip

After months and months or planning and anticipation the big Christmas trip was finally upon us - I packed my bags and headed for London via Jeddah to meet Joan, the girls and Granny Linda. The flight from Jeddah was handy enough into Gatwick but it was packed to the rafters so not the most comfortable flight of all time but it didn't matter one bit.

The cold London air was a shock to the system initially but after a few hours the crew arrived from Belfast and the fun really began. We got settled into the hotel and then headed down to the Gatwick train station and boarded the train heading for Regent Street and Hamley's, the word famous toy shop.

Joan and I had been looking forward to this part of the trip for ages, Regent Street is beautiful at Christmas and we couldn't wait to show the girls how a massive city like London really comes alive at this time of year. We took the girls on the tube for the first time and when we got up onto Oxford Street and took the left turn down Regent Street our jaws hit the floor. Regent Street at Christmas was everything we hoped it would be, the decorations and lights were amazing and the girls couldn't believe their eyes.

We detoured slightly and took the girls down Carnaby Street, which they didn't seem to enjoy as much as Joan and I did before looping back to Hamley's, the main event of the night. The girls reactions to seeing Hamleys was everything we had hoped they would be over the previous months of planning and we spent the next couple of hours exploring each of the levels, playing with all the toys the girls could manage, and racking their brains trying to pick the one toy we said we would buy then as an early Xmas present. Frankie eventually settled on a Gabbys Dollhouse toy phone and Scarlett picked a Labubu, her latest toy obsession. We eventually made our way back to Victoria Station and the hotel at the airport and we all crashed after a magical evening in the big city.

Early start tomorrow for the main event of this trip - the journey to Lapland to find Santa !!!!!Read more