Friday 29th April
WOW what an event! The chance to experience a royal wedding in London and for the future king of the commonwealth…how could you pass up the biggest party of 2011?
We couldn’t was the answer. With the royal wedding being a bank (public) holiday in the UK and with Easter just before you only had to take 3 days off work to have a nice 11 day break. Did we want to take this option..hell no! we wanted to stay and party with the other good English folk. I am sure you all saw it on the TV or at least saw some of it on news/newspaper. We were there in Hyde Park with the other 200,000 wedding guests
Here’s how the day went down for us. We woke nice an early around 4:45am, our plan to be at Marble Arch station and walk to Hyde park from there. We had heard they would open the gates to the park at 7am (this did sound strange as I didn’t think Hyde Park had gates) and we wanted to be early in case there was a queue as there surly would be. Got our selves ready, wedding clothes on, food packed, drinks packed, granny trolley with everything packed. We headed out and made our way. Arriving at Hyde park we were confronted with …..nothing! there was hardly anyone around at all. Rightly so it was 6am on a public holiday. Making our way through the non crowded park, we easily found the 3 giant TV screens. Found a nice spot near the wedding band for later. There were a few other people there but nothing of what we expected it was almost dead! We unrolled out mats organised our space and enjoyed the time. They had music pumping that early how to good so you could rock out at 6:30am. We ate our (freshly made that morning by the hands of glen) bacon and egg rolls a perfect accompaniment for any wedding breakfast.
After breakfast we had a bit of a look around and saw what food they had, even though we took loads, worked out how far the toilets would be from us, then we started wondering when the bar opened (it was 7am remember). Soon the others of our group joined us, I think it was time to have a drink so all started to get on the drink then. I will point out at this time, we were not the first to start drinking in the park, although I'm not sure the people who were drinking before us actually stopped the night before. Secondly you always have a drink on the morning of a wedding. Sure its normally your own wedding but this was a special day. First drink of the day 7.30am…check. btw we the men (3) had 45 beers to get through that day, I was not going to be carting any beers back home. I think the women had 6L of wine and a bottle of Pimms to finish, we had to start early.
A few beers later, we heard about some photo booths. Up we jumped and headed for the photo booths…there was no one around, score. We all crammed into the curtain and tried to position our heads so they could be seen. I think we did well for getting 7 people into 1 photo. Spending the next 10 mins here as they were free we got a few more. They were lots of fun.
Time continued, the music played and the crowd grew. Finally it was almost time for the wedding guests to start arriving. The 3 giant TV screens were in a reverse U shape and in front of the middle one they had a stage set to look like a civil ceremony with a signing table and a nice bunch of flowers. There was an MC for the day, who told us what was going to happen and to stick around after, for the “reception”. The BBC broadcast came up on the screens and that was it, us watching them for the next few hours. It was good fun to try and workout who people were. When the crowd would see someone famous there would be a cheer. It was an amazing sight. This continued for all the “celebrities” when the Prince came and the Queen there were cheers and roars all around. When the bride came out it was much the same. You can imaging what it was like when they kissed and were pronounced married. At times we had to stand to see what was going on the screens as people were jumping up and down with excitement.
The wedding over and they left to go to the palace we quickly sat down and had our lunch, chicken rolls with salad, coleslaw, and potato salad. A very yummy lunch indeed, even if we did bring too much food. Food in the bellies we sat back and continued to wait till there moment on the balcony.
The newly married couple emerged onto the balcony for the “kiss” and the fly over. It was surreal to see the bomber fly over the palace on the TV screen and 2 seconds later there it was over our heads. It was a strange feeling, I can’t explain why it felt weird other than you don’t normally see things on TV and then there they are. It just doesn’t happen. After the Kiss was over and the cheers had settled the band started up. They made us choose a song as the wedding song for us all to dance to. There was a bouquet tossing challenge where a woman to be married in 2011 had to go on stage and toss the bouquet. Kieran didn’t want to get up there even though she has a great throwing arm. After this we danced and then drank just like a normal wedding really.
It was a cracker of a day. I know we all had an excellent time it was such a fun day. We are sure everyone who was there had a good time including the newly weds.
Thanks for the day off and the party in the park.
Cheers William and Catherine.
Monday 25th April
What better to do than go a park when the British weather gets good. And that is exactly what we did we went to Richmond Park for a picnic lunch. We had heard the best way to see the park was to cycle. Being a cyclist in London this would be good as i ride most places. We borrowed a housemates bicycle for Kieran. To hire one at the park is 
We packed our bags and set off, Kieran had to learn how to use gears on a bicycle and once we were over that lesson the first stop was
The main reason for wanting to go to Richmond park is that they have deer there roaming around freely. We weren't sure how many we would see. As soon as we entered the gate we saw a herd of deer. We worked out where a good spot to eat lunch might be and set off. Soon after we saw some more deer under some trees. Then we saw a herd further down. we quickly cycled off to have a look. You could tell we were tourist looking at the deer, with our cameras out snapping away. the locals and other cyclist who must ride through the park gave no 2nd look to the deer.
Finally made our way home after cycling around for about 3-4hrs all day. we were very tired. It was a good day out and cycling around Richmond park is the only way to do it. to be able to be so close to animals almost in the wild without having to look through the glass of a car window or walk around for hrs was a wonderful way to experience it.
I have some video of the days outing that I will try and upload.
Glen
out to have a look at the home of a very famous king of England. We took an overland train from Waterloo to Hampton Court it was then just a short walk to the Palace. There is a 2-4-1 offer to enter the palace if you buy rail tickets. We worked it out to be cheaper using our oyster cards and paying a discount price online. 
Once we were inside we headed for the audio guides. Usually the headsets are an extra cost, they were included here. We read what was on that day and found they were doing a talk on “wetting the head”. I immediately thought wow maybe they give us beer or mead to experience the times. Nope it was actors talking about the women given birth and what they must do in the chambers. It was really interesting and the man who played King Henry really did look the part. They made us get on our knees when the king entered. 
fascinating. This included a man roast chicken and beef in a giant fireplace. We ended our walk around the rooms exhausted and full of knowledge about king hennery VIII and his wives and the whole Tudor period for that matter. 
heard in the audio guide that this fountain once ran with wine on special occasions. Upon closer inspection there were people giving out wine which was indeed coming from the fountain. We had to get us some of that, problem being we had to get past the coin man. In order to get our drink we had to tell a joke. Passing the test and telling a very humorous Australian joke I got my wine. I found it pretty delicious wine…I didn’t feel like ask ing them what it was, I am sure the answer would have been “fountain wine, silly”.
