We're back - again!

Yes - no sooner are we back from USA than we were off again last week - this time to London - but more of that later. Before we went, we managed to book our big holidays next year. Unable to find any Air Miles flights to West Coast USA online, I eventually phoned BA. Initially, the girl also struggled to find anything, but eventually she came back with an option of flying in to Vancouver and flying back from San Francisco. It was a little earlier than we would ideally have liked (1st June) but I felt we had to take it. On the way out it's "only" World Traveller Plus, but it's Business Class on the return leg.

Having fixed that and used up all our Air Miles, it was time to book our Australian trip - and we would have to spend some cash. We decided to try Emirates from Glasgow for a change - and it cuts out one flight, touching down in Dubai and flying from there all the way to Adelaide. Business Class also means they send a driver all the way to Banchory to pick us up and take us back home again. We leave in January, but, having booked this, we then got the news that we may have another grandchild on the way in May!

Carole invited us over to Inverurie last Saturday for dinner as a kind of belated Father's Day treat - and very nice it was too. On Sunday afternoon, Jo and I went along to the Banchory Beer Festival on a beautiful afternoon. There's more about this on my Ale blog (http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.co.uk/) but here's a photo Jo took:

Gary brought Luca along on Sunday evening and he spent Monday/Tuesday with us before we went to London. He was his usual creative self, drawing "Jo's Garden":

and here he is, bug-hunting:

Our theatre trip to London went well. Flights were fine, Tube was OK and the hotel was good, as were the two shows, the first of which was Sunny Afternoon - the Kinks' story:

That evening we went to Olympia for the Great British Beer Festival:

The following morning we took a stroll through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park:

Peter Pan

 

Albert Memorial & Albert Hall

Household Cavalry exercising

Nice lunch near Covent Garden, then round to the Aldwych Theatre for Beautiful, the Carole King story:

Great show, after which we walked round to Mayfair and had drinks in an old haunt of mine, the Guinea Grill. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant in Gloucester Road, just round the corner from our hotel:

On Friday morning we walked along to the Natural History Museum, but the lines were too long, so we did the V & A instead, having coffee in the garden cafe:

That's me up to date again - and I've also done another Chronicles posting - http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.co.uk/