London Weekend

My mum came to visit this weekend so (even though she is originally from London) we thought we’d spend the day exploring some of the fun and cultural stuff that so often we don’t make the effort to see even though it’s right on the doorstep!

First stop was the British Museum.  We were planning to go to the Afghanistan treasures exhibition but as we only decided to go the day before we hadn’t booked and there were no tickets left – Tip #1: book tickets to special exhibitions!  So instead we had our own little treasure hunt!  The director of the museum, Neil MacGregor, has written a book (following his BBC Radio 4 series) called ‘The History of the World in 100 Objects’ (which mum got for Christmas) so we set off in search for some of the items we wanted to see.  Handily the museum guide had a key to tell you which rooms the 100 objects were in.  There were a few items that we no longer there (the Hawaiian Feathered Helmet that I wanted to see and a piece of calligraphy that mum wanted to see) but it was a more interesting way of seeing a little bit of lots of different exhibits as it can be a bit culture overload otherwise!

British Museum

British Museum

After all of the history intake we moved on for some food and drink intake and headed to the Soho Hotel for afternoon tea (very fancy).  In our best ‘ladies that lunch’ guise we had a great table at the end of the Refuel bar which was an ideal vantage point for people watching!  I love trying to work out how people know each other and what they are meeting for – I like to think it’s some sort of sociology urge rather than just being nosey!   In between the people watching we enjoyed fingers sandwiches, scones and an array of cakes….Mmmm.  

Tip #2: Although everything is mini it is more filling than you think it’s going to be so ask for a ‘doggy bag’ and they’ll box it up for you to take home.

Celeb (ish) spot of the day:  the winner of the apprentice!

Afternoon Tea!

Full of scones and chocolate éclairs we made our way to Shaftsbury Avenue to see Thriller Live Great show – Michael Jackson did have some classics!  The young boy who played the early Michael was brilliant and clearly the rest of the audience thought so too.  It was a bit slow in the middle but towards the end they started belting out all the classics – Billie Jean, Bad, Man in the Mirror etc and just as we were starting to think they weren’t even going to do Thriller – they boshed it out at the end!  There was a lot of whopping, clapping and dancing along from the stalls but as we were in the balcony my slight fear of heights kicked in and I didn’t think it would be wise to stand up and started jumping around (the image of us all tumbling over the edge must have been crossing the minds of the rest of the balcony too!).   Would definitely recommend this show!

Tip #3: If like the woman behind us, you are going to complain loudly throughout the performance that you can’t see because everyone is leaning forward then I would recommend you splash out for a ticket in the stalls rather than the cheap seats in the balcony or just deal with the fact you haven’t paid that much for your ticket and therefore you might not get the best of views!

Thriller